by John Sadler
Roy Farran was amongst the more seriously wounded who had to be left behind; for him the charge of the 3rd Hussars would end in captivity.2 Despite the renewed ferocity of the bombardment the women and even children of the town sallied out into the shell-racked streets to aid the Allied casualties.
The survivors reeled back to take up positions along the Daratsos line, including the remnants of Russell Force and the gallant Petrol Company. Utterly exhausted, Kippenberger at last found his way to Inglis’ makeshift HQ where his fellow officers were mostly gathered. It was a sombre meeting, doubly galling in the aftermath of such sustained heroism. Inglis mooted further counter-attacks; Dittmer, arriving late, volunteered his superb Maoris but the die was already cast.
Inglis knew that whilst an opportunity existed, created by the reverse the enemy had just suffered, only an attack in force could exert the necessary pressure to fracture his line. Puttick had not attended the conference but sent Lieutenant Colonel Gentry who had no fresh battalions to offer. He vetoed the Maoris going it alone.
Kippenberger described the course of this highly charged meeting:
It was quite dark when we arrived at Brigade Headquarters and we stumbled around for some time among the trees. Inglis was in a tarpaulin covered hole in the ground, seated at a table with a very poor light. Burrows, Blackburn and Sanders were already there. Dittmer … arrived a moment after me. It was clear to all of us that if this [counter-attack] was not feasible Crete was lost. It was a difficult operation, perhaps impossible: darkness, olive trees, vineyards, no good starline, only 400 men in the battalion. Dittmer said it was difficult; I said it could not be done and that it would need two fresh battalions. Inglis rightly pressed, remarking that we were done if it did not come off: ‘Can you do it George?’ Dittmer said ‘I’ll give it a go’. We sat silently looking at the map, and then Gentry lowered himself into the hole. Without hesitation he said ‘No’ – the Maoris were our last fresh battalion and if used now we would not be able to hold the line tomorrow. There was no further argument; it was quickly decided that Galatas must be abandoned, and everyone brought back to the Daratsos line before morning.3
The bitter truth was that only further withdrawal remained as an option, swinging back to form a line with Vasey’s Australians presently sealing off the eastern flank of Prison Valley. In terms of final defeat it was now a matter of when, rather than if.
Even now Wavell in Cairo was not fully aware that Freyberg had, to all intents and purposes, decided to throw in the towel and concentrate on getting as many away as possible. In some measure this was because the General himself had, until 26 May, continued to paint a less depressing picture, suggesting that fighting for Maleme was still raging and that the issue of possession remained in the balance. Even as Farran’s tanks roared into the streets of Galatas, Freyberg had been cabling his superior to the effect that:
Today has been one of great anxiety to me here. The enemy carried out one small attack last night and this afternoon he attacked with little success. This evening at 1700 hours bombers, dive bombers and ground strafers came over and bombed our forward troops and then his ground troops launched an attack. It is still in progress and I am awaiting news. If we can give him a really good knock it will have a very far reaching effect.4
However, before this could be sent an urgent dispatch arrived from Puttick advising that the enemy had broken through at Galatas and the line was no longer tenable. In consequence the General re-drafted the final sentence of his own report to now read: ‘I have now heard from Puttick that the line has gone and that we are trying to stabilise. I don’t know if they will be able to, I am apprehensive. I will send messages as I can later.’ He then replied to Puttick advising that whilst he understood how thinly spread the New Zealanders were the new and shorter (Daratsos) line should be easier to hold and must in fact be held.
On the 25th GHQ had scraped together enough Allied bombers to mount a raid on Maleme. The sight of the RAF, commonly referred to as ‘Rare As Fairies’ and even less complimentary translations, gave a boost to sagging morale but, as the effort was so short lived, the effect very quickly dissipated beneath the habitual weight of relentless pressure from the omnipresent Stukas.
Even the might of the Luftwaffe proved fallible and the Allied troops, hastily dug in to their new line, received a respite on 26 May when a battalion from 85 Mountain Regiment, feeling their way towards Perivolia, was repeatedly strafed by their own side. As a result the Allied positions were not seriously troubled though Freyberg was led to believe the 2 Greek Regiment, deployed around Perivolia, was in difficulties. The Greeks stood south of 2/8th and 2/7th Australians whilst the shrunken New Zealand Brigade held the line from Daratsos (Dittmer) to the coast.
As long as this present front could be maintained Souda Bay and the hinterland of depots, stores, workshops, transport and logistics could continue to function. This infrastructure required a near division sized sprawl of non combat personnel who, although not directly engaged, had been obliged to withstand the pernicious effect of the endless air raids. No further ships were expected, the gauntlet of the Kaso Straits was impassable, Cunningham would only permit limited nocturnal re-supply by fast destroyers which could complete a full turnaround under the shroud of darkness.
An attempt to land commandos at Paleokhora had been aborted but two companies were landed at Souda during the night of the 24th and the remainder of two weak battalions disembarked from destroyers Hero, Nizam and Abdiel. Layforce, as these 500 reinforcements came to be named, was under the command of Colonel Robert Laycock; ‘A’ Battalion was led by Lieutenant Colonel F. B. Colvin and ‘D’ Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Young. Laycock’s intelligence officer was Evelyn Waugh, then a captain.5
It was not entirely accurate to say that there were no reinforcements available. 4 and 5 Brigades were indeed depleted but three crack battalions, 1st Welch, Northumberland Hussars and 1st Rangers, remained as Force Reserve on the Akrotiri Peninsula, largely uninvolved in the fighting since the first day. The difficulty was that these formations, whose presence in the battle for Galatas could have easily tipped the scales, came under Weston’s rather than Puttick’s command. When Inglis approached the General however, he got short shrift and Weston gave the impression that Force Reserve was to be kept under his own hand.
On the morning of the 26th Freyberg at last decided to divest Weston and place these men under Inglis to relieve the battered 5th. In the meantime Puttick had already reached the conclusion that the Daratsos line was untenable and a further withdrawal was necessary. When the divisional commander appeared at Creforce HQ to explain his reasoning he found the commander-in-chief had other ideas. Puttick was effectively superseded and all local forces in the Souda area would be placed under Weston.
Confusion ensued; when Weston failed to issue any direct orders for the night of 26/27 May Puttick approached him personally and found the General already abed and disinclined to cooperate. Puttick was told that as he appeared to have already decided on a further withdrawal there were no meaningful orders he, Weston, could issue. As a result a tragic development ensued – as the New Zealanders fell back, Force Reserve moved forward, confident in the belief it would have support on both flanks.
In consequence these three fine fighting units were left exposed to the full weight of the German advance, having driven what amounted to an untenable salient into what had, due to the New Zealanders’ withdrawal, become enemy territory. This new defensive line lay along a sunken track that ran southwards from the western extremity of Souda Bay, and known as 42nd Street; so named because it had previously been home to 42nd Field Squadron Royal Engineers.
When Weston was finally made aware of the disaster about to enfold Force Reserve, he sent dispatch riders out to find 1st Welch and turn them around. It was too late. ‘Custer’s Last Stand’, as a Welsh comedian had already dubbed the mission, was about to become something very similar.
The brigade passed through the r
avaged and deserted streets of the capital encountering only a few exhausted stragglers. It was eerily quiet. They pushed on, confident they did have support somewhere on both flanks. By dawn it was obvious matters were deteriorating rapidly.
With patrols missing, the Welch and Rangers (the Hussars were forming the rearguard) were about to advance to contact with Ramcke’s group moving eastwards along the coast and the 100 Mountain Regiment spilling down over the, now vacated, Daratsos Ridge. Worse, Heidrich’s survivors, at last escaping from their own purgatory in Prison Valley, were about to cut off their retreat. Apart from numbers the Germans had an overwhelming superiority in terms of guns and mortars.
The result was never in doubt. The Welshmen fought hard but the odds were impossible. Force Reserve, by early afternoon, had ceased to exist as a fighting force. Of the 1,200 engaged, less than a quarter (mostly the Hussars) escaped. The final fighting formation available had now been used up, thrown away, in a dreadful muddle of command failure. The resulting, unseemly squabble amongst the senior officers involved, as to which of them was culpable, was nastily reminiscent of the wrangling at Balaclava in the Crimean War as to who had lost the Light Brigade. It was, of course, the waste, rather than the blame, which mattered.
Sir Lawrence Pumphrey, with the Noodles, was involved in the action which, for the Hussars who survived, heralded the commencement of yet another grim retreat. He was brought, by one of his troopers, a diary found on the body of one of the fallen Fallschirmjäger, as he was able to translate the German. He was touched by the dead man’s account of his time in Athens, how closely this unknown enemy’s excitement at seeing the Parthenon, matched his own.
Von der Heydte led his filthy and exhausted paratroops in their final advance toward Chania. The city fell without a shot, the scarecrow parachutists filing through the desecrated streets, fires smouldering in the charnel house air, the once elegant Venetian town reduced to a shattered ghost. Von der Heydte likened his scruffy troops to a band of medieval mercenaries. The Mayor, hastening to offer the city’s surrender and spare his citizens further slaughter, at first refused to believe the tattered figure in front of him was indeed a senior German officer.
The pursuit of the Allies was left to Ringel’s mountain battalions. The General assumed, not unnaturally, that Freyberg would continue to fall back eastwards and pick up the strong contingents still holding Rethymnon and Heraklion. As a result of this thinking, entirely logical, Ringel did not consider that the Allied survivors might rather seek a direct route to the south coast, there to await succour from the Navy. The option did seem unlikely, the road to the south was narrow, ill defined and vulnerable to attack from the air. The coast itself was known to be largely uninhabited with only a few and very small harbours.
Whilst the destruction of Force Reserve was in full play, Layforce was seeking orders. Both Laycock himself, with Waugh as IO, saw Colvin, who led the vanguard, then Freyburg and finally Weston, whose distraught appearance did not engender any degree of confidence. The commandos had arrived under a serious misapprehension, having been earlier led to believe the situation on the island was a good deal rosier than they now found. They had thought their mission, as befitted their swashbuckling image, would be to launch a series of spoiling raids against German lodgements in the west. Major F.C.C. Graham, writing only a few years after the end of the war, left a graphic record of their rude awakening on arrival:
No sooner had the ship anchored than boats from the shore began to come alongside and, just as the Brigade Commander, myself and other officers were bidding farewell to the captain of the minelayer, the door of the latter’s cabin was flung open and a bedraggled and apparently slightly hysterical Naval officer burst in. In a voice trembling with emotion he said ‘The Army’s in full retreat. Everything is chaos. I’ve just had my best friend killed beside me. Crete is being evacuated’. Cheerful to say the least of it and something of a shock to the little party of commando officers armed to the teeth and loaded up like Christmas trees, who stared open-mouthed at this bearer of bad news.
‘But we are just going ashore,’ I faltered.
‘My God,’ he cried, ‘I didn’t know that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Too late now, old boy,’ I said. ‘You can at least tell us what the password is.’ But he had forgotten it.6
While his commanding officer and IO were engaged on their largely fruitless tour of senior officers, Graham began to organise an initial deployment. The signs were not auspicious, the coast road was jammed with a chaotic muddle of formless troops falling back in disorder, ‘dirty, weary, hungry – a rabble. One could call them nothing else.’ The retreat was beginning to look like a rout.
Far to the west the defenders of Kastelli who had acquitted themselves so well on the first day had enjoyed a brief interlude of relative calm. Cut off from events to the east they could only await further developments. The fall of Maleme sealed their fate. By the 23rd patrols from 95th Engineers Battalion of the Mountain Division were probing their defences.
Coming across the bloated corpses of Muerbe’s detachment left where they’d fallen in the earlier fight, the Alpine troops, under Major Schaette, concluded their fallen comrades had been mutilated after death by Cretan irregulars and this belief coloured their attitudes to those considered to be partisans. No quarter would be shown.
Next day the Luftwaffe paid the town a visit, sowing the seed of death and destruction through the streets. One bomb struck the gaol where Muerbe’s survivors were still being held, which facilitated a mass breakout. The paratroopers took advantage of the confusion to raid Bedding’s HQ and take him prisoner. This neat reversal prompted a swift attempt at rescue but this failed and cost Lieutenant Campbell who, with Lieutenant Yorke, had led the mission, his life.
As the bombers flew off the assault began. Artillery blasted the gallant defenders who, their ammunition exhausted, launched several spirited but doomed charges; some 200 fell. By the early afternoon much of Kastelli was in German hands. Bedding’s ‘B’ battalion had dug in around the western flank of the harbour and held out grimly for a further two days of sporadic fighting, while the Axis guns systematically levelled the approaches. For a further four days, by which time the overall battle was irretrievably lost, the defenders clung on until the few survivors made good their escape into the sheltering hills.
Despite pleas from the captured Bedding, corroborated by Muerbe’s survivors, that the civilian population had not indulged in any wholesale mutilation of German corpses, Schaette was determined that the Cretans should be made to understand the price of defying, and worse, humiliating the Luftwaffe. Over 200 male hostages were taken and summarily shot; thus did the people of Crete gain a first acquaintance with the brutal creed of Nazism. If the invaders thought that mere savagery and indiscriminate butchery could cow the islanders, then they were to be proved very much mistaken.
While the situation on Crete began, from 26 May, to unravel and Freyberg lost confidence in any prospect of hanging on, the demands from London for the island’s continued reinforcement reached a new stridency. Churchill had, by now, become utterly fixated on a successful outcome and hurled fresh imperatives at Wavell, urgings that were not, in any way, rooted in the realities of a fast deteriorating situation.7 On the morning of the 26th General Freyberg sat down to write the cable he must have been dreading:
… in my opinion the limit of endurance has been reached by the troops under my command here at Souda Bay. No matter what decision is taken by the Commanders in Chief from a military point of view our position here is hopeless. A small, ill equipped and immobile force such as ours cannot stand up against the concentrated bombing that we have been faced with during the last seven days. I feel that I should tell you that from an administrative point of view the difficulties of extricating this force are now insuperable. Provided a decision is taken at once a certain proportion of the force might be embarked. Once this sector has been reduced the reduction of Rethymno
and Heraklion by the same methods will only be a matter of time.8
To Wavell and his colleagues at GHQ in Cairo it seemed impossible that the situation could have collapsed so comprehensively. In his reply the Commander-in-Chief urged Freyberg to consolidate, to hold on. Like General Ringel he assumed the Allies could fall back toward Rethymnon and Heraklion and bring up the reserves, largely unscathed, from both.
By now, however, Freyberg had already formulated and begun to implement his plan for a retreat southwards, over the mountains, to pray for evacuation from the tiny port of Sphakia. On the afternoon of the 27th he again cabled Wavell to admit the plan for a hoped for evacuation was already in hand.
The Commander-in-Chief now appreciated that the day was irrevocably lost and that all that could be done was to save as many as possible. He, in turn, cabled London to request confirmation that he should now proceed along this course. In the circumstances it was not possible to refuse. All thoughts turned to escape.
With a final bitter irony, the New Zealanders, on the morning of the 27th, afforded the Germans yet another reminder of their mettle. With Force Reserve outflanked and decimated, the 141 Mountain Regiment collided with the defenders of the 42nd Street Line.
The Maoris once again charged the advancing Germans who were taken completely by surprise:
At first the enemy held, and could only be overcome by Tommy-gun, bayonet and rifle … they continued to put up a fierce resistance until we had penetrated some 250 - 300 yards. They then commenced to panic and as the [Australian] troops from either side of us had now entered the fray it was not long before considerable numbers of the enemy were beating a hasty retreat.9
This spirited intervention left 121 of the Alpine troops dead on the field but nothing could now check the momentum of defeat which gathered like a leaden pall around the exhausted defenders. If gallantry had been enough then the outcome would have been a very different one: