Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (27 page)

After the King's arrival and the meal, the enlarged group moved down to the seafront. It was now nightfall and, looking back towards the north, they could see flashes in the sky over the mountains from the battle on the other side of the island.

On a rudimentary jetty, hardly more than a few rocks joined together, Admiral Turle self-importantly signalled seawards with a hand torch. An inter-service rivalry of sublime pettiness had been simmering between him and General Heywood over the proper command of the Legation party in a theatre of war. In the end, Heywood had retained this purely nominal command as far as Sphakia, but as soon as they had embarked in a dilapidated fishing launch to sail round to Ay Roumeli, the Senior Service had taken precedence.

Admiral Turle's attempts with the torch proved fruitless. The tantalizing lights far out in the Libyan Sea ignored his stream of Morse, and tempers became strained. Harold Caccia considered the torch hopelessly inadequate for the task. Eventually, as the youngest male non-combatant, he was told to take the launch out to sea to find the destroyer, but his diplomatic immunity was rather compromised when Heywood insisted that one of the New Zealanders armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun should accompany him.

As they left the shore far behind, the owner of the boat became increasingly alarmed. He warned Caccia that they would run out of fuel, but just as he insisted on turning back an unmistakable wardroom voice bellowed out of the darkness: 'Who the bloody hell are you?' HMS
Decoy
had found them.

Her captain had not wanted to go closer in because the uncertain reports of the battle made him cautious of a German ambush. Within an hour, the party and the platoon of New Zealanders were embarked and bedded down as comfortably as the cramped space allowed. The destroyer turned round to head south-east.

Next morning, 23 May, the royal evacuees, with emotions straight out of Hornblower, looked through portholes to see the battle-fleet including the
Valiant
with Prince Philip of Greece on board. They were all returning to Alexandria together. Unknown to them, another relative, Prince Philip's 'Uncle Dicky', was at that time following on behind, his three destroyers under heavy air attack.

The 5th Destroyer Flotilla under Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten in HMS
Kelly
had left Malta on the night of 21 May just as Glennie's ships engaged the caiques north of Canea. Cunningham had realized from signals intelligence that the delay to the second group of caiques would impose a much greater strain on his forces. Mountbatten's destroyers were replenished and his crews fresh, and Malta was little further from Cretan waters than Alexandria.

Designated to join the battle-fleet, Mountbatten's flotilla was first diverted to pick up survivors from
Fiji
and
Gloucester.
But as they approached the areas of search, Cunningham ordered the five destroyers into the Bay of Canea where they engaged two caiques and shelled Maleme airfield.

Kipling
had had to turn back with steering problems, and
Kelvin
and
Jackal
were diverted on another search. Mountbatten, with only three destroyers, returned round the western coast of Crete in the early morning of 23 May. Cunningham, prompted by a mistaken message that the battleships had run out of anti-aircraft ammunition, but also reassured by signals intelligence that there would be no further attempt to transport troops, ordered the recall of all warships to Alexandria.

Just before eight o'clock, twenty-four Stukas attacked in series. Mountbatten's three destroyers began zigzagging at maximum speed.
'Kashmir
was hit and sank in two minutes,' ran Cunningham's dispatch.
'Kelly
was doing thirty knots, under full starboard rudder, when she was hit by a large bomb.

The ship took up an ever-increasing list to port, finally turning turtle with considerable way on.'

The dive-bombers machine-gunned survivors in the water, then left.
Kipling
began rescue work, but twin-engined bombers arrived overhead and their attacks, although unsuccessful, made the task difficult.
Kipling
miraculously survived eighty-three bombs and managed to pick up from the water 279 officers and men. Fifty miles short of Alexandria, she ran out of fuel and had to be rescued.

In spite of the heroic aura surrounding this engagement — mainly inspired by Noel Coward's film,
In
Which We Serve
— Mountbatten's performance as a destroyer commander has generally been regarded as indifferent, though he was later to prove an excellent commander-in-chief. In any case, Mountbatten appears to have recovered rapidly from his ordeal, to judge by the letter Crown Princess Frederica wrote to her aunt, the Crown Princess of Sweden, from Alexandria after they all met up:

'Palo and I met Dicky here after he had been sunk for the fourth time in this war. He seemed very well and cheerful.'

Although 22 May was a disastrous day for the defenders of Crete, an unusually heartening episode occurred at Galatas. After the furious attacks against Pink Hill on the first day of the battle, Colonel Heidrich held his 3rd Parachute Regiment in defensive positions along Prison Valley until they were resupplied by parachute — almost 300 containers altogether. There they rested and reorganized during 21 May. One of Heydte's platoons, dug in on a small hill across the valley from Daratsos, played dance music on a captured gramophone. And when one of the desultory exchanges of fire with the Australians opposite carried on for longer than usual, one of the paratroopers shouted from his trench, 'Wait a moment while I change the record!' The 3rd Parachute Regiment, too weak to launch a major attack as Student hoped, expected a large-scale counter-attack at any moment: Colonel Heidrich later said that it would have put his formation 'completely in the cart'. But on 21 May there was only a small push by the New Zealanders to force an advance outpost off Cemetery Hill. Roy Farran, whose troop of light tanks had been sent to support the 19th Battalion for this action, went to report to the commanding officer only to find him trying to pot a sniper. After several shots the German tumbled from a tree, and the colonel handed the rifle to his adjutant. 'Well, that's that', he said.

'That joker has been causing trouble all morning.' He gave Farran his instructions: the tanks were there to keep the paratroopers' heads down while a company of infantry slipped in close. The attack began after midday, but although the infantry platoons killed a number of German machine-gunners in a fierce fight and chased the rest off the hill, they were exposed to mortar and machine-gun fire from paratroopers in the valley. Cemetery Hill, appropriately enough, became a no-man's land.

While the battle for Cemetery Hill went on, Michael Forrester had been training his two hundred Greeks — the remnants of the 6th Regiment rallied by Captain Bassett — in Galatas, protected by John Russell's Divisional Cavalry. Since few had any experience of military manoeuvres, instructions were kept simple, and to avoid any language difficulties he instituted a series of whistle signals — one blast: standby; two: move; three: deploy; four: charge. He' suggested that when the moment of attack came, they should yell
'Aiera!',
the battle-cry which he had heard the Evzones use on the Albanian front. When he instructed his Greek recruits, Forrester found that villagers would sidle up to learn what they could about basic fieldcraft and tactics.

By the morning of 22 May, Colonel Heidrich realized that the New Zealanders on the heights of Galatas and Daratsos were not going to launch an attack. He reorganized his much reduced III Battalion and the parachute engineers into fighting patrols, and sent them northwards towards the coast to probe behind Hargest's 5th Brigade at Platanias, as Hargest had begun to fear the day before.

Meanwhile, to test Hargest's theory that the Germans were bringing in troop-carriers to evacuate their troops rather than reinforce them, General Puttick told Kippenberger to send out fighting patrols along his front. Kippenberger took this as an excuse to order the 19th Battalion to advance right down and across the valley. The vigorous response, which forced Kippenberger's companies to withdraw, disproved Hargest's fancy, but the idea remained hard to kill.

Colonel Heidrich, at his headquarters in the prison, now felt that with reinforcements soon to arrive from Maleme he must again attempt to push the New Zealanders off the heights of Galatas. He summoned Major Derpa, the commander of the II Battalion, and gave him the order to attack.

Derpa foresaw the unnecessary loss of life and expressed his doubts. This provoked Heidrich, 'whose nerves were stretched to breaking point', into a rage. He accused him of cowardice. Derpa was a

'sensitive and chivalrous' man according to Captain von der Heydte. He went pale with outrage, then drew himself up and saluted. 'It is not a question of my own life, sir,' protested Derpa. 'I am considering the lives of the soldiers for whom I am responsible. My own life I would give gladly.'

At about seven o'clock that evening, Derpa's paratroopers attacked the heights from Cemetery Hill to Pink Hill. One group of his men reached the summit of Pink Hill, forcing back the Petrol Company.

Since Pink Hill was crucial to the whole of the 10th Brigade's position, this represented a dangerous situation. But before Kippenberger's reserves were in a position to help, he suddenly heard 'a most infernal uproar'. One of the drivers with Kippenberger described the scene. Out of an olive grove on the adjoining hill, 'came Captain Forrester, clad in shorts, a long yellow army jersey, brass polished and gleaming, web belt in place and waving his revolver in his right hand. He was tall, thin-faced, fair-haired, with no tin hat. It was a most inspiring sight. Forrester was at the head of a crowd of disorderly Greeks, including women; one Greek had a shot gun with a serrated-edge bread knife tied on like a bayonet.'

Forrester's commands blown on his service whistle inspired the brigade major, Captain Bassett, to describe him as 'tootling a tin whistle like a Pied Piper', a fanciful image taken literally in later years by war comics. 'Over an open space', continued Kippenberger, 'came running, bounding and yelling like Red Indians, Greeks and villagers including women and children, led by Michael Forrester twenty yards ahead. It was too much for the Germans. They turned and ran without hesitation.' In spite of orders to stand fast, members of the Divisional Petrol Company could not resist joining this sudden, exhilarating surge.

Forrester's leadership evoked tremendous admiration amongst New Zealanders, who tended to depict most British officers as characters out of P.G. Wodehouse. Company Sergeant Major James of the Petrol Company said that he was 'one of the coolest men I have ever met'. And a New Zealand captain described watching this charge as the most thrilling moment of his life.

Furious fighting also went on in front of the Divisional Cavalry's position. Among the German casualties was Major Derpa, mortally wounded. His men dug a grave for him next morning adjacent to a small Greek cemetery near the prison.

On that evening of 22 May, Freyberg came to the decision to withdraw Hargest's 5th Brigade from the front opposite Maleme to Galatas. Freyberg, influenced by Hargest's notion that the Germans were pulling out and also by unjustifiably optimistic accounts of the counter-attack on Maleme, had not fully appreciated the gravity of the situation until the afternoon. Hargest's fears that his brigade would be cut off by Colonel Heidrich's probing attacks up towards the coast road convinced him that withdrawal had now become inevitable.

Freyberg had gone to bed sixteen hours before in the belief that the battle had been won. He was now plunged into pessimism by what struck him as an unexpected turn-around. As a result he does not seem to have considered his options properly. Withdrawal to Galatas meant conceding Maleme airfield to the enemy, and thus ultimate defeat — either an early surrender, or a protracted fight involving unnecessary loss of life, or retreat over the mountains to the south, followed by an evacuation far riskier than that from Greece. Even without knowing the Royal Navy's losses of that day, Captain Morse would have advised him that the forces in the Suda—Canea sector were too numerous to evacuate from the north coast.

His only other alternative — and there was nothing to lose in strategic terms — was attack: but an all-out attack in superior strength, not another doomed gesture of too little too late. The convoy had been destroyed. He had three uncommitted battalions near Canea — the New Zealand 18th Battalion, the Australian 2/7th, and the Welch Regiment, the strongest of them all. Had they joined the 23rd Battalion and the apparently inexhaustible Maoris of Hargest's brigade, together with the remaining tanks, and had they attacked in the full knowledge that this was their last chance to hold Crete, the effect could have been electrifying. That they were capable of such a feat was demonstrated with astonishing bravery at Galatas three days later. But by then the Germans had landed the whole of the 5th Mountain Division.

Creforce Headquarters instead issued the order for withdrawal. Underneath a burly exterior, Freyberg was curiously soft-hearted, not at all the sort of First World War general who did not care about the

'butcher's bill'. He did not want to be remembered as the general who had thrown away the New Zealand Division. Next day, Friday, 23 May, mountain troops who had landed at Maleme made contact with patrols from Heidrich's force in the Ayia valley. A German victory was now assured.

15

Stalemate at Rethymno

and Heraklion

21-26 May

If events at Maleme had followed the pattern at Rethymno and Heraklion, then the Germans would have lost the battle of Crete.

At Rethymno, where Campbell and Sandover demonstrated the necessary virtue of rapid counter-attack, the 2nd Parachute Regiment never had a chance to organize. To make matters worse, neither Kroh's group, barricaded in the olive oil factory at Stavromenos, nor Wiedemann's, dug in round Perivolia, had a wireless. Attempts to drop them one, then to land one by a Fieseier Storch light aircraft, all failed. They were also short of food. A goat unwise enough to show itself near the olive oil factory was soon butchered and cooked with sea water in ammunition boxes over a rapidly prepared fire.