Crete - The Battle and the Resistance

My pre-holiday reading has been Antony Beevor's book on Crete. I am off to the island in a month's time and although I have read several books on this fascinating battle, this earlier book had passed me by.

Beevor rightly starts with the fall of Greece and Hitler's reluctance to authorise the attack on Crete. He references Martin Van Creveld's view (see my recent review) that Operation Marita had nothing to do with the delay in launching Operation Barbarossa. However, he makes the interesting additional point that the invasion of Crete may have given Stalin the impression that Hitler was aiming for the Suez Canal, not Russia.

The core of the book is the battle itself, starting with the German plan and Freyberg's defence. The German's had total air superiority, but limited naval resources. This meant they had to capture one or more of the three airfields quickly, so the second wave mountain division could be flown in to reinforce the Fallschirmjager.

Freyberg claimed he could not concentrate on the airfield defences for fear of giving away the Ultra intelligence. This seems a weak argument and he appears to have been fixated by an improbable threat of a seaborne landing. Either way, his failure to the launch immediate counter-attacks at Maleme was fatal to the defence. Once the Germans had established themselves, the battle was effectively lost. When he finally ordered an attack, he used only two battalions rather than the whole of the New Zealand Division.

The final part of the book covers the resistance to Axis occupation. The eastern end of the island was administered by the Italians, with the rest by the Germans. The Cretan resistance, supported by SOE operatives and supplies was particularly effective on Crete. The best known of these operatives was Patrick Leigh Fermor. Axis troops only really controlled the coast, with occasional sweeps through the mountain areas. The most famous event was the capture of General Kreipe, immortalised in the film 'Ill Met by Moonlight' starring Dirk Bogarde.

This is probably the best written history of the campaign I have read, from an author who has done much to popularise military history. His judgements are well argued and more balanced than say Alan Clark's book.

I am looking forward to my trip, and thankfully I have most of the figures needed to refight the battle in 15mm and 28mm.

One of my favourite British tanks of WW2 - The Matilda. A handful of these were on Crete.

And some Australian infantry.