Operation Mercury (16 page)

Meanwhile the Australians, in this sector, had captured a quantity of German flares and, having broken their signals code, were able to confuse the planes trying to bomb and strafe their positions, besides which they buried some 1,300 dead. Their own losses had not topped fifty. But that was it. The large garrison, having beaten off initial attacks, did nothing more, there was no determined onslaught to drive the survivors of Brauer's drop into the sea. Creforce HQ seems to have overlooked the potential of these substantial and victorious forces.

Without contrary orders Brigadier Chappel remained true to his original instructions which were to defend the town and airfield. An opportunity to drive westwards toward Rethymnon and link up with Campbell was therefore lost. It was not until the night of 26th /27th that Chappel approached his commander-in-chief, through signals routed through Cairo, to enquire if he should make aggressive moves in that direction.

By then, of course, it was far too late.

 

In Athens, any early optimism of the part of General Student and his officers was quickly dissipated. By 2.00 p.m. he knew the attack on Chania had been seen off with loss. The news from Maleme was equally dispiriting; using an ad hoc radio, cobbled together from spares and salvage, the paratroops reported more heavy losses and very limited gains. As a consequence the General wisely took the decision to postpone the afternoon's assaults on Rethymnon and Heraklion. These orders, nonetheless, did not all get through to the dustbowl airstrips, where confusion already reigned.

The choking dust in fact accounted for as many German transports as the ack ack fire they'd just come through. The planes were forced to land virtually blind in the great engulfing cloud, or circle for hours with their tanks running on empty. The net effect was that the bombers and fighter escort, supporting the second wave, took off in good time but the lumbering transports were significantly delayed. This provided a golden opportunity for the defenders to prepare an appropriate reception. The Germans' own report gave a bleak assessment of the results:

 

The formations started in incorrect tactical sequence, and arrived

Major Rheinhard Wenning, who had taken off at the correct time expected, as he flew over the island, to meet the first wave as they turned for the mainland:

It was only on his return journey that the Major observed the aircraft, which should have preceded him, approaching the coast! The ‘fog' of war is not merely a literary phrase, it is certainly real and the more complex the operation, the greater the margin for confusion. Student's plan was visionary in concept, hugely ambitious in scale and marred by bad intelligence and, to a lesser extent, the petty jealousies of colleagues. Military undertakings are inevitably always fraught with difficulties; the plan subject to so many factors beyond the control of its creator:

By the evening of this long and bloody first day, General Freyburg was inclined to send a cautiously optimistic signal detailing the consequences of the day's actions:

What is unclear at this stage is whether the General thought that the main thrust was still to come and that it would arrive by sea. The strategy of defence was totally hamstrung by this perceived imperative. Freyburg understood, quite clearly, that the airfields were important, even vital, but did he yet realise that they, and particularly Maleme, were to be the fulcrum upon which the outcome of the entire campaign would hinge?

The German view was less sanguine. The attackers, bloodied, depleted, scattered and stunned, were clinging to their broken hillsides, awaiting what they considered the inevitable series of counter-attacks with the clear conviction that these would quickly prove decisive: ‘We should have had to fight them off with stones and sheath knives.'
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We have seen that the isolated companies of Andrew's 22nd New Zealand Battalion were coming under increasing pressure from the Germans who had landed, largely unscathed, west of the Tavronitis. As the long, hot afternoon wore on these had consolidated their gains, meagre as they appeared, and brought up their heavier weapons.

The Luftwaffe maintained the relentless aerial bombardment of Andrew's forward positions. The situation was not critical but it was deteriorating. Having secured the iron bridge over the dry river bed and established a bare toehold on the perimeter of the airfield, the Germans could yet gain control. This would be a disaster.

Whilst considering the chain of events which arose during the evening and night of 20 May and criticising the decisions taken, we must have an insight into the intelligence gathering which was informing Freyberg's reactions. ULTRA was Britain's great trump, to be guarded at all costs (see Appendix 3 The Intelligence War).

Freyberg himself was not a party to the exact source of the intelligence. As a result of this and also as a consequence of the manner in which the core data, the decrypts, were processed, the picture he was given, though highly accurate in detail, was also misleading. Freyberg was of the opinion that the airborne landings were merely the advance guard; the harbingers of a secondary but larger seaborne invasion.

The signals suggested this, as did military logic; Crete was an island, past invasions came by sea. The paratroop landings in the Low Countries in 1940 had preceded a sustained ground assault by conventional forces. As the Luftwaffe controlled the skies they had no need to fear the RAF, and their abundant air power effectively neutralised Britain's naval supremacy.

Freyberg, a soldier's soldier, blunt, brave, resolute, still thought, as did some of his officers, especially those who had served on the Western Front in the Great War, in terms of Great War tactics, linear battles of attrition where giving ground was less vital than conserving unit strength. They did not think of strategy in terms of revolutionary concepts such as vertical envelopment – indeed why should they? Such a battle had not so far been attempted and the ULTRA intelligence had been read to imply that the main thrust would come from the sea.

There is the unresolved matter of the extent of Freyberg's inclusion in the tight knit circle that guarded ULTRA. That such secrecy was vital cannot, of course, be denied. ULTRA was Britain's trump. Jumbo Wilson, during the retreat through Greece, was able to utilise the intelligence to consistently evade the threat of encirclement.

When the first serious indication of German numbers to be thrown into the invasion, was received on 6 May (see appendix 3), this suggested a force comprising two airborne divisions with supporting elements. So far so good, but what then muddled the issue was the German decision to retain a portion of the parachute troops in the Balkans and send in the Alpine division under Ringel.

A subsequent ULTRA signal instructed that: ‘Flak units further troops and supplies mentioned our 2167 are to proceed by sea to Crete. Also three mountain regiments thought more likely than third mountain regiment'. This fresh intelligence appears to have confused London into believing that three mountain regiments were now to be deployed and that, crucially, these would come by sea.

Wavell was sceptical that the Axis could scrape together sufficient ships to create such an armada. A subsequent signal, dispatched next day from the Air Ministry,
¹⁰
gave a far more accurate analysis and stated the maritime element would be of only minor significance. Yet, on 13 May, yet another signal
¹¹
reverted to the importance of the threat from the sea and, as a consequence, Freyberg was advised that he could expect to face 30, 000 or 35,000 enemy soldiers. Of these, 12,000 would be paratroops and at least 10,000 would be landed from ships.

The General's great strengths were in his steadfast courage and ability to lead men; intellectually and in terms of his analytical capacity he was less well endowed. In fairness ULTRA was both new and secret. His son, Lord Freyberg, has suggested that it was only relatively late in the day that his father was included within the ULTRA cabal. As a result he did not move troops to the airfields as this would have compromised the source.

This does not ring true. It seems far more likely that Freyberg was confused and misled. His obsession with an attack from the sea is palpable throughout and he does not appear to have awoken to the threat from the German possession of Maleme until 22nd, by which time the grip was too tight to be broken.

Churchill, usually quick to condemn, never lost his respect and liking for the battle-scarred hero, though recognising that Freyberg's type of warrior was out of his depth in the fine web of a modern intelligence-led war:

As the General himself subsequently conceded: ‘We for our part were mostly preoccupied by seaborne landings, not by the threat of air landings.'
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It was this misunderstanding and Freyberg's lack of analytical ability that doomed the defenders. On 20 May he had the upper hand, even if he did not fully understand the depth of the Germans' weakness. Determined action, ruthless and vigorous counter-attacks would have finished the battle on that day.

There is a supreme irony in this intelligence failure. On the one hand an army which has a complete knowledge of its enemy's intentions, an enemy whose own assessments are grossly inaccurate, misreads this gift to the extent that it saves the unprepared enemy from disaster. On the other hand, in the longer term, the defenders' failure helps to preserve the all important secret. As the German after battle report
¹⁴
concludes:

It is perhaps significant that it was younger men, such as Kippenberger, who immediately understood the nature of the battle that was being fought and the means to win it. Counter-attack relentlessly, sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed to deny the enemy his prime objective which was to capture a viable airstrip intact.

Once the decision to retreat from Hill 107 was taken, the potential for final defeat was established, once Student's battalions, however mauled and depleted, took and could hold a single airstrip, the question of a seaborne attack became irrelevant. Once German reinforcements could be flown in then the balance swung in their favour.

Though the garrison, with a total strength of 42,460, outnumbered the total of the attackers at 22,040
¹⁶
by nearly 2 to 1, numbers would cease to count once the Germans began to build up reserves and heavy weapons. From a secure base in the west, and facilitated by air superiority, they could begin to roll up the defenders from west to east.

There were serious and ultimately fatal errors of judgement made by Allied commanders, particularly at the higher brigade and divisional levels, but these were failures of perception rather than nerve. The men concerned were never faint-hearted, quite the reverse; extreme bravery was a characteristic shared by all of them. It was strategic insight that was lacking.

Andrew's forward companies would hang on in the expectation that, once the sheltering dusk excluded the further attentions of the Luftwaffe, they could expect that a strong counter-attack might be put in. This was entirely reasonable for Allen's 21st and Leckie's 23rd Battalion had previously been ordered to hold themselves in readiness for just such a deployment.

The beleaguered Andrew was regularly sending up distress flares but these seem to have gone unnoticed. Major Thomason, at 23rd battalion HQ did not recall seeing any. Both worried and frustrated, Andrew decided he had no option but to make his representations in person. He was normally a calm and utterly imperturbable officer but, as Thomason records: