Operation Mercury (29 page)
Authors: John Sadler
The car was abandoned on the coast road toward Rethymnon with a scattering of documents in English and a note to the Germans advising the abduction was solely the work of British agents and officers from the Greek Government in exile. This may not have entirely eliminated the threat of reprisals as a number of villages were torched around this time, possibly as a consequence of separate actions. On 14 May at 11.00 p.m. General Kreipe was taken off by boat to begin his captivity.
When, in February 1944, Perkins himself fell in an ambush, his sorrowing followers buried him. His grave, so far from home, became something of a shrine and a photograph, from 1951, carried the following note:
Grave of the most fearless of fighters ever to leave New Zealand, known to all Cretans as the famous Kapitan Vassilios. Killed over 100 Germans single handed during the occupation. Led a guerrilla band, and fell from machine gun fire in February 1944, near Lakkoi â the last gallant Kiwi killed in Crete. This man is honoured by all Cretans.
7
A man could wish for no finer epitaph â and indeed this could be applied to all those men who had come so far to fight and die for freedom. Although the battle might be lost, such sacrifice was never in vain.
Remembrance
The New Zealanders and other British, Imperial and Greek troops who fought in confused, disheartening and vain struggle for Crete may feel that they played a definite part in an event which brought us far-reaching relief at a hingeing moment.
Winston Churchill.
On 29 September 1945, 100 officers and men of the New Zealand Division, including their commander General Freyberg, attended a memorial service on Crete. For the three days the party remained on the island they were lavishly feted by locals. As early as June that year the site for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) cemetery, to be located in Souda Bay, had been decided.
The final resting place for those who died in the fight for Crete was designed by Louis de Soissons, the architect of,
inter alia
, Welwyn Garden City and who was also to be responsible for the design of all CWGC cemeteries in Greece, Italy and Austria. One can traverse the globe and all of the many hundreds of CWGC graveyards are instantly recognisable; the white Portland stone markers, bearing name, unit, number, rank and date of death beneath a regimental crest of those, most poignantly, âknown unto God'.
All British and Commonwealth cemeteries exude the calm of an English country garden, the perfect rows of headstones aligned as though on final parade, verdant with flowers and meticulously tended grass. That at Souda, located three miles east of Chania in the cusp of the Akrotiri Peninsula, contains 1,509 burials dating from the fighting, nineteen from the Great War and thirty-seven others moved from the former consular plot in 1963.
The cemetery overlooks the placid waters of the bay, still used by Greek warships. The design is symmetrical with a total of sixteen plots, the memorial standing centrally. The forecourt is attractively paved in limestone and marble, patterned with smooth, rounded pebbles. Many of those who lie there are marked as unknown â during the occupation the Germans moved the impromptu battlefield burials to four large grave pits at Chania, Galatos, Rethymnon and Heraklion. Those who have no known grave are commemorated on the Allied War Memorial at Phaleron Cemetery, Athens.
In the flush of their pyrrhic victory, the Germans constructed a memorial, latterly surrounded by modern tourist development, on a mound west of Chania, showing a diving eagle grasping a swastika, the badge of the
Fallschirmjäger
. Below is a stone plinth commemorating those who died in the struggle. It speaks well for the tolerance of the Cretans that this odious memento was left standing in 1945. It has, apparently, since fallen into disrepair.
An official German war cemetery was constructed on the slopes of Hill 107 and opened on 6 October 1974. There is a marked difference in the appearance of German as opposed to Allied sites, most noticeable, not here, but on the Western Front. There is none of the calm melancholy of the country garden; more Wagner than Mozart, dark flat plinths and an absence of planting, a brooding, Teutonic sadness.
On Hill 107 there is a total of 4,465 graves divided into four plots, each commemorating one of the four main areas of conflict. Olive groves struggle down the western flank to the dry banks of the Tavronitis and, from the summit, one can clearly see the airstrip at Maleme below, the strength of the position is immediately clear.
