Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (29 page)

So stalemate set in at both Rethymno and Heraklion. Their garrisons, ignorant of the sequence of disasters at Maleme, assumed that they had only to hold on and the German invasion would die on its feet. Once again, the lack of wirelesses had proved a grave weakness.

16

The Battle of Galatas

23-25 May

When men of the New Zealand 5th Brigade were shaken awake by their NCOs early on the early morning of 23 May and told to prepare to withdraw, most refused to believe what they heard. Those not on sentry had dossed down the night before, certain that things were still going well. Even if they did not fully believe the rumour of the Germans pulling out the New Zealanders still thought they had given them such a bloody nose that they could not prevail.

'They all felt the same,' wrote Sandy Thomas, a young platoon commander with the 23rd Battalion.

They had seen so many of the enemy dead that their morale was quite unshaken by the terrific air attacks by day. Man for man they considered that they could lick the German despite his superior weapons and equipment.'

Although less than five kilometres, the retreat from positions in front of Dhaskalania and Kondomari to Platanias was hard. Without any ambulances the wounded had to be brought back by tired men stumbling over rough ground. Some casualties were carried on doors, or crudely fashioned ladders found by farmhouses, others on improvised stretchers made out of a pair of rifles and two battledress jackets. Those too ill to move were left behind with the last medical officer in the brigade, Captain R.S. Stewart, and a chaplain to ensure that they were treated correctly by the enemy. Due to a growing shortage of ammunition on the island, ammunition boxes and spare grenades had to be taken as well as personal weapons and kit. Some companies had acquired a donkey to carry heavy equipment and weapons, but soldiers remained the main beasts of burden.

The Germans were quick to spot the retreat which was covered by a company of Maoris under Major H.G. Dyer. The Maoris could not have been a better choice. Their unconventional and alarming tactics of suddenly turning round for an unexpected bayonet charge would send the pursuing paratroopers back in a rush. Largely thanks to them, the withdrawal was completed that morning with very few casualties.

When Major General Ringel arrived, field command of all German troops passed to him. Ramcke's paratroopers, the reconstituted Storm Regiment, pushed along the coast using to great effect the mobile Bofors guns captured at Maleme. Two battalions of the 100th Mountain Regiment advanced in the centre over the coastal hills between the Ayia valley and the sea, while a battalion of the 85th Mountain Regiment swung round on the right. This unit of mountain troops, commanded by Major Treck, was intended to encircle the New Zealand Division from the south through the foothills of the White Mountains. Instead it encountered fierce resistance from the undervalued 8th Greek Regiment and indefatigably brave Cretan irregulars. It is probably no exaggeration to say that their sacrifice saved the New Zealand Division.

The Germans, in their advance along the coast and along the coastal hills, came across sights and smells they would never forget. For much of the way the terraces of vineyards and olive groves retained their classic Mediterranean beauty, but periodically the advancing troops would find pockets fouled by military occupation — slit trenches, latrines, ration tins and empty ammunition boxes.

As the sun rose, it strengthened the stench from black and swollen corpses covered by swarms of blow-flies. Corpses of fellow paratroopers from the first day still hung from their olive tree gibbets, shockingly macabre in the dappled light under the leaves. Some bodies, free of their harnesses, appeared from single bullet wounds in the head to have been shot after surrender. In almost all cases, the pockets of jumpsuits had been ripped open in the search for papers, or items such as flat metal boxes of Dextrosan energy tablets. Finally, a passing Cretan might have stripped the body of useful apparel, especially the boots since leather was already in short supply on the island. The paratroopers, eager for revenge, pressed on.

Not long after Hargest's 5th Brigade had established a new line west of Platanias, a duel of counter-battery fire broke out between the 95th Mountain Artillery Regiment and the surviving 75mm guns of various field troops, Australian, British and New Zealand. At the same time there were some fierce infantry skirmishes in the area of the Platanias bridge and north of the coast road along the beach where Ramcke's paratroopers pushed forward at every opportunity. During the afternoon four RAF bombers appeared overhead on their way to bomb Maleme airfield. This raised morale but the attack, according to German sources, did only slight damage. There had been little contact with the enemy to the south of the coast road until late afternoon when it became clear that the II Battalion of the 85th Mountain Regiment was outflanking the severely reduced New Zealand battalions to cut them off from the Galatas position behind. Hargest and Puttick, who had long expected this to happen, prepared to pull the exhausted 5th Brigade back that night into reserve beyond Galatas and Daratsos.

By the next morning, when the 5th Brigade had made their second consecutive night withdrawal, the front line ran from Galatas to the sea. The tired and demoralized Composite Battalion of drivers, gunners, cooks and service corps personnel who had been manning this sector since the first day also had to be pulled back into reserve.

The 18th Battalion from Inglis's brigade took over the line. Kippenberger was heartened 'to see them come in — looking very efficient and battle-worthy — in painful contrast' to his 'unfortunate quasi-infantry'. But the 18th, only four hundred strong, had a two-kilometre front to hold. Russell Force, the survivors of the Divisional Cavalry and a group of the Petrol Company, all under the engaging John Russell, still held the southern exit from Galatas facing down towards Ayia prison.

Prison Valley had been relatively peaceful on 23 May, but clearly the lull was not to last. On the New Zealand side Kippenberger found the morning of Saturday, 24 May, 'ominously quiet', while on the German side, Heydte found it 'almost oppressive'. The men of his battalion were virtually out of ammunition, dehydrated — many suffering from dysentery — and severely under-nourished. 'The faces of some of them had grown taut, almost shrunken, their eyes lay deep in their sockets, and their beards, unshaven now for five days, accentuated the hollowness of their cheeks.' The members of one platoon, which had stood to arms when a sentry gave warning of noises in the bushes to their front, found themselves face to face with a stray donkey. The poor beast was shot as quickly as if it had been the enemy; its carcase was hauled in for butchering and roasting.

General Freyberg, meanwhile, learned from an Ultra signal that south of Maleme German motor-cycle detachments had advanced at least two-thirds of the way across the island. This force, the 55th Motor-Cycle Battalion armed with Spandau machine guns mounted on their side-cars, was advancing towards Paleokhora on the south coast to prevent reinforcements from Alexandria being landed there. An intercept reported them six miles north of Kandanos at midnight on 23 May, then the following day Ultra reported the same detachments held up by 'increasing British resistance'. Since there were no British troops in the area, the resistance was purely Cretan, and presumably included Father Stylianos Frantzekakis and those of his parishioners who were still alive after such savage fighting. They held this German force for two days; their success could be sadly measured later by the scale of reprisals at Kandanos.

Another German column, the 95th Mountain Engineer Battalion strengthened by a weak company of paratroopers, was sent on 24 May to Kastelli Kissamou where the unfortunate detachment of paratroopers under Lieutenant Mürbe had been dropped on the first day. The Germans could not possibly land their light tanks, a company from the 5th Panzer Division, anywhere along the Gulf of Canea, so Kastelli Kissamou, far from ideal because of the shallowness of the bay, offered the only hope.

Kastelli itself was defended by the 1st Greek Regiment and an advisory detachment of New Zealand officers and NCOs. They had wiped out Mürbe's men, except for twenty-eight survivors who had been taken prisoner. But on 24 May a Stuka attack to soften up the town as the mountain engineers arrived enabled a number of these prisoners to escape and rearm themselves. After some confused and bloody fighting — the Germans were convinced that Mürbe's men had been tortured and mutilated by civilians — the town was occupied by the following day. But the guerrilla resistance which continued was so fierce that tanks could not begin to land until 27 May. This delay of two days, achieved at a considerable cost in Cretan lives, was of inestimable help to Freyberg's force during its subsequent withdrawal when it had barely any anti-tank weapons left.*

* Ultra signal OL 27/464 on the morning of 26 May reported the German intention to use it for disembarkation the next day.

In the afternoon of 24 May, following that oppressive morning described both by Kippenberger and Heydte, squadrons of the VIII Air Corps in relentless rotation carpet-bombed Canea. This technique had been developed by the Condor Legion under Richthofen in the Spanish Civil War, first outside Oviedo, then for the destruction of Durango and Guernica. It had a dual objective — to terrorize soldier and civilian alike and to block the roads of a communications centre behind the front line with masonry and debris. In Canea only the harbour front was left unharmed, because it would soon be useful. Thirteen Venetian palaces from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were destroyed.

Stephanides saw villagers 'gathered in stunned silence watching the holocaust, and I could sense that to them it was like the end of the world. Canea was the only town that many of them had ever known.'

'Like the end of the world', was the same comparison made by eyewitnesses to the destruction of Guernica. Although the bombing of Canea lacked the nightmare images of frenzied livestock depicted in Picasso's painting, it produced surreal sights of its own. Against a background of the blazing town, Geoffrey Cox observed a Cretan diving into the water of the harbour, then hurling to three women fish stunned by the bombs. He also saw a drunken Australian deserter magnanimously offering goods he had looted from shops.

The attack on Canea was perhaps Richthofen's envoi before the VIII Air Corps withdrew to prepare to deploy for Operation Barbarossa. If the Cretans needed a memory to rekindle their anger when the German authorities later tried to make friends during the occupation, that afternoon had provided it.

The population fled to the surrounding villages where, with true Cretan generosity, they were taken in and cared for without question.

A few hours after the departure of the bombers, Freyberg and his staff at Creforce Headquarters abandoned their quarry and moved round to the south side of Suda Bay. Everyone lent a hand. The Welch Regiment, still in immaculate order, directed traffic, and an Australian artillery colonel steered a fifteen-hundred-weight truck through the outskirts of the burning town.

Early on the morning of Sunday, 25 May, General Student landed at Maleme.* Those who knew him found him aged by the last week: his creation, the Parachute Division, had been half destroyed.

* Student arrived in Crete much later than expected. As early as the morning of 22 May Ultra (OL 17/411) noted 'advance headquarters Eleventh Air Corps' at the Tavronitis bridge.

The same morning, with the stench of Canea's burnt-out buildings in the air, the men of the 3rd Parachute Regiment in Prison Valley listened as Radio Berlin at last announced Germany's invasion of Crete. For Heydte's men, it was the first sign of official confidence in victory. As if to confirm this in the best style of historical drama, a runner arrived to say that contact had been made with a patrol of mountain troops advancing from Maleme. The patrol's lieutenant possessed the rather improbable title of Count Bullion. He was, according to the keen genealogist Heydte, a descendant of 'the Burgundian knight who had marched eastwards as a crusader some eight hundred and fifty years ago and received the crown of Jerusalem'.

The mountain troops were concentrating to assault Galatas from the southern as well as the western flank. On the western flank between Galatas and the sea, the New Zealand 18th Battalion came under mortar fire and strafing attacks from Messerschmitts. By midday German troops could be seen manoeuvring for attack, then at four in the afternoon a dozen Stukas began to dive-bomb Galatas.

Soon afterwards, Ramcke's paratroopers and part of Colonel Utz's 100th Mountain Regiment suddenly attacked the 18th Battalion. The crackle of rifle-shots 'swelled to a roar'. Mortar fire also increased, with up to six rounds a minute dropping on one company. All round the village spent bullets whipped through the leaves of the olive trees, bringing down twigs and small branches.

Kippenberger went forward to observe the battle: he seems to have been the only senior officer on Crete to have done so. 'In a hollow, nearly covered by undergrowth,' he wrote, 'I came upon a party of women and children huddled together like little birds. They looked at me silently, with black, terrified eyes.' Galatas was threatened from both directions. The attack on John Russell's group on the south side of Galatas was also heavy, but the 18th Battalion's line up to the coast was the first to crack. At about six o'clock, the right-hand company was overwhelmed by Colonel Ramcke's men. A counter-attack with the battalion reserve — 'padre, clerks, batmen, everyone who could carry a rifle'

— was led by their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Gray, but it failed.

The Composite Battalion had meanwhile disintegrated in panic, although in the second line. 'Back, back!' some of its members shouted. 'They're coming through in thousands.' Once again the wounded, two hundred of them this time, had to be carried back. A German breakthrough down the coast road to Canea was prevented by part of the 20th Battalion, fortunately sent forward by Inglis. But the collapse spread to the other end of the line. On Wheat Hill, the corner of the whole Galatas pocket, the company there broke after Kippenberger had refused two requests to withdraw. The 18th Battalion's line then disintegrated along its whole length. Kippenberger strode round yelling 'Stand for New Zealand!' and seizing men who retreated through the village, but his efforts were in vain. The only hope of preventing a complete rout was to fall back to the hill between Galatas and Daratsos.