Operation Mercury (8 page)

If Ringel's Alpine elite regarded the idea of going to war by Ju52 with trepidation, they were even less enthusiastic about taking to the water, particularly in a scratch built and ramshackle fleet, uncertain allies for protection and the might of the British Royal Navy against them. Most had never been to sea before and were dreading the prospect – their fears were to prove entirely justified.

From the outset the logistical difficulties loomed large, the vast and diverse range of matériel needed to sustain an airborne offensive had to be sourced, obtained and then transported, all in the teeth of a military administration wholly focused on another and far larger operation to the east. The tortuous route involved railways to the Romanian Black Sea Coast and then a time-consuming transfer to ships for onward transmission through the fateful narrows of the Dardanelles, scene of history's first great amphibious invasion – Troy – and, more recently, the disastrous Gallipoli offensive of 1915.

Fresh water and fuel were in equally short supply; the need for the former was solved by the acquisition of a bottling plant in Athens but getting in the vast stock of aviation fuel proved a quartermaster's nightmare. Some 24,000 cubic metres was required and the supply operation necessitated a major feat of engineering to clear the remains of the wrecked bridge which had collapsed into the Corinth Canal at the end of the previous airborne battle.

The available airfields were primitive in the extreme and the vast clouds of dust kicked up by the planes taxiing for landing or take-off became a major hazard; spraying the runways with water turned the whole lot into mud. Much of
Luftflotte 4
's maintenance and base personnel were already being siphoned off to meet the relentless countdown to Barbarossa; soldiers and drafted POWs had to be used to plug the gaps.

Richthofen's squadrons naturally took priority and gobbled up the best of what was available. Student was reduced to trying to utilise a dried up lake at Topolia, fifty miles from Athens.

By 14 May, however, Richthofen's aircraft were hammering the RAF bases on Crete and pulverising shipping in Souda Bay. By the 19th he was able to report he believed any threat of interference from British planes had been effectively neutralised. Even as the Stukas were disgorging their deadly loads over the island, Student summoned his senior officers to the impressively opulent setting of the Hotel Grand Bretagne for a detailed briefing.

The General was not interested in luxury, however, and any lingering doubts the battalion and regimental commanders might still have entertained about their intended target were soon dissipated. There was, as Heydte observed, a large scale map of Crete on the wall, a fairly significant clue.

Student, making the best of the compromise ordered by the Luftwaffe, had accepted that two waves of attackers would be required. The first lift would drop on Maleme and around Chania. With the airfields secured, Ringel's mountain division would be air landed the following day. Later, in the afternoon of the first day, Rethymnon and Heraklion would be attacked.

The attacking force would be split into three battle groups and
Gruppe West
, under Major General Eugen Meindl would comprise the entirety of
Luftlande Sturmregiment
(less two companies of glider borne troops who would participate in operations in the centre). Their prime objective was to secure Maleme Airstrip and the ground as far west as Kastelli. The drop would commence at 7.15 a.m. (German time) and Meindl could, in the afternoon, expect to be reinforced by the first flotilla bringing in a support battalion from Ringel's alpine division.

All through the briefing Student stressed the paramount importance of securing the air strips; success meant the difference between victory and defeat, life and death or capture. Once his objectives were secured Meindl was to advance rapidly eastwards to link up with the assault on Chania.

Lieutenant General Wilhelm Sussman would lead the first wave of
Gruppe Mitte
which would seek to land in the area known as Prison Valley
¹⁵
and then attack toward the coast and secure Chania and Souda. Sussman would jump with the divisional HQ, the two detached glider companies, and Major Richard Heidrich's 3rd
Fallschirmjäger
Regiment, together with various support units. His prime objective was to take and hold the island capital and neutralise the British command structure, thought to be located there.

The second wave would be under Major Alfred Sturm with 1st and 3rd Battalions of 2nd
Fallschirmjäger
. They were tasked with securing Rethymnon. Heraklion, the other main target of the second wave, was to be assaulted by
Gruppe Ost
under Major Bruno Brauer. He would command 1st
Fallschirmjäger
with 2nd Battalion of the 2 Regiment. Like Meindl at Maleme,
Gruppe Ost
could expect to be reinforced by sea during the course of the first afternoon's fighting.

Student, as the highly capable and conscientious officer that he was, had laid the ground for Mercury as well as he could despite the military objections, supply difficulties, breaches of security, his lack of overall authority and the general preoccupation with momentous preparations elsewhere. In one area particularly he was dangerously deficient and that was in the vital realm of intelligence.

Major Reinhardt, Student's intelligence officer, expressed the view that the total strength of the defenders would not exceed 5,000, most of them grouped toward the west, with only a handful, perhaps 400, at Heraklion. Even more fanciful was his assessment that the Cretans were only just waiting for an opportunity to rise and throw off the yoke of their supposed oppressors.

Ringel may have entertained private doubts but Student was anxious to minimise his subordinate's role in the attack. The Austrian was expected to wait until the second day when he and his alpine troops could be ferried onto the captured airstrips. Student, typical of his leadership style, intended to assume personal command once the bridgehead was established; this was, after all, his operation and the masterpiece must bear the stamp of its creator.

As for the officers and men, at this stage they had no reservations, they were the cream of the German armed forces and they had never tasted defeat; they had an absolute trust in their commander. As the battalion and regimental commanders briefed their men the following day, the
Fallschirmjäger
, clustering on the makeshift airfields or under the shade of olive groves which offered some relief from the relentless Aegean sun, would not have entertained any thought of failure.

Most would have felt a surge of enthusiasm and confidence; the endless, weary miles by road and rail, the backbreaking, sweating labour of manhandling oil drums and supplies over the dust-laden ground were, at last, at an end. The prospect of action loomed …‘you are the chosen ones of the German army. You will seek combat and train yourself to endure any manner of test.'

In the gathering twilight of 19 May the men prepared to emplane, taken by trucks to the airfields. They sweated in the stifling, dust laden air, weighed down with uniform and kit – the paratroopers were still wearing their standard field pattern, intended for colder climates and had not been issued with tropical gear.

Von der Heydte recalled the urgency and confusion of that night:

Operation Mercury was now under way and the die was effectively cast; as Churchill later wrote:

The Prime Minister wrote with a politician's fine eye for hindsight and selective memory and with a neat gloss over what was ordered and what was achievable in practice. The debacle of Greece had emasculated Wavell; under pressure from the Axis in the desert he simply did not have the resources to turn Crete into the island fortress of Churchill's imagination.

With the Luftwaffe completely in control of the skies it was questionable from the outset if Crete could be held. The Navy would be horribly exposed without air cover and Cunningham was already fully stretched, the consequences for the bare margin of British maritime supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean could so easily prove fatal.

As the evacuation from the mainland progressed during the final days of April some 20,000 additional troops reached the island.
¹⁸
Most were exhausted and demoralised, without weapons or kit, frequently disorganised without their own officers and NCOs. In some cases they were little more than a mob, their already frayed nerves further sapped by incessant and costly harassment from the air.

Souda Bay was like a vision of the inferno, Stukas and Dorniers pounded the docks at will and without respite; one of the two tankers hit by German bombs, the 10,000 ton
Eleanora Maersk
was still burning fiercely. A dense, pungent pall of greasy smoke blanketing the bay, garnished with the bloated corpses of lost sailors. These were not sights likely to restore anyone's confidence.

Once they finally got ashore, mostly being transferred by lighters, the troops found that there was nothing and no one to receive them; no barracks, no tents, not much in the way of supplies, they were obliged to bivouac as best they could among the olive groves. Many took to foraging. Hunger, exhaustion and the heady Greek wines proved a dangerous mix and there was some disorder before the situation could be restored.

If there was a lack of military police, junior officers and NCOs, there was no shortage of generals; in fact there was something of an embarrassment. General Weston, then in command of the island's defences, found himself outranked by ‘Jumbo' Wilson and matched by Mackay and Freyberg. Wavell compounded the problem by trying to treat the two senior commanders as equals and addressing communications to both. Wilson's days were already numbered and his pessimistic, if by no means inaccurate, summary of the island's vulnerability probably proved the final nail.

The plain fact was that nobody had really considered what might happen if Greece fell and the island suddenly became the new front line. The task facing the Allied commanders in April 1941 was therefore a formidable one – the long exposed ribbon of Crete, ill served by roads and with only the three airstrips, had to be protected against a conquering foe with complete air superiority.

As far back as October 1940 when General Metaxas had first bruited the question of the British Guarantee, Middle East Command had preferred to limit its involvement to an occupation of Crete. Papagos was later promised support from the air and sea with a full brigade to be dispatched to bolster the local conscripts defending the (then) only air base at Heraklion. The vulnerability of this single strip to parachute attack was considered although, in the event, Operation Marita included no plans for an attack on Crete.

Once the Italians had begun their abortive invasion Wavell moved quickly to secure the island. A small detachment was sent out directly and 2nd Battalion Yorks and Lancaster, deployed in Operation Action soon followed. This spearhead was to be bolstered by HQ 14 Infantry Brigade, 2nd Black Watch, one heavy and one light anti-aircraft (AA) units and a support company; a total commitment of 2,500 soldiers.
¹⁹
The initial reports concluded that Souda and Heraklion were defensible, the anchorage permitted the offloading of heavy weapons and the local populace, both military and civil, were enthusiastic.

The Cretan troops available comprised some 7,000 conscripts from the 5th Cretan Division, backed by a slightly larger number of reservists and 1,000 paramilitary police. The mountain men were natural fighters and excellent soldiers though, as was remarked, ‘inclined to individualism rather than the team spirit'.
²⁰
The Gendarmerie had been raised to act as watchdogs and repressors – there to curb the tendencies of the local republicans.

Brigadier O.H. Tidbury, the first garrison commander, thus moved to deploy his modest assets in defence, primarily of the airstrip at Heraklion, while the individual Tommies soon found their Cretan allies possessed a splendid concept of generous hospitality, cementing a warm regard that would survive invasion, defeat and occupation. At the same time egg and chips made its first appearance on local menus. If the Cretans needed any rallying call it was provided by their clergy, who were united in their steadfast loathing of the Axis, theirs a powerful voice in so devout a society.

Italian prisoners of war, many in wretched condition, were another Allied import, in their sullen thousands – little by way of elaborate security was required, their justified terror of the undisguised fury of the locals was more than sufficient!

As the fighting in the harsh northern mountains persisted the Cretan Division was drawn off and fed into the fight. Many of the islanders' donkeys were also conscripted. Although understandably proud of their compatriots' distinguished role in the war, many locals were suspicious that the national government was using the Italians as a ruse to strip the place of able bodied men. Throughout, the island was to be starved of arms and ammunition, to the great detriment of the resistance, so deep did the government's fears stick.