Beneath the low walls of each plot, each stone tablet records the names of two who fell, the 300 whose remains could not be found are remembered on the memorial. At the foot of the hill the entrance portico houses a small exhibition. It is a fitting place and one of the early superintendents was none other than George Psychoundakis who, at the request of the Association of German Airborne Troops, brought Brauer's remains from their war cemetery in Athens.
The inscription on the memorial plaque reads:
In this graveyard rest 4465 German dead from the war years 1941 - 1945. 3352 of them died during the battle of Crete between 20 May and 1 June 1941 ⦠They gave their lives for their Fatherland. Their deaths should always make it our duty to preserve peace among nations.
There are other remembrances â an RAF memorial at Maleme, one for the Royal Artillery on the Akrotiri Peninsula, the Stavremenos monument to the Cretan resistance and a plaque at Prevelli Monastery which records:
This region after the battle of Crete became the rallying point for hundreds of British, Australian and New Zealand Soldiers, in defiance of ferocious German reprisals suffered by the monks and native population. They fed, protected and helped these soldiers to avoid capture and guided them to the beachhead where they escaped to the free world by British submarines.
In the Naval Museum in Chania which overlooks the lovely Venetian harbour, there is an extensive exhibition charting the history of the battle through models, excellent and numerous photographs, maps, displays of uniform, small arms and equipment. Further information is housed in the archives here, those in the Chania History Museum and at the Historical Museum in Heraklion.
For those travelling to Sphakia the War Museum, run by M. Hatzidakis and his son, at Askifou is not to be missed â a wonderfully eclectic collection of battlefield relics, expended munitions, machine guns, sub-machine guns, rifles and pistols, an MP40 and a Thompson next to an ancient percussion survivor pressed into service by the resistance.
For the battlefield tour it is probably best to begin at Maleme with the German cemetery, the airfield is still very much in use by the Greek military and perceived trespassers are not likely to be made welcome. The airstrip is, in any event, best glimpsed from the summit of Hill 107. The iron bridge over the Tavronitis still stands adjacent to its modern replacement and is accessible on foot.
There is a war memorial in the square of Galatos by the church, and a further monument to the Greek troops in Prison Valley below. The whitewashed walls of the gaol still stand, as uninviting but prominent as they were in 1941, the corner by the Greek memorial affords a good view looking north of, on the left of the road, Pink Hill and, on the right, Cemetery Hill.
Moving eastwards along the coast to Rethymnon, where the proud citadel of the Venetian Fort still sits proudly, it is possible, driving along the old coast road toward Stavromenos, to ascertain the location of the air strip and to look inland towards the rise, on the left, of Hill A with Hill D to your right.
The journey uphill from Vrysses to Askifou and then down the precipitous road to Sphakia is spectacular but not for the faint-hearted. The experience is a âmust' for those who really seek to understand the closing stages of the battle. The difficulties imposed by the topography are immense and it leaves one with a sense of awe that the Navy, in such conditions as obtained, succeeded in taking off so many of the garrison.
Crete has, of course, changed very considerably since 1941. The development is most apparent along the north coast, particularly west of Chania where the old settlements have been linked by a continuous, unrelenting strand of modern tourist sprawl; an endless procession of trendy condominiums, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and shops. Those who fought there in the course of the battle would struggle to recognise the townships they garrisoned.
Nonetheless, there is much that has not changed. The Venetian harbours at Chania and Rethymnon appear timeless, the jumble of narrow alleys behind the port, now populated with boutiques and bistros, resonates with the cultural legacy of conflicting occupations.
The history which is marketed to the booming tourist industry focuses on the splendours of the Minoan Age and the palace culture, the events of 1941 are a largely forgotten footnote, no coach borne hordes descend on the Allied or German cemeteries, the survivors a steadily dwindling band. Crete is perhaps too remote to participate in the vogue for battlefield tours that has engulfed the Western Front and Normandy.
