They were sent to pick up survivors and then diverted to attack a German convoy of about fifty ships and caïques off Cape Spatha on Rodopou peninsula, western Crete on the night of 22/23 May and then shell the Germans at Maleme. In August 1944, more than 940 houses in Anogeia were looted and then dynamited. 604,46 EUR. Both forces were contained and failed to take the airfields, but the defenders had to deploy to face them. The force sank an isolated caïque at 08:30, saving itself from an air attack that struck the cruiser HMS Naiad as the German pilots tried to avoid killing their troops in the water. On the morning of 27 May, the New Zealand 28th (Māori) Battalion, the Australian 2/7th Battalion and the Australian 2/8th Battalion cleared the road by a bayonet charge (the "Battle of 42nd Street"). Greek and other Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island. At Maleme, blast pens were built for the aircraft, and barrels full of petrol were kept ready to be ignited by machine-gun fire. Schmeling survived the battle and the war. German records put the number of Cretans executed by firing squad as 3,474 and at least 1,000 civilians were killed in massacres late in 1944. One Matilda had a damaged turret crank that allowed it to turn clockwise only. A number of German paratroopers and gliders had landed off-site by accident. Operation Barbarossa made it apparent that the occupation of Crete was a defensive measure to secure the Axis southern flank. The German objectives in Crete were similar to the areas already being prepared by the British, but foreknowledge increased the confidence of the local commanders in their dispositions. The Germans lost at least 12,000 killed and wounded, and about 5,000 drowned. The Germans suffered heavy casualties within the first hours of the invasion for New Zealands and Greek defenders. On 26 May, in the face of the stalled German advance, senior Wehrmacht officers requested Mussolini to send Italian Army units to Crete in order to help the German forces fighting there. While scattered and disorganised, these men and the partisans harassed German troops for long after the withdrawal. For the German occupation of Crete, see Fortress Crete. The German Air Ministry was shocked by the number of transport aircraft lost in the battle, and Student, reflecting on the casualties suffered by the paratroopers, concluded after the war that Crete was the death of the airborne force. The risky plan — attacking four separate points to maximize surprise rather than concentrating on one — had failed. The Germans dropped leaflets threatening dire consequences if the Allies did not surrender immediately. Insurrection in Crete Battle of Anugia Date: 12 January 1867. Of the cruisers, HMS Ajax had 40%, HMS Orion 38%, HMS Fiji 30%, HMS Dido 25% and HMS Gloucester only 18%. Many gliders following the paratroops were hit by mortar fire seconds after landing, and the New Zealand and Greek defenders almost annihilated the glider troops who landed safely.[46]. In 1987, Shores, Cull, and Malizia recorded losses of 220 aircraft destroyed and 64 written off due to damage, a total of 284 aircraft between 13 May and 1 June: 147 in combat, 73 non-combat, 64 written-off, and 125 damaged but repairable. Between the 28th and 31st of May 16,000 troops were evacuated to Egypt by ships. Davin, p. 486 and Playfair, p.147, for RN Casualties. [83] The battalion-sized force was split up, with a 200-man detachment under Laycock at Souda to cover the retreat of the heavier units. Österlin commandeered a small wooden lighter at Piraeus and arranged for the tanks to be lowered onto it. In mid-May, the four squadrons had about two dozen aircraft, of which only about twelve were serviceable due to a lack of tools and spares. [21] Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, sent a telegram to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir John Dill: "To lose Crete because we had not sufficient bulk of forces there would be a crime. [77] These air attacks enabled the escape of German paratroopers captured on 20 May; the escapees killed or captured several New Zealand officers assigned to lead the 1st Greek Regiment. [124] After the war, the Allied graves from the four burial grounds that had been established by the Germans were moved to Souda Bay War Cemetery. The British mistakes were smaller than those of the Germans, who estimated the garrison to be only a third of the true figure. The Germans quickly exploited the withdrawal to take control of the Maleme airfield. Luftwaffe:[9], The Battle of Crete (German: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, also Unternehmen Merkur, "Operation Mercury", Greek: Μάχη της Κρήτης) was fought during the Second World War on the Greek island of Crete. )[45], At 08:00 on 20 May 1941, German paratroopers, jumping out of dozens of Junkers Ju 52 aircraft, landed near Maleme Airfield and the town of Chania. A Junkers Ju 88 flown by Lieutenant Gerhard Brenner dropped three bombs on Fiji, sinking her at 20:15. Alikianos, located in the so called Prison Valley, was strategically important and it was one of the first targets the Germans attacked on the opening day of the battle. [12] After one day of fighting, the Germans had suffered heavy casualties and the Allied troops were confident that they would defeat the invasion. [51] This misunderstanding, representative of the failings of communication and co-ordination in the defence of Crete, cost the Allies the airfield and allowed the Germans to reinforce their invasion force unopposed. [citation needed] The Germans planned to capture Maleme, but there was debate over the concentration of forces there and the number to be deployed against other objectives, such as the smaller airfields at Heraklion and Rethymno. Heavy equipment like the Leichtgeschütz 40 were dropped with a special triple-parachute harness to bear the extra weight. The cities of Irakleio and Rethymno were taken in the following days by the Germans. On 16 May the British authorities expected an attack by 25,000 to 30,000 airborne troops in 600 aircraft and by 10,000 troops transported by sea. [96][e] Immediately after Crete fell, a series of collective punishments against civilians began. (The after-action report of Fliegerkorps XI contained a passage recounting that the operational area had been so well prepared that it gave the impression that the garrison had known the time of the invasion. At anchor in Souda Bay, northern Crete, the heavy cruiser HMS York was disabled by Italian explosive motor boats and beached on 26 March; and was later wrecked by demolition charges when Crete was evacuated in May. [52] In Athens, Student decided to concentrate on Maleme on 21 May, as this was the area where the most progress had been made and because an early morning reconnaissance flight over Maleme Airfield was unopposed. B., The Battle of Crete, Despatch to the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty, 4 August 1941", Australian War Memorial Second World War Official Histories, H.M. They also occupied Florina, which was claimed by both Italy and Bulgaria. [50][53] The Germans quickly exploited the withdrawal from Hill 107 to take control of Maleme Airfield, just as a sea landing took place nearby. [31] On 4 May, Freyberg sent a message to the British commander in the Middle East, General Archibald Wavell, requesting the evacuation of about 10,000 unwanted personnel who did not have weapons and had "little or no employment other than getting into trouble with the civil population". The 8th Greek Regiment and elements of the Cretan forces severely hampered movement by the 95th Reconnaissance Battalion on Kolimbari and Paleochora, where Allied reinforcements from North Africa could be landed. Damaged German aircraft at Maleme. The troops also carried special strips of cloth to unfurl in patterns to signal to low-flying fighters, to co-ordinate air support and for supply drops. [85] Freyberg concurrently ordered his troops to withdraw to the south coast to be evacuated. About 4,000 men were withdrawn from Heraklion on the night of 28/29 May, on the next night 1,500 soldiers were taken away by four destroyers and during the night of 31 May /1 June another 4,000 men were lifted. On the 27th of May General Wavell ordered the evacuation of the island. While the Resistance was searching the galaxy for a new base of operations, General Armitage Hux tracked the Resistance fleet through hyperspace and gave chase through space. Paratrooper German Soldiers Ww2 German Army Ww2 German Military Photos Military History Battle Of Crete. 30 & 33 Squadron RAF Memorial ... Strategic importance of Crete in World War II map.jpg 2,100 × 1,563; 277 KB. Greek police and cadets took part, with the 1st Greek Regiment (Provisional) combining with armed civilians to rout a detachment of German paratroopers dropped at Kastelli. Grèce Bataille De Crète Complet Feuilles De 50 Nh Menthe Déplié Sc# 523 . The garrison had been stripped of its best crew-served weapons, which were sent to the mainland; there were twelve obsolescent St. Étienne Mle 1907 light machine-guns and forty miscellaneous LMGs. Troops were stationed about its perimeter, to prevent a landing that might block the retreat. (Among the paratroopers who landed on the first day was former world heavyweight champion boxer Max Schmeling, who held the rank of Gefreiter at the time. [111][112] Buckley, based on British intelligence assumptions of two enemies wounded for every one killed, gave an estimate of 16,800 casualties. When Freyberg took over on 30 April, the information was disguised as information from a spy in Athens. Throughout the German occupation in the years that followed, reprisals in retaliation for the involvement of the local population in the Cretan resistance continued. Battle_of_Crete,_Maleme_airfield_map.png (752 × 516 pixels, taille du fichier : 31 Kio, type MIME : image/png) Ce fichier et sa description proviennent de Wikimedia Commons. [81] One of Richthofen's liaison officers had returned from the island on 26 May; the paratroopers were in poor condition, lacking in discipline, and "at loose ends". In 1956, Playfair and the other British official historians, gave figures of 1,990 Germans killed, 2,131 wounded, 1,995 missing, a total of 6,116 men "compiled from what appear to be the most reliable German records". The Bf 110s were based at airfields near Athens, Argos and Corinth, all within 200 mi (320 km) of Crete, and the bomber or reconnaissance machines were accommodated at Athens, Salonica and a detachment on Rhodes, along with bases in Bulgaria at Sofia and Plovdiv, ten of the airfields being all-weather and 200–250 miles (320–400 km) from Crete. [119], Exaggerated reports of German casualties began to appear after the battle had ended. 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