Operation Mercury

by John Sadler

  When the orders were hammered out just after noon, the whole of the 5 Brigade was to withdraw to the line held by the Maoris just in front of Platanias. This implied that the Allied guns could no longer fire upon the aerodrome at Maleme, the German foothold thus became their vital bridgehead. Dittmer greeted this news with horrified astonishment, the men did not expect any such order, they saw no reason for withdrawal. Despite their rebuff the day before, they considered that matters, overall, were still going well. The decision to retreat was not occasioned by any failure in the forward units, quite the reverse, it was made as a result of command failures, well behind the front line.

  They had, thus far, met the detested enemy, who had hounded them from Greece, still on unequal terms as his planes ruled the skies and swooped at will, but had shown they were more than a match for him in an infantry battle. They had taken on and, in some cases, slaughtered, the pride of the Axis. In spite of all this the stink of defeat began to raise an ugly miasma.

  It was not until the following dawn that Colonel Dittmer received his orders, and he immediately contacted the 23rd to seek confirmation. We can only imagine his chagrin as he had to pull his proud battalion from the ground they’d fought so hard to win. On the flanks of the 28th the withdrawal was conducted under enemy fire. Lofty Fellows, inevitably, was in the thick of it:

  I’d acquired a German first aid pack and I’d thought well, I’ll hang on to that and give it to the doctor, and also a flask of rum. It was quite a warming thing to have, a sip of rum every now and then. On the way up the hill was a Sergeant, Charlie Flashoff, who’d been wounded in the legs with a grenade and I said; ‘Would you care for a little libation’ and he said he would so I sat down and unscrewed the cap, filled up, went forward to give him a drink and there was a clatter of firing practically down my neck and I felt something thump into this medical satchel thing I had. I decided that wasn’t the place for me, and poor old Charlie was on the ground anyway. So I took off down the hill and the only thing that stopped me in flight was two chaps in a slit trench with a tin of peaches and I was loath to pass them, food being one of the staple things I needed, so I joined them. And one said, what the devil’s that running down the back of your pack, so I took it off and I found four bullet holes in it.27

  Quite a close shave, and Lofty was right to stop and share the peaches; adequate supply of rations was already becoming problematic. This difficulty of supply was occasioned primarily by lack of transport, a poorly organized commissariat, exacerbated by the incessant prowling of the Luftwaffe. Food would become an increasing preoccupation of hungry men as the battle persisted.

  In some cases the precious 75s, which had rendered such sterling service had to be abandoned as had a couple of 3.7-in. howitzers. There was nothing more dispiriting for a gunner than to have to destroy his own gun and find himself suddenly reduced to the status of a mere infantryman! The Germans were pressing hard now, sensing their advantage, dragging up the captured Bofors, and Dittmer’s Maoris were involved in at least three skirmishes. Those too badly wounded to be easily transported had to be left; having fought so hard, it was galling for the brave New Zealanders to see their comrades left behind.

  Major Thomason of the 23rd had also received orders to pull back:

  …. Received orders to withdraw to the Platanias River area. I led the Battalion back through a route I had previously checked if we had to withdraw. We had to leave our wounded behind as we were unable to get any transport through. A German officer prisoner undertook to contact his side and advise them of the position of the FAP and the wounded to save them from unnecessary attack. Both our doctor and padre stayed behind with them, a rather unfortunate decision as regards the doctor as we had great need of him later.28

  Les Young, with the 21st, had a similar unpleasant experience; the Battalion found itself:

  … in what appeared to be a most unenviable situation. The Hun seemed to be getting into a position on three sides of us. This fact was probably appreciated by others as we received the order early in the morning to withdraw due east until we crossed the first river. This was not far, being a distance of approximately three miles, but for weary troops scrambling over hills carrying what little rations and equipment they had proved quite an effort. We eventually arrived at the west bank of the river and found it to be nearly waist deep. Troops plunged in without ceremony and proceeded to cross. An enemy machine gun post composed of Huns who had infiltrated from where they had landed in the prison area had established themselves on a high rocky pinnacle just south of where we were crossing the river and caused considerable trouble and casualties to our withdrawing troops. Extreme difficulty was experienced in getting wounded back and many were left at FAPs further west and were eventually taken prisoner. We established ourselves on the east bank of the river about 1,000 yards west of Platanias in a line commanding two miles inland and straggling south along the river bank.29

  Part of the problem with the hasty decision to withdraw lay in poor communications. The lack of serviceable tactical radio reduced the giving of orders to Great War levels:

  Here was a case where we suffered through lack of modern equipment. A battalion fully equipped should carry portable wireless sets. We had none. The Germans had swags of them.30

  Herein lay the rub. Not only did the invaders possess more and better automatic weapons, but their chief advantage lay in their abundance of tactical radio – they could communicate. This gave them an inestimable advantage, particularly in the confused nature of the fighting on Crete.

  Major Jim Burrows did not get his orders until 4.30 a.m. – these were instructions that he should have received over six hours earlier. By the time his unit was on the move it was daylight and so he wisely chose a more circuitous but less exposed route back to Platanias. Here they did not halt but, after re-grouping, pressed on toward Galatas:

  We moved to Platanias in small groups. Nothing much happened to my group and we arrived without casualties. Some groups were caught by machine-gun fire and some by planes. We had to cross a deepish river and our group got safely across a swing bridge. Jack Bain and his men however had to wade as a machine gun had ranged onto the bridge. They came in wet to the neck.31

  Group Ramcke were snapping at the heels of the New Zealanders, who never failed to give a good account of themselves in the savage little rearguard actions which raged like sudden bush fires across the arid ground. By noon on the 23rd, according to their own sources, Ramcke’s leading units were in contact with the defenders holding the new line at Platanias. Their report is coloured by accusations of guerilla activity, ‘civilian snipers’ who were accused of mutilation. The Cretans were certainly unbending in their resistance to the hated invader though talk of mutilation is almost certainly propaganda.

  Captain, later Colonel Tsatsadakis, a native of the village of Episkopi, which nestles in the hills above Heraklion recalled the local response:

  We knew about the war in mainland Greece from newspaper and radio reports so we were expecting some sort of German invasion by air or by sea although we didn’t know when or how. When we saw the paratroopers start to come down all the men in the village got their guns. Many we killed around the church where they came down and after we buried the bodies in holes in the ground. One though I saved and didn’t kill and after the capture of the island he came to our village and stopped other Germans from burning down the village with petroleum as a reprisal. And too we reburied the German dead in proper graves before the other Germans came, on the instructions of our priest who was a clever man, and put little bunches of flowers on the graves, so the Germans wouldn’t harm us for killing their soldiers.32

  The village priest was a clever man indeed. His quick thinking undoubtedly saved his parishioners from the full horror of Teutonic vengeance which was to cost many of these brave Cretans dear. By mid afternoon on the 23rd Ringel was able to signal Student, still relegated to a spectator’s view back in Athens, that his division had established contact
with Heidrich’s survivors in Prison Valley and, even more importantly, had completely secured Maleme airfield.

  German morale was rising, even the slowest witted could sense that the tide was turning. The converse was, naturally enough, true of the Allies. Lofty Fellows, still in the thick, became aware of this, as he moved eastwards from Platanias. At one point he was:

  …sitting among the olive-groves with my Bren and feeling very dirty. I’d lost all my gear and couldn’t have a shave. After feeding myself, all the time I was a soldier I tried to have a wash and a shave every day. It does wonders for morale. I looked over a bit further and about thirty yards away under the olive-trees there was an officer and he was having a shave. So I scouted round the back and came up to him and I said: ‘How about letting me have a go with that thing when you’ve finished’, and he agreed. I was sitting there shaving away when suddenly somebody shouted: ‘Get down can’t you, stop moving around, you’ll draw the enemy fire.’ Gave me such a fright I nearly slit my own throat.

  I found out later he’d been doing it all the previous day and that he was the captain in charge of the company. It was terrible for morale. All these men looked to him for guidance and all he did was give them the nervous jitters about German aircraft. And he wasn’t the only one. In some places if you moved while the aircraft were strafing somebody on your own side would take a potshot at you. Stupid really because the planes were coming in so low that we could have potted them easily with a Bren or a rifle. If we’d shot back instead of lying low we might have brought down a lot of planes. But instead we had these fools shouting: ‘Don’t move, lie still, don’t attract them!’ and all the rest of it.33

  As an immediate consequence of this easterly withdrawal the Maleme front now merged into the overall situation around Prison Valley and Galatas. Here little fighting had taken place since the clashes on the first day. The German survivors had been left unmolested but with only meagre supplies reaching them. Heidrich commanded the remnants of his three battalions from 3 Parachute Regiment plus the Engineer Battalion. Ammunition, food and fresh water were in very short supply.

  To try and establish contact with Ramcke he had formed an ad hoc brigade from survivors of his 3rd Battalion and the engineers who were deployed over the lesser reaches of Signals Hill, effectively in no man’s land. It was likely that it was this manoeuvre which had disconcerted Puttick on the afternoon of the 22nd.

  At the same time Heidrich put in two attacks aimed at securing a lodgement on the Galatas hills though the attackers were not numerous; a few companies in each assault group. They were well supported by mortars and strafing Me109s. The orders to attack were received without much enthusiasm by the tired and hungry paratroops. Their numbers, it seemed, were too few, memories of their earlier losses still fresh.

  When, however, Major Derpa, commanding 2nd Battalion, questioned Heidrich’s orders, the Regimental Commander, exhausted and stressed, rounded furiously on his subordinate going so far as to accuse him of faintheartedness. Von der Heydte, a witness to this unseemly exchange, recorded how the Major, still rigidly to attention paled, taut with fury, but replied with dignity that whilst careless of his own life he had a responsibility to those he commanded. Derpa fell, mortally wounded, in the course of the assault.

  As the attack closed around the flank of the gallant but hugely outgunned Petrol Company, the Axis gained the summit of Pink Hill where they quickly established machine-gun nests. At this point the situation seemed critical, the battalion reserve was no more than platoon strength when, quite suddenly, the day was saved by the intervention of none other than Captain Forrester of the Buffs, late of the Military Mission, leading a scratch force of Greek soldiers and Cretan auxiliaries:

  There came a terrific clamour from behind. Out of the trees came Captain Forrester of the Buffs, clad in shorts, a long yellow army jersey reaching down almost to the bottom of the shorts, brass polished and gleaming, web belt in place and waving his revolver in his right hand. He was tall, thin faced, with no tin hat – the very opposite of a soldier hero; as if he had just stepped on to the parade ground. he looked like a Wodehouse character. It was a most inspiring sight. Forrester was at the head of a crowd of disorderly Greeks, including women; one Greek had a shotgun with a serrated edge bread knife tied on like a bayonet, others had ancient weapons – all sorts. Without hesitation this uncouth group with Forrester right out in front, went over the top of the parapet and headlong at the crest of the hill.34

  The wild charge of the immaculate Forrester and his ragged heroes was an incident straight from the pages of Dumas or G.A. Henty; the kind of inspired derring do that Churchill rightly loved. In the immediate tactical context it stemmed the tide. A second German thrust, to the east around the vital bastion of Cemetery Hill, was seen off in a similar stylish fashion by more Greeks led by Captain H.M. Smith.

  By 2.00 p.m. on the afternoon of the 23rd the retreat had been completed and the German forces advancing from the west could link up with Heidrich’s detached contingent.35 As the day wore on the German fire increased. This was bad enough but both brigade and division were more fearful of a general outflanking move from the south – the line before Platanias was already looking untenable. For Hargest and Puttick this must have seemed a replay of the Greek nightmare; their troops, massively outgunned, facing an enemy who was growing steadily in numbers with full tactical air support.

  That night, with the fear of encirclement growing, the weary New Zealanders would be obliged to consolidate on the Galatas heights, ‘…behind the 4th and Kipp’s 10th Brigade’. The battle could not now be won but neither was it yet lost. The Germans had sustained fearful losses but there still remained a possibility that some form of deadlock might ensue, until the inexorable demands of Operation Barbarossa led to a withdrawal.

  Churchill had already cabled Freyberg that: ‘The whole world is watching your splendid battle on which great events turn.’36 He had also urged Wavell to continue the battle as a means of tying down enemy forces, thus enabling him to consolidate the situation in North Africa. More improbably, he then suggested sending more reinforcements including tanks, in the belief the Axis were at their last gasp. On the ground the fight for Maleme was over. The battle of Galatas was about to begin in earnest.

  It [the position] was in the trees and was potholed with short trenches. All around were unburied bodies of Cretan soldiers. They could not be buried because there appeared to be no digging equipment. It was because of this lack that we could never enlarge any trench system that we occupied. We were very close to the Germans at this stage and movement was very restricted during the daytime. However, the enemy kept their distance apparently preparing for the final attack on Galatas. The build-up came by the ranging of the German mortars. First they dropped a cluster of mortar bombs on one side of the little valley up which the road ran; then a cluster up the other. The cluster on one side was right on our position and the day was a long, long one. I remember Lieutenant Dill saying: ‘Tomorrow we are for it. I’m going to find myself a bath’ and he went away into an empty house nearby and had his bath.37

  As the New Zealanders withdrew first to the Platanias line then onto the heights before Galatas, the Germans increased the build-up at Maleme, wasting no time in repairing the ravaged airstrip, now finally free of the attentions of the British gunners. Before the day was out the first Me109s had arrived as had two batteries of 95 Mountain Artillery Regiment, 95th Anti-Tank Battalion bringing a score of 50-mm guns, the first infantry formations from 141 Mountain Regiment and 55th Motor Cycle Battalion.

  Soon the entire divisional strength would be deployed and the balance not just of numbers but of firepower would swing massively in favour of the Axis. The battle was now directed personally by Ringel, who had flown in late the evening before. The fight for Crete was no longer about vertical envelopment, it was to be a straight contest between conventional forces, even if it was the airborne arm who, at such catastrophic cost, had prised the door open an
d held it wide for just long enough.

  Student’s participation, humiliatingly, was reduced to the role of spectator. He would have to suffer the gall of watching Ringel, the plodder, consolidate what should have been his victory. The Austrian informed the surviving paratroops that all forces remaining in the west and centre were under his direct command – Ringel Group. Ramcke had the job of consolidating the survivors from Maleme into a single battalion which was detailed to secure the left, coastal flank of the advance. This was now a Wehrmacht, not a Luftwaffe operation. Whatever was salvaged would be to Ringel’s credit and not that of Student whose star, which had once flashed so brightly in the higher echelons of the Nazi command, had now dipped irrevocably and would soon vanish entirely from sight.

  Ringel identified four main priorities:

  1. To secure Maleme airfield

  2. To occupy Souda Bay

  3. To rescue the survivors at Rethymnon and Heraklion

  4. To secure the occupation of Crete and the final defeat of the Allied forces.

  Ironically, it was the rigid adherence to these orders that would enable the final withdrawal to and evacuation from the south coast by Sphakia to succeed. Ringel was determined to secure the island from west to east rather than north to south. Galatas was to be the target of the General’s next move, a strong and concerted attack from three sides, the Alpine troops bearing the brunt in the centre, supported by a powerful thrust on the right flank, using two fresh battalions to snuff out the Greeks holding Alikianou and then to cut the coast road in the rear of the New Zealanders.

  On the Allied side Freyberg had caught some of Hargest’s angst. He felt that the continuous harassment from the air and the gathering weight of German ground attacks would prove too much for his tired men. It may well have been at this point that his mind turned to what, a couple of days previously, would have seemed unthinkable – the need to consider how best to save whatever forces could be saved. London, increasingly outpaced by events, was urging Wavell and Cunningham to make further efforts: ‘… great risks must be taken to ensure our success.’38