None of these means the Battle for Crete was or is irrelevant. For the Germans their pyrrhic victory tasted little better than defeat. The British, Australian and New Zealand troops took on the best of Nazi Germany and, man for man, fought them to a standstill.
Perhaps the last word should be left to Kurt Student, the architect of vertical envelopment who, in 1944, was left to witness from the ground as the vast aerial armada spearheading Operation Market Garden flew overhead. He is said to have remarked how magnificent it would have been to have, at least once, possessed such power.
The wheel had come full circle.
Garret D., The Campaign in Greece and Crete, HMSO, 1942, p5.
Quoted in Simpson A., Operation Mercury â The Battle for Crete London, 1981, pp268-69.
ibid., p139.
Henry James Colossus of Maroussi, 1941.
Das Inselmeer der Griechen, 1962.
Rethymnon is a Venetian survivor, the great fortress still commands the headland and the teeming, crowded lanes of the port cluster below; the tall Italian tenements studded with distinctive Ottoman shuttered balconies, the overlapping layers of occupation. A single minaret still gives a hint of vanished Islam.
Clark A., The Fall of Crete, London, 1962, p1.
ibid., p2.
ibid., pp2-3.
Quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p22.
ibid., p24.
For an assessment of the Intelligence War refer to Appendix 3. The Germans, sure of the infallibility of Enigma, chose to account for their intelligence failures as having emanated from their Italian allies due to the latter's (a) general incompetence or (b) deliberate treachery.
Simpson, op. cit., p28.
ibid., p29.
Clark, op. cit., p6.
Garnett, op. cit., pp5-6.
Major General R.F.K. Belchem quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p49.
OKH = Oberkommando des Heeres â Army High Command.
OKW = Oberkommando der Wehrmacht â overall command of the German armed forces.
Quoted in MacDonald C., The Lost Battle: Crete 1941, London, 1993, p51.
Quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p50.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p9.
The campaign in the Western Desert opened with a British offensive in December 1940. Wavell had correctly divined that the battle would best be waged by armoured forces spearheading a lightning attack. His plans were entirely successful and Graziani's more numerous forces were at first defeated then pushed into rout, tens of thousands of Italian prisoners were taken.
OKW had estimated that Barbarossa would take some ten weeks to achieve a successful outcome for Germany.
The MNBDO was intended, as its name implied, to act as a mobile, self contained force, able to fully provide AA cover, coastal and ground security for any bases occupied on a short term basis by the fleet. It also boasted a landing and base maintenance detachment. Wavell had decided to send MNBDO to Souda on 2 April when the anchorage was to be upgraded to full base capacity in support of the Greek intervention.
Quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p52.
Colonel de Guingand, quoted in Clark, op. cit., p16.
Quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p63.
ibid., p75.
Quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p57.
ibid., p57.
George Orwell, writing in
Partisan Review
July 1941 Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Vol. 2 My Country Right or Left? London, 1970, p148.
Digger's doggerel quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p148.
Second Lieutenant Upham quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p86.
Quoted Simpson, op. cit., p91.
There was a whiff of treachery in the air as it was suggested certain elements within the higher echelons of the Greek forces had already been in tentative contact with the Germans to discuss terms for surrender.
V. Ball quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p99.
ibid., p110.
Garnett, op. cit., pp41-2.
Clark, op. cit., p20.
Paratroops' marching song.
The Ju52/3 mg7e transport was the workhorse of the German forces, manufactured near Dessau, the distinctive three engined B.M/W. 132T radials, 830 hp each monoplane performed a similar role to the DC-3 in the Allied armies. It could carry eighteen troops at a maximum speed of 189 mph with a range of 930 miles.
Quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p5 â a similar anecdote attaches to Student's future opponent Major General Freyberg who, when his command post was strafed, stood unconcerned in the road whilst his less blasé staff dived for cover! âInteresting isn't it?' he was said to have remarked to his driver, who was unsure if the general was offering an observation on the amount of bullets kicking up around him or the reaction of his officers!
The Deutsches Forschunginstitut fur Segelfug (DFS) 230A glider could carry eight paratroops or 2,720 lbs. of equipment, its wingspan was a huge 72 feet with a length of 37 feet, normal towing speed was 131 mph. It must have been an eerie sight indeed to see the great broad winged aircraft swooping silently down. They were, of course, of lightweight construction and horribly vulnerable to ground fire.
The Germans had developed an airborne version of the 28 mm PzB 41, which featured a tapering barrel (28 mm - 20 mm) this gave the tungsten steel shot a muzzle velocity of 4,600 ft. per second. The German troops were also equipped with a 75 mm RCL gun â a Recoilless Rifle. This had a standard 75 mm round but the shell case had a frangible plastic base which held for long enough to allow pressure to build up, start the projectile moving, then blow out through an aperture in the breech block to create the balancing pressure of gas, necessary to create a ârecoilless' effect.
Lieutenant D. Davin quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p24.
ibid., p123.
In the course of his post war captivity and interrogation Student complained that his head wound was causing him severe physical and emotional trauma; particularly, depression, speech impediment and a desire to shun all human contact. This could be dismissed as an attempt to avoid the allegations of war crimes relating to the treatment of British POWs on Crete which were being levelled against himand in respect of which he was later acquitted. Nonetheless it would seem the General did suffer lasting impairment as a result of his injuries. This did not, however, shorten his life as he survived into old age and died at eighty-eight!
British Paratroop marching song, quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p123.
Friedrich August von der Heydte came from a family of Bavarian gentry; a career soldier who served with both infantry and cavalry before pursuing an academic career as a lawyer at Innsbruck University. A devout Catholic he rejoined the ranks on the outbreak of war, transferring to the Paratroops in August 1940. For his service in Crete he was awarded the Knight's Cross. He had an active war and was finally captured in the winter of 1944 during the Ardennes Offensive. He was a member of the anti-Nazi clique within the German armed forces and was fortunate to escape the consequences of a possible involvement in the July Plot. Another officer with a very similar name was targeted by the Gestapo in error! He later returned to the quieter reaches of university life.
Julius âPapa' Ringel was a career soldier in the Austrian Army, an experienced officer of the old school whose oft quoted maxim was âsweat saves blood'. A dedicated Nazi, he commanded the 5th Division from its inception in October 1940. Ringel did not see eye-to-eye with Student, whom he regarded as a dreamer. Student, for his part, saw his colleague as a plodder. It was his leadership of the German campaign in Crete that determined the latter stages, something Student would bitterly resent.
Wolfram von Richthofen, a relative of the famous âRed Baron', commanded Fliegerkorps VIII which conferred equal rank with Student who, therefore, had to request rather than order, as doubtless he would have preferred. Von Richthofen was an acknowledged master of the aerial element of blitzkrieg. He had also flown fighters with distinction in the Great War and had the reputation of being something of a prima donna.
Bernard Ramcke was tasked with the difficult job of preparing the mountain troops for their unexpected, airborne role. This will not have been a popular appointment. He was very much the fighting soldier, who'd fought through the trenches in the previous war and with the uncouth Freikorps; thereafter, he took over Meindl's command after the General had succumbed to wounds. Despite being in his early fifties his vigorous actions during the campaign brought him a Knights Cross to which was later added the Oakleaves, Swords and Diamonds, (only twenty-seven of this much coveted decoration were awarded in the course of the war).
The Italians had been responding to pressure to mount offensive naval operations from their German allies â in part this had contributed to the disaster off Cape Matapan on 28 March, 1941. In relation to Crete the Italians were to claim the Luftwaffe discouraged any Italian naval presence in the vicinity, as their pilots âhad never flown missions at sea before and were unable to distinguish between friendly and enemy ships,' (quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p73). They concluded that the Germans sought to prove that naval operations could be successfully discouraged by air power alone.
Prison Valley (actually the Ayia valley) was so named due to the presence of a large whitewashed gaol at the eastern end of the shallow depression. This structure, which still stands, was overlooked by the hills south of Galatas, see Beevor A.,
Crete; The Battle and the Resistance
, London, 1991, p112.
Quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p83.
Winston Churchill quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p119.
Clark, op. cit., p22.
MacDonald, op. cit., p115.
ibid., p115.
ibid., p122.
ibid., p126.
ibid., p127.
ibid., p134.
ibid., p134.
For information on ULTRA please refer to Appendix 3.
Quoted in MacDonald, op. cit., p135.
Freyberg outwardly remained resigned about the defeat on Crete and though he was never again to hold an independent command, he continued in senior combat roles during the war. He never wrote his memoirs and remained silent until his death so it is difficult to review events from his personal perspective.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p26.
ibid., p26.
ibid., p28. Both Australian and New Zealand formations were comprised entirely of volunteers, unit designation are prefixed with â2' â this denotes that this was the second Australian volunteer force, the first having been that which served with such distinction in the previous war. The same applied to the New Zealand contingent, again this was the 2nd Expeditionary Force.
The tanks sent to Crete comprised the Matilda Infantry Tank and Mk. VIB Vickers Light Tanks. The former was powered by twin diesel motors and mounted with a 2-pounder gun (or 3 in. howitzer) and a Besa 7.92 mm machine gun. The Matilda, which weighed in at 25 tons, was heavily armoured and had achieved some successes, particularly in the early battles of the war, around Arras, in 1940. It was, however, both very slow and under gunned; the design of the turret ring inhibited the fitting of a larger calibre weapon. Its earlier title of âQueen of the Battlefield' was already faded when these tanks were deployed on Crete. The Vickers was essentially a tracked reconnaissance vehicle mounting both light and heavy machine guns, a small boxy hull riding on a Horstman Suspension system (also employed in the design of the Bren Carrier). The Vickers was obsolete by 1941, its armour too thin, its firepower inadequate.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p29.
Extract from an unpublished memoir of the Northumberland Hussars.
Simpson, op. cit., p139.
âE.F.U.' in
New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) Times
18 January 1943, p5.
Major H.G. Dyer quoted in Simpson, op. cit., p152.
Simpson op. cit., pp152-3.
ibid., p153.
ibid., p153 â the first airborne wave comprised 280 bombers, 150 dive bombers, 180 fighters, 500 Ju52 transports and 70 to 80 gliders, towed by Ju52s.
ibid., p155.
ibid., pp154-5.
ibid., pp158-9.
ibid., p160.
ibid., p156.
ibid., p155.
ibid., p157.
ibid., p169.
Many reports speak of the descending parachutists being riddled with bullets in the air. In fact a man descending by parachute is an extremely difficult target and most fatalities probably occurred as the troops hit the ground; here, they were at their most vulnerable. The Germans were also severely hampered by the design of their parachutes which relied on the static line. Once released and in the air the individual soldier could not, unlike their Allied counterparts, control the direction of their descent.
ibid., p162.
ibid., p156.
ibid., p170.
ibid., pp154-5.
ibid., pp162-3.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p62
MacDonald, op. cit., pp179-80.
ibid., p180.
ibid., p180.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p64.
Simpson op. cit., p165.
ibid., p166.
MacDonald, op. cit., p180.
Simpson, op. cit., p167
Clark, op. cit., p64.
ibid., p64.
There were suspicions attaching to the loyalties of the Greek governor of Ayia Gaol and Heydte recounts this official presenting himself and offering his services in any capacity.
Simpson, op. cit., p164.
ibid., pp164-5.
Garnett, op. cit., p32.
Quoted in Clark, op. cit., p91.
Simpson, op. cit., p178.
ibid., p178.
ibid., p177.
