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CHAPTER 2
Maleme, Crete

Of all the days of the war one stands alone in the minds of the battalion. The day is 20 May at Maleme, Crete.

Twenty-second Battalion's area had the same kind of features as the rest of the coastal strip round Canea, which is near the north-west corner of Crete. Foothills of the main mountain range came down towards the sea, and the battalion position included two spurs running north and south. ‘Crete was a wonderful place, almost every inch cultivated with grapes, olive groves, orange groves, and grain,’ wrote Sergeant-Major Pender¹ ‘To get on the high ground and see the various squares of different-coloured cultivation was a wonderful sight.’ In Captain Thornton's² view: ‘The lack of a thousand-and-one Army forms was a Godsend.’

On the north the battalion's boundary was the sea with a sand and pebble beach unaffected by tides. Between this and the foothills was the airfield. Crete had no good airfields. To the east of Maleme airfield lay the hamlet of Pirgos (often called, mistakenly, Maleme). Pirgos, marking the battalion's eastern boundary, was typically Greek. The dome of the Orthodox Church rose above the houses, which were flat-roofed and crowded. The streets were narrow, dirty, smelly. The western boundary, the Tavronitis River, had a gravel and boulder bed 600 to 800 yards wide. The ‘river’ itself was only a shallow creek, like some of the smaller snow-fed rivers of Canterbury. The area west of the river was not defended³ Had the Maori Battalion been there instead of in a relatively quiet area five miles to the east, Crete might not have fallen.

Much of the flat land in the battalion's area was covered

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with groves of olive trees sixteen to eighteen feet high. The groves gave almost complete (though rather obvious) cover from the air. The hillsides were terraced with stone banks and planted with grape-vines, the chunky, black trunks two to three feet high and in full leaf. These vines were terrors for tripping up a man in a hurry. The broken land, the olive groves and the vineyards made it impossible to find a spot which gave a good view of the whole battalion area. This prevented development of supporting fire. To make matters worse small ravines, ten to forty feet deep, fanned out from the bottom of the eastern spur to the coast.

Mention should be made of the Fleet Air Arm men at Maleme, for criticism still comes from several quarters of ‘leaderless and demoralised mobs’ of airmen milling most disconcertingly about the battalion's area when battle was joined, for indeed they were a hindrance from the infantryman's viewpoint.

In February 1941 aircraft from the Illustrious (heavily divebombed west of Malta the month before) were transferred to Maleme, reinforced by fighters from Egypt, moved to southern Greece, and in five weeks sank five Italian ships, damaged five more, and attacked Brindisi. The squadron returned to Maleme, now under RAF command (it should be noted), the Swordfish and Blenheims returned to Egypt, and the Fleet Air Arm and RAF pilots took turns in flying the handful of Hurricanes, Fulmars and Gladiators. On 17 May only one plane, a Hurricane, was airworthy;⁴ it was piloted by Lieutenant A. R. Ramsay, RNVR, who had shot down two enemy aircraft the day before. This steadfast officer's testimony will be given later.

The battalion, a little over 600 strong after the campaign in Greece, marched into the Maleme area at the end of April, and ‘from about 8 May until 20 May he [German aircraft] gave us a shake-up about every couple of hours,’ noted Major Jim Leggat. ‘You feel terribly naked swimming in the sea if a plane

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is machine-gunning.’ At dawn and dusk everyone stood-to: from 5.30 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 8.15 p.m. to 9 p.m.

A strong attack on Crete was expected from sea and air. On 17 May troops heard from Intelligence ‘that Jerry would attack on that day, the 17th, or the 19th and would bring 15,000 troops by parachute and 20,000 by sea.’ Fifth Brigade, holding a position running west from Platanias to the Tavronitis River and extending up to two miles inland, was charged with ‘a spirited defence…to counter attack and destroy immediately.’ Altogether, representatives of fourteen formations and units⁵ were concerned in defending Maleme airfield. Commanders of the New Zealand units and detachments met in conference in the Maleme Court House on 11 May so that, in Brigadier Hargest's words, the defence would ‘be properly co-ordinated and confusion avoided when an actual attack takes place.’ The COs of 22 and 23 Battalions had already met three days before to arrange SOS signals ‘should other means of communication fail.’

Twenty-second Battalion's task was to hold the airfield and its approaches. Fifth Brigade had laid down: ‘In the event of a major landing being made on the drome, support and reserve coys will be utilised for immediate counter-attack under cover of mortars and M.G. fire….If necessary support will be called for from 23 Bn and should … [communications fail] the call will be by “verey” signal (WHITE-GREEN-WHITE).’ Twenty-first and 23rd Battalions, in addition to holding their areas, were to be prepared for counter-attack on the airfield. These two units were within about one and a half miles, south-east and east, of Headquarters 22 Battalion. Twenty-eight (Maori) Battalion, as well as holding its area round Platanias, was ‘to be available for counter attack’. The order was that 22 Battalion's position would be defended at all costs: obviously no plan of withdrawal was considered.

The battalion's positions looked on the map roughly like the mark of a deformed left foot four and a half miles round, a

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considerable distance, and enclosing an area hopelessly large for all-round defence by twenty officers and 592 other ranks. About thirty all ranks had been evacuated sick just before the invasion. Headquarters Company,⁶ turned into a rifle company, was in and around Pirgos village; a platoon was away guarding the Air Ministry Experimental Station (a radar station). C Company was firmly planted about the airfield. D Company covered a bridge by the airfield and extended half a mile southwards along the east bank of the Tavronitis River (the western bank was not defended). A Company held high ground overlooking the riverbed and airfield; this high ground included a 300-foot hill called Point 107, and by this point was Battalion Headquarters. B Company was holding a ridge south-east of Point 107. The battalion, therefore, held and encircled the airfield and the vitally important Point 107. Telephones connected each company headquarters to Battalion Headquarters, but all lines were cut and useless when the blitz ended. An untrustworthy radio linked Battalion Headquarters with 5 Brigade Headquarters, four miles away to the east.

A brief glimpse at the enemy is necessary. Credit for the idea of invading Crete by air is claimed by General Kurt Student.⁷ The operation (code-named MERCURY) was commanded by

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Colonel-General Alexander Löhr. Despite close air reconnaissance and some espionage, the Germans did not locate the infantry positions accurately (our camouflage precautions had not been in vain), although their estimate of ten days for clearing Crete⁸ was only four days short. On the other hand, although they had planned to take all four main centres on the first day, none except Maleme was captured within a week or ten days. Organisational difficulties postponed invasion from 15 May to the 20th. Some 22,000 men were chosen for the whole operation, including mountain troops who could not be landed unless an airfield were captured or the sea route secured. On invasion day the four spearheads (about 10,000 men) would land from the air in distinct groups spaced along the northern coast of Crete. Nearly one-third of them would descend in the Maleme sector defended by 5 Brigade, where 22 Battalion, holding an area three times larger than that of 21 or 23 Battalion, would meet the brunt of the attack later in the day. (More paratroops would actually land in 23 Battalion's area; 22 Battalion would receive not only paratroops but almost all the glider troops, and would later have to withstand the pressure of two whole paratroop battalions which had landed and assembled out of reach on the undefended ground to the west.) Winning an airfield immediately was vital: only then could reinforcements arrive. The Germans clearly realised that, with no suitable ships and without control of the seas, the capture of an airfield was absolutely essential to success in Crete.

On invasion day the Assault Regiment,⁹ the élite of the invasion

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force, descended on Maleme. First came the gliders, probably forty of them, carrying about 400 men altogether (excluding the pilots). The glider troops, about to suffer 75 per cent casualties, were superbly equipped—whereas 15 Platoon, awaiting assault on the most westerly tip of the highly prized airfield, had grenades of jam tins filled with concrete and plugs of gelignite with fuses.

The Assault Regiment, Student's pride and joy, was to take the airfield and Point 107. A detachment from III Battalion plus some of its Regimental Headquarters, which grated down in belly landings just south of the Tavronitis bridge, was raked and cut with heavy fire (from D Company), but took the bridge. The detachment's commander, Major Braun, was among those killed. A second company of the Assault Regiment landed its gliders at the mouth of the Tavronitis River and made towards the airfield, but was halted and held (by C Company), and its commander, Lieutenant Plessen, also met his death. The third party of gliders (a battalion headquarters and a company) came slanting down along the south-east and south-west slopes of Point 107, to be dealt with effectively by Headquarters Company and B and D Companies, and again the commander, Major Koch, was killed.

Soon after the gliders descended, in came the regiment's paratroops, about a dozen men spewing out of each fat Junkers 52 at heights of 300 to 600 feet, some firing as they descended, ‘indiscriminately certainly, but keeping our heads down.’ Glider crews could rally quickly and fight as a team, but paratroops, scattered as they were, took longer to group together. Three battalions of paratroops came in over Maleme. Two of these battalions landed in comparative safety in undefended land west of the Tavronitis River along the coast road leading west from the bridge and out of 22 Battalion's reach.¹⁰ Here was the generous reserve of strength for continuing the assault on the airfield. The third battalion of paratroops, descending all unaware of its grisly doom west of Pirgos village and fairly close to the coast, was cut to mincemeat by 21, 22, and 23 Battalions and an engineer detachment—two-thirds slaughtered with all their officers.

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The commander of the Assault Regiment, General Meindl, soon to be severely wounded by 22 Battalion this day, pressed all available men into two assaults, one by the bridge and the other a right hook which crossed the river south of 22 Battalion and aimed north to Point 107. This two-pronged attack led to the crucial fighting of the day.

Twenty-second Battalion war diary: ‘Maleme. 20th May. Usual Mediterranean summer day. Cloudless sky, no wind, extreme visibility: e.g., details on mountains 20 miles to the south-east easily discernible.’

The daily hate followed the dawn. For days the bombing had been increasing steadily. Flying low, fighters and bombers raked vineyards and olive groves. No 22 Battalion men were injured. The planes turned to the sea and the men prepared for breakfast, but again the air-raid siren sounded from the mysterious Air Ministry Experimental Station tucked away up in the hills. The time was now nearly eight o'clock. Cursing men, still hungry, had just taken cover in trench and under trees when twenty-four heavy bombers appeared, the first of an endless fleet, wave upon wave, bombing, strafing, diving. The approach of the fleet was first felt through the ground rather than noticed from the sky, one man remembers. The whole of 5 Brigade's area received an unprecedented rain of bombs, particularly 22 Battalion's area, with an estimated 3000 bombs falling round the airfield. Dust and smoke billowed up; the earth shook with explosions; trees splintered; slit trenches caved in (in one substantial five-man trench only Joe Chittenden¹¹ survived); men, dazed and numb with the fury of the assault, bled from ears and mouths. ‘The silence after the [blitz],’ writes Sergeant Sargeson,¹² ‘was eerie, acrid and ominous.’ Says Sergeant Twigg¹³ of the intelligence section: ‘The immediate countryside before densely covered by grape vines and olive trees was bare of any foliage when the bombing attack ceased and the ground was practically regularly covered by large and small bomb craters.’

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A thick blanket of dust and smoke rising hundreds of feet blurred or blotted out many a man's view. Under cover of this the gliders and then the paratroops came in, and most of them were down by nine o'clock.

The majesty of the arrival of this armada and the descent certainly awed but definitely did not demoralise the New Zealanders. Action came as a relief—almost a grim joy—after cowering under cover for a fortnight of air raids, and the remark, ‘Just like the duckshooting season!’, was widespread at the time. Indeed the First World War was worlds away from this unique invasion, in which the enemy, the artillery, and the machine guns came from the sky, and a solid front no longer existed; each man was a front in himself, and the enemy could strike from in front, from both flanks, from behind, separately or simultaneously. In this new war the very moments were precious; in those first deadly, vulnerable ten minutes hundreds of paratroops were slain as they swayed and stumbled and groped and grouped over 5 Brigade's ground.

Captain Campbell (D Company): ‘My first thought was “This is an airborne landing”. I still have vivid recollections of the gliders coming down with their quiet swish, swish, dipping down and swishing in.’

Private Fellows,¹⁴ (HQ Company): ‘The first thing that met my startled gaze when I looked out was the descending paratroopers. My throat seemed to get very dry all of a sudden and I longed for company.’

A lance-corporal parachutist from Hamburg: ‘My parachute had scarcely opened when bullets began spitting past me from all directions. It had felt so splendid just before to jump in sunlight over such wonderful countryside, but my feelings suddenly changed. All I could do was to pull my head in and cover my face with my arms.’

Some gliders landed on the terraces stretching from 22 Battalion's headquarters down to the beach north of Pirgos; some landed in the valley east of Battalion Headquarters; most landed in the gravel bed of the Tavronitis River, above and below the bridge. No aircraft landed on the airfield on 20 May, but a few troop-carriers landed on the beach late in the day.

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The Luftwaffe crossed the coast a mile or more west of the airfield—out of effective Bofors range—and flew inland at about 500 feet. The two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns on Point 107 could not tackle effectively such low-flying aircraft. The planes turned towards Maleme in a broad swing, skimming low over A and B Companies. The slow troop-carriers do not seem to have been fired at by all of the ten Bofors round the airfield, an angry point with the infantry at the time and later.¹⁵

Glider and parachute troops numbering probably 500 (perhaps 600) landed in 22 Battalion's area, and at once the day's battle splintered into a confused series of individual actions by the companies, which are best followed by attempting to trace each company's experiences in turn. One enemy group landed by Pirgos village itself in Headquarters Company's area.

Headquarters Company (Lieutenant Beaven, three officers and about sixty men, mostly administrative staff not previously riflemen) was completely isolated all day from Battalion Headquarters. It was at once cut off when several gliders silently swam down between it and Battalion Headquarters, followed by perhaps ten, perhaps twenty, plane-loads of parachutists plus a small field gun. A second wave of parachutists fell about mid-morning. The invaders suffered severe losses, but the well-equipped survivors rallied to form awkward strongpoints in grape-vines and trees. These strongpoints made movement very difficult indeed. Within an hour the company suffered its most severe loss of the day. Sergeant-Major Matheson's¹⁶ platoon, out on a limb to the south, was cut off and overrun. Details are slender, but a survivor, Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant Woods,¹⁷ describes the scene: ‘Over comes the Hun with Stukas,

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Junkers and gliders, not mentioning the 109s. By the time the Stukas and 109s had left us the air round about seemed to be alive with Junkers, and believe me the birds that flew out of them were pretty thick. They looked impossible as the odds must have been easily 15 to 1.’ Shooting was good until grenades got the front trenches, Matheson received his mortal wound, and the platoon position fell.

Private Cowling¹⁸ tells of Matheson's stand. Just before the invasion broke, Matheson ordered Corporal Hall¹⁹ and Cowling over to the company cookhouse on fatigue. They had covered about half the distance when ‘we came across two signallers who said “The game is on you two, use that spare slit trench.”’ From the slit trench, facing towards Matheson's men, Cowling saw ‘quite a few paratroops in this area, they were all easy meat, those that came around…. the Transport Platoon were using machine guns. Boy, and weren't they using them too! We later found out they were enemy stuff they had conquered.’ Matheson's men held their own with ease until the Germans got a good footing in an adjacent brick barn. Then the story changed abruptly. Fire and grenades from this commanding position brought the end. In their slit trench Hall and Cowling bagged several paratroops (one, caught in an olive tree, dangled helplessly but fatally only six inches from the earth), and at one stage Hall said: ‘Hey, you're having all the fun, let's change ends for a while.’ But after the capture of the barn snipers shot Hall through the right eye, and then Cowling was hit and fainted. He was picked up by Germans next day and, together with about a dozen other wounded, was taken to the battalion RAP, which had been captured by that time.

Even after taking Matheson's position, the enemy got no further towards Pirgos village; he was content to retain small patches among the olives and try to edge westwards along the coast to the focal point—the all-important airfield. Headquarters Company continued to hold Pirgos. Company Sergeant-Major Fraser was annoyed that anti-personnel mines covering approaches to the company area had not been primed so as to allow any relieving counter-attack complete freedom of movement. He and Lieutenant Clapham had hastened to the

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company's western defences to encourage men to leave trenches and fire at paratroops in the air. This encouragement was not needed by a section commanded by the First World War veteran, Jack Pender, an armourer sergeant attached to 22 Battalion. Pender, with his corporal, Hosking,²⁰ had recently been mounting Browning machine guns out of aircraft in various other battalion positions. His section covered paratroops falling twenty-five yards along the front. Very few of them landed alive. But two automatic weapons, set up in a blind spot, gave trouble all day.

Satisfied that the company's western front was holding well, Lieutenant Clapham, this time accompanied by Sergeant Charlie Flashoff, next set off to the east, to Corporal Moore's²¹ section, on the right flank near the sea and forward of Company Headquarters. Clapham and Flashoff were wounded and incapacitated by grenades. Moore's post held out, and so did another strongpoint by the beach commanded by Corporal Hosie.²² Hosie's men had an anxious time when, about 4 p.m., a large party of Germans marched down by the beach towards them, ‘but a three-inch mortar [actually a 75 millimetre French field gun of C Troop 27 Battery] landed about six bombs right smack on top of them, and what was left took cover in a house on the beach.’ The seaward posts kept survivors pinned down until dark.

Padre Hurst and a group of ‘cooks and bottlewashers’, manning a small defensive position and soon using up the few rounds of ammunition they possessed, were joined by Jack Pender, who ducked back to his armoury and returned with a bucket of bullets. ‘They kept us going till we moved out. Also with his help we got a German field piece going and he cleaned up a machine gun nest in a cottage—that was our greatest triumph.’ The field gun fired again at dusk.

The afternoon seems to have been relatively quiet for Headquarters Company. Twice during the day Private Fellows prowled around Pirgos quite freely, once filling his tin hat with eggs ‘and dropped the lot when a Jerry fired, missing my ear by about 1 ½ inches', and once ‘finding two of our privates in

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sole possession of the church, Arthur (“Wog”) Alexander²³ and Frank Mence,²⁴ who drank the holy water and complained about tadpoles.’ After an anxious morning the company commander, Lieutenant Beaven, seems to have remained confident. Beaven, his telephone wires cut, his signallers prevented by fire at 10.30 a.m. from further attempts to contact Battalion Headquarters by visual methods, had been in touch but once with the outside world. A cool and resourceful runner, Frank Wan²⁵ (his companion signaller, Bloomfield,²⁶ dead),²⁷ had come from one and a half miles away to report that Wadey's platoon at the AMES was not in contact with enemy troops. That was all. Beaven sent runners to Battalion Headquarters and to B Company. None returned. The day dragged through in complete isolation. Three hours before sunset Beaven wrote this concise report and gave it to the indefatigable Wan, who was captured but hid and preserved the report in his boot until the war ended:

Paratroops landed East, South, and West of Coy area at approx 0745 hrs today. Strength estimated 250. On our NE front 2 enemy snipers left. Unfinished square red roof house south of sig terminal housing enemy MG plus 2 snipers. We have a small field gun plus 12 rounds manned by Aussies. Mr. Clapham's two fwd and two back secs OK. No word of Matheson's pl except Cpl Hall and Cowling.

Troops in HQ area OK.

Mr Wadey reports all quiet. No observation of enemy paratroops who landed approx 5 mls south of his position.

Casualties: killed Bloomfield
wounded Lt Clapham, Sgt Flashoff, Cpl Hall, Pte Cowling, Brown.²⁸

Attached plans taken off Jerry.

G. Beaven, Lt
OC HQ Coy

1650 hrs

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At dusk the enemy began collecting and calling the roll where Matheson's forward post had been. Forming a gun crew and manning the small field gun, Pender, Fraser and Hosking fired at point-blank range against the assembly point. ‘That quietened them down quite a bit,’ said Pender. They were as cheeky as hell, shouting out to each other and giving orders, but the field gun quietened them down except that orders turned to squeals and yells, which was very good.’

After dark a party of five went out to find that B Company had gone. Beaven checked for himself, found this true, but being reluctant to leave, held on until towards 2 a.m., when a party from 28 (Maori) Battalion passed through towards the airfield and returned in about half an hour. This sent Headquarters Company on the move too. In the night as the withdrawal began the captured German field gun got its own back with the last shot it would ever fire for 22 Battalion. Somebody stumbled against and fired the gun. The recoiling piece smashed into a man who cried: ‘My bloody leg is gone!’ Taking their four wounded with them (there were also three dead, apart from Matheson's platoon), Headquarters Company left Pirgos.

Kennedy²⁹ and Wallace³⁰ had some trouble in getting volunteers to help the wounded: ‘however several Aussies, probably ack-ack gunners, did a grand job.’ Charlie Flashoff, sorely wounded, lay on the stretcher; Barney Clapham, supported with a comrade on either side, struggled along. Another wounded man was taken in pick-a-back relays. Unhappily, somewhere about dawn, they ran into German light automatic fire. Ordered by someone to leave stretcher cases, Kennedy and Wallace joined others in the party and headed towards 23 Battalion area. Pirgos was handed over to the enemy, ‘why,’ writes Private Fellows, ‘I have never been able to find out. At no time during the night or day had Pirgos been occupied by the Jerries. A few had come through and a few stayed, but only the dead ones.’

C Company (Captain Johnson³¹) had a strength of just over 100, including signallers and stretcher-bearers, seven Brens,

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six Browning machine guns ‘borrowed’ from unserviceable RAF planes, nine tommy guns, and no mortars. Thirteen Platoon (Sergeant Crawford³²), verging on to the beach, covered the northern end of the airfield; 15 Platoon (Lieutenant Sinclair³³), facing the riverbed and the bridge, held the western end and was to halt any attack coming across the almost dry riverbed; 14 Platoon (Lieutenant Donald) and Company Headquarters, by the southern end of the airfield, would hold any attack coming from inland. A counter-attack by 23 Battalion was expected. In C Company's area there was one serious weakness: a large number (about 370) of Air Force, Fleet Air Arm and Naval men (MNBDO³⁴ gunners), despite (it should be remembered) repeated requests by Johnson and Andrew, did not come under 22 Battalion's command. They retained their independence almost to the point of absurdity; even the current password differed among the three groups. Furthermore, not one serviceable Allied aircraft now remained in Crete. Many a soldier still wonders why this unwieldy group was not briskly cleared out of the way and the airfield destroyed.³⁵

All sections, amply stocked with ammunition, were well dug in in partly covered slit trenches, two or three men to each trench. Mines were laid, but on strict orders from Force Headquarters were never primed because they might have blown up friendly Greeks. There was another weakness: at the south-west corner of C Company's position, where this company ended and D Company began near the concrete and wood bridge crossing the Tavronitis River, the RAF had its tented camp. The camp and the large number of airmen about it made it impossible for 15 Platoon to tie up thoroughly with the northern platoon of D Company: ‘one good defence line would have run straight through the officers' mess—unthinkable!’ Straight through this weak spot the Germans came.

The breakfast-time bombing, raising a sudden, blinding dust-cloud round C Company's positions, killed five men and

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wounded one in 14 Platoon and Company Headquarters close by. The dust hid the arrival of the first gliders: Company Headquarters saw no gliders at all. When the air cleared, men looking east saw the blue-grey uniformed, swaying paratroops landing round Pirgos (Lieutenant Beaven's area), and plenty more were coming down to the west, over the riverbed, from about 800 yards south of 15 Platoon up to the river mouth and even, fatally, into the sea itself.

Almost simultaneously an attack began from the riverbed against the twenty-three men of 15 Platoon. Shingle banks running north and south gave good cover. These glider troops directly in front of the platoon developed increasingly heavy fire. But the platoon, stoutly resisting, held on, halting an attack after the Germans are said to have taken the anti-aircraft guns in front of the platoon. ‘These guns lacked certain parts and did not fire a shot,’ says Lieutenant Sinclair.³⁶ ‘The parts were to have arrived days before the battle. Crews didn't accept our suggestion to prepare positions near ours, and only two survived the blitz. These two joined Lance-Sergeant Vallis³⁷ in his pit.’ The sergeant accepted a helping hand with a Browning automatic salvaged from a plane and mounted on bits and pieces of aircraft. The sights were a conglomeration of soap, chewing gum and screws. With unlimited ammunition Vallis fired this gun until it was white hot—and then still kept on firing.

Next the Germans, having been checked on the front, swung slightly to attack on the northern end of 15 Platoon (Corporal Haycock's³⁸ section), aiming towards the western section of 13 Platoon near the beach.

The one phone link between C Company and Battalion Headquarters was out—bombing had cut the telephone wires.

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Signals for assistance in an emergency had been discussed (15 Platoon once had considered hanging a white or coloured cloth on a tree, and other men in the battalion remember vague suggestions of waving copies of the Weekly News), but none of these rather futile arrangements was made final, and perhaps just as well.

So from now on messages had to be sent by runner. At 10 a.m. Captain Johnson, believing the enemy was boring through the north flank of 15 Platoon to 13 Platoon, unsuccessfully sought permission to counter-attack with the two I tanks, which were dug in and camouflaged between 14 Platoon and Battalion Headquarters. These carefully hidden tanks, Colonel Andrew's trump card, were to be used only as a last resort. Unaided, therefore, the two northern platoons held this attack.

While the northern enemy party opened its at first unavailing attack against Corporal Haycock's area to the south, a far more formidable party, leaping and firing from behind one protecting pylon to the next, had crossed the riverbed and seized intact the concrete and wood bridge over the Tavronitis. The first crack in Maleme's defences was now being made. About 11 a.m. the enemy began his first attempt to drive a wedge between C and D Companies in a thrust on Battalion Headquarters. He was now in the vulnerable RAF camp, a cat among pigeons, and 15 Platoon, pinned to its positions, was now under fire from south, west and north. ‘Yet,’ says Sinclair, ‘with plenty of good targets and an interesting attack, we were not unduly worried. We seemed to be holding our own, so we just hung on and hoped. New uninitiated troops do not know much fear.’

The German spearhead, planting parties by the camp to fire across the airfield towards 13 Platoon by the sea (a long way, but movement on the opposite side of the airfield was clearly visible), moved on towards Battalion Headquarters, on Point 107. In front of the enemy, making matters worse, went unarmed airmen, either demoralised and fleeing or being driven deliberately as a screen. As the Germans, with the airmen in front of them, neared Battalion Headquarters, Captain Johnson sent Lance-Sergeant Keith Ford³⁹ (14 Platoon) and his section across to help. Colonel Andrew sent them back with the words: ‘You look after your own backyard—I'll look after mine.’

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After returning to Captain Johnson, Sergeant Ford and two men were sent out once more, across the angry airfield to 13 Platoon. They used what cover they could find in approaching the eastern edge of the landing strip where it was narrowest, then ‘ran like hell’. One man, Private Porter,⁴⁰ was lost on the way. Thirteen Platoon was to take a more active role by joining and supporting the hard-pressed 15 Platoon, still holding out in the middle section and at Platoon Headquarters. But the enemy (near the river mouth on the northern-most positions of 15 Platoon), firing heavily across the airfield towards the sea, made any such move impossible. Johnson could not check why no advance was succeeding. He could see fire from the RAF camp area, but not that from the river mouth. By this time, noon, Lieutenant Sinclair (15 Platoon) had fainted through lack of blood, and his batman, Jim Farrington,⁴¹ had been shot through the head. Although hit through the neck, Sinclair had kept going for an hour, trying unsuccessfully with tracer and incendiary bullets to ignite a petrol dump alongside a stack of RAF bombs.

Near Sinclair a soldier had given his life in one of the most gallant acts in the history of the battalion. When a grenade landed in his trench, Lance-Corporal Mehaffey⁴² unhesitatingly flung his helmet over it and then jumped on it in an attempt to save the lives of his two comrades. Both of his feet were blown off and he died soon after. Mehaffey was recommended for a posthumous Victoria Cross. ‘His behaviour and gallantry throughout the entire scrap until his final act of sacrifice was indeed of a high order,’ wrote Captain Johnson.

Before continuing the company story, here is a fragment from 13 Platoon. Forbes-Faulkner⁴³ had the north-west section of 13 Platoon (that is, closest to 15 Platoon), with his headquarters in the small chapel. The field of fire was to cover a landing by sea. He writes: ‘In checking with the Aussie Bofors crews, their

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password and ours was not the same, nor did either coincide with the Fleet Air Arm…. On the morning of the invasion the Aussie Bofors gun did not fire a shot, I don't know the reason why. We were a fair distance from most of the activity, and the first intimation that we had that they were close to us was when we saw a Hun hop into the Bofors pit and cover the gun with a Swastika flag. Joe Hamlin⁴⁴ shot him as he came out.’ The westerly half of the section held their own at first; later in the day they were taken prisoner and marched off. The rest of the section held out in their pits, getting ‘a few more as they moved towards the chapel, probably thinking it was defended, but from our position we nicely enfiladed them at about 25 to 50 yards.’

About 2 p.m. a spirited lieutenant from an English light anti-aircraft battery led eight men (two ‘bomb happy’), survivors from his troop of Bofors guns by the south-east edge of the airfield, into Company Headquarters. They volunteered to join C Company as riflemen and were armed. Captain Johnson carries on the story:

‘At 3 p.m. [Johnson is two hours out: the attack began just after 5 p.m.] the long and eagerly awaited order to counter attack with support of the two tanks arrived from Battalion Headquarters. I had discussed with the tank troop commander the day before just how we would work together. The troop commander, believing the Germans would have no anti-tank weapons capable of hurting a Matilda, feared nothing except enemy soldiers on top of his tanks. He asked that his tanks should be kept sprayed with small-arms fire. I asked how we on foot would communicate with the tank. He told me to press a bell at the back of the tank, and the tank commander would open the turret and talk. When the counter attack started, contact was attempted with the tank crews. Nobody answered the bell. [Throughout the entire war, no tank man ever seemed to answer the bell, and the exposed infantryman had to hammer vigorously on the tank with rifle, tommy gun, or metal helmet before the turret would open suspiciously.] Lieutenant Donald commanded the attackers on foot: 14 Platoon (about 12 below strength) was organised as two sections with a third section of

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gunner volunteers. The tanks left their concealed positions at 3.15 p.m. [5.15 p.m.] and moved west past Company Headquarters along the road towards the river in single file about 30 yards apart. The first tank proceeded up to the river, firing as it went, until it stopped in the riverbed.’

Sinclair, regaining consciousness for most of the afternoon, saw the tank ‘go down under the big bridge and out a little further west where it came to a halt. The place was seething with enemy plainly visible in the long grass. They seemed uncertain what to do.’

Johnson continues: ‘The tank went no further. Apparently the turret had jammed. The crew surrendered.’ [This comment is based on a report given Johnson by Corporal ‘Bob’ Smith,⁴⁵ who was subsequently a prisoner of war employed on the airfield before escaping to Egypt. Sinclair has another version: some sort of anti-tank rifle burst through to the engine, the crew at pistol point were forced to service the damaged part but instead ruined it permanently. ‘From where I was,’ Sinclair goes on, ‘I thought this business with the tank and the men was futile. Of course I could see more perhaps of the opposition lying in wait.’

‘The second tank turned about before reaching the bridge and came back past Company Headquarters on the Maleme road,’ says Johnson. ‘It had not fired a shot. Bellringing was unavailing. When the second tank turned 14 Platoon was under withering fire from the front and southern flank. Their position was hopeless. Those who were able to withdrew, using the lee side of the tank for shelter. Donald, himself wounded, led only eight or nine men back, most of them wounded, from this brave but disastrous counter attack. The English officer (unfortunately I never learned his name) was killed in this attack after pleading with me to let him take part and lead a section.’

It was obvious now that the Germans were well consolidated —they did not waste time digging in, nor had they need to. Johnson sent a runner to Colonel Andrew with the disturbing news that the counter-attack had failed. Fifteen Platoon⁴⁶ and

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the western section of 13 Platoon seemed to have been overcome; 14 Platoon was practically finished, and the cooks, stretcher-bearers, and Company Headquarters staff alone could not hold the inland perimeter of the airfield for long. The company would probably hold out until dark, but reinforcements would be needed then. The CO replied in his last message to get through to Johnson on 20 May: Hold on at all costs.’

Speaking of his men, Johnson pays a tribute to Company Quartermaster-Sergeant Vaughan,⁴⁷ who worked untiringly to supply food and water, and says: ‘The surviving men were in excellent heart in spite of their losses. They had Not had enough. They were first rate in every particular way and were as aggressive as when action was first joined.’ He also speaks movingly of the performance this day of all the men in his company, mainly from Hawke's Bay and Gisborne: ‘I'll never know men like them again.’

Late in the afternoon two Ju52s attempted to land on the airfield, but the mauled company was by no means carrion yet. All weapons opened up and the planes, spitting back small-arms fire, swung out to sea.

From after dark until midnight German patrols were active in the neighbourhood. In the night no C Company patrols could contact Battalion Headquarters. Its old area was now found to be occupied by Germans, a severe shock indeed. Simultaneously (and here is another instance where the fate of the airfield hung delicately in the balance), a company 114 strong from 28 (Maori) Battalion came confidently right to the eastern edge of the airfield and failed by a furlong or so to contact C Company. This would be bitter news to C Company men when they heard some days (or, in some cases, several years) later of the Maoris' thrust. The company now believes the Maoris came to within but 200 yards of Company Headquarters and 14 Platoon, but halted by the knocked-out Bofors guns, and hearing only the shouts and tramplings of noisy German patrols, concluded that the airfield had fallen and pulled back. The position of Company Headquarters and 14 Platoon was marked clearly on maps in the hands of other battalions and even as far back as Creforce Headquarters. Had the Maoris made contact, C Company is confident that with Maori reinforcements it would have held out all next day (21 May),

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still denying the airfield to the enemy, despite the certainty of heavy casualties. In that event, the story of Maleme would have changed with a vengeance.

For three hours after midnight patrols failed to find A, B and D Companies. A man conspicuous for his one-man patrol activities was Peter Butler,⁴⁸ over from Headquarters Company; his explorations were of paramount importance and greatly helped the evacuation from the airfield. Reluctantly convinced that no support was coming, now that the battalion apparently was gone, and believing that his few remaining men on the inland side of the airfield could not withstand the inevitable dawn attack, Johnson, after conferring with Donald, decided to withdraw at 4.30 a.m. on 21 May. The lateness of the time is worth remembering: dawn was approaching. Johnson and his company had stuck to their posts nobly: their withdrawal from the fateful airfield was a bitter reward for their day of steadfast defiance. A runner went to tell 13 Platoon and returned saying the place was bare.⁴⁹ Every man removed his boots and hung them round his neck. Critically wounded men were made as comfortable as possible and left with food and water. The southern wire round 14 Platoon's defences was cut and, in single file, the wounded interspersed here and there, they set off. One man was practically carried, stooped over the back of a friend; another crawled all the way to 21 Battalion on his hands and knees. No stretchers were available; the party could not have carried them in any case, for they had to be prepared to fight their way out. They⁵⁰ went past the snoring Germans to the

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right, through the vineyards separating C Company from A Company, up to A Company's deserted headquarters, on to the road, up the hill past a grounded and ghostly glider until, after dawn, they reached a wood near 21 Battalion's positions. As they fell dead-tired under the trees, German planes began the morning hate.

D Company (Captain Campbell) had about 70 men, supported by two machine guns of 27 Battalion on makeshift mountings, an uncertain number of Bren and tommy guns, and no mortars. The right boundary included the bridge over the Tavronitis River. Near here 18 Platoon (Sergeant Sargeson) was placed; 17 Platoon (Lieutenant Jim Craig⁵¹) was next, with 16 Platoon (Lance-Sergeant Freeman⁵²) further inland on higher ground on the company's left flank. The last two platoons looked down on to the riverbed and across to flat ground on the other side. About a quarter of a mile south was an outpost, a platoon from 21 Battalion.

As the platoons were out of touch with each other during the day, their experiences will be treated in turn.

The most northerly platoon in D Company, 18 Platoon, 30- odd strong in Greece and wasted to only twenty-two by 20 May, was extraordinarily thin on its vital ground. Throughout 20 May Sergeant Sargeson had no contact whatsoever with C Company (on the airfield, on the platoon's right flank) or even with his company's remaining two platoons.

On the point of breakfast-time ‘it suddenly became expedient to keep your head down while our slit trenches concertina-ed in and out under the grandfather of all blitzes.’ Hard on this, Sargeson recollects, ‘the planes were literally wing-tip to wing-tip and all disgorging a skyful of multi-coloured parachutes. … I remember being fascinated by the spectacle and remarking to Corporal Bob Boyd⁵³ who was beside me: “Look at that Bob, you'll never see another sight like that as long as

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you live”—and Bob's reply, eminently practical and much more useful to the cause as he picked up his rifle, “Yes, and if we don't shoot a few of the b—s we won't live too bloody long.” ‘

Any scattered paratroops who had overshot their intended mark west of the river to land near 18 Platoon's positions were dealt with; but detachments from the great bulk of the invaders, landing well out of range, formed up as the day grew older and attacked in orthodox fashion as well-equipped infantry. Eighteen Platoon's two-man picket on the bridge (Smale⁵⁴ and Barrett⁵⁵), according to plan fell back towards a position near the RAF cookhouse to cover the bridge from there with a Boys anti-tank rifle which Arthur Holley⁵⁶ had devotedly lugged out of Greece. Barrett was killed and Smale soon wounded and later captured, and this tenuous grip on the highly important bridge was almost immediately lost. Corporal Neil Wakelin's⁵⁷ group obviously could do nothing about the bridge, under which, protected by pylons, an enemy machine gun and mortar (subsequently identified by a dud round) promptly took post and offensive action, pinning down and pounding the handful of defenders in the two nearest pits (Gillice's⁵⁸ and Minton's⁵⁹). Accordingly, by mid-morning, with the noise of battle unabated, Platoon Headquarters saw the first minute fall in the avalanche which, starting at Maleme, would sweep the British from Crete: through the dust some 250 yards away a few of these men were being shepherded through the wire and dazedly gesticulating back not to fire. One of these captives, Arthur Holley, writes of their severe bombing, himself being blown up with a grenade, and of casualties widespread among his companions.

Sargeson, checking up, found Wakelin ‘all right, and agreed that his position and mine were now the front line. We knew

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nothing of C Company. Warfare continued spasmodically with a fair bit of activity directed at us from the M.G. and mortar behind the bridge. However, no direct frontal assault was made and we sat tight. If the enemy had realised how thin we were I don't doubt he would have dug us out but we parried shot for shot and I suppose he was guessing—or else was busy with C Company so that he could later outflank us.’

In the late afternoon, expecting an evening assault on what now was clearly the left flank of the whole airfield position, the sergeant went back (‘encountering no one except carnage’) to Company Headquarters, to be told by Captain Campbell that reinforcements were nil. The platoon had in fact received reinforcements at the beginning of the bombing: fourteen RAF ground crew, as arranged. These fourteen men, willing enough to be sure, were of no use, quite untrained as they were for any infantry task and hopelessly ill equipped, with no rifles and perhaps a few. 38 pistols. All clad in deceptive blue, they were hastily camouflaged by New Zealand greatcoats in the boiling sun. Nearly all were wearing light shoes which were soon in ribbons.

Returning to his platoon and learning that Wakelin's post had been in close action, Sargeson investigated with Corporal Boyd. Two survivors overlooked in their hole (Nickson⁶⁰ and Velvin⁶¹) told how, surprised from behind, Wakelin and Doole⁶² had been led down to the canal and apparently tommy-gunned. When the four got back to Platoon Headquarters, darkness was approaching. Sargeson ‘decided that I could not prevent infiltration in the dark and that rightly or wrongly, I would not sit out on a spur but would withdraw my few men and consolidate with the rest of the company. And believe me we literally tiptoed away into the night and heard quite clearly the enemy moving in behind us (the Germans' habit of calling to one another in the dark advertised their presence).’

They ‘were a little disturbed’ to find the rest of the company had also withdrawn a short distance, and Captain Campbell and Company Sergeant-Major Fowler, with no information on the situation generally, were about to send a two-man patrol to Battalion Headquarters.

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While watching the gliders come in 17 Platoon saw seventeen land along the dry riverbed of the Tavronitis. The first one grounded on the hillside between positions occupied by Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Craig. At least five of the occupants were killed or wounded, and Craig with his batman, Bert Slade,⁶³ were returning to their position with two unwanted prisoners when ‘a Jerry machine gun opened up and settled the problem for me, missing both Slade and myself but copping the two prisoners dead centre.’ Craig and Slade felt sure they had cleaned up the occupants of the glider, but the balance (four) were glimpsed making for the ridge just above them and disappeared in the direction of the coast gun. The full crew of a glider, hidden by a slight promontory, advanced together towards Allan Dunn's⁶⁴ section, but the section posts of Tom Walsh⁶⁵ and Kettle⁶⁶ (the latter receiving ‘marvellous assistance from a couple of Air Force chaps [who] were great shots and knew no fear’) got the lot. ‘Our firearms were most inadequate,’ comments Kettle. ‘My section was issued with a Bren gun a few days before the blitz, with instructions not to fire indiscriminately with it as it was necessary to conserve ammo. We obeyed this instruction most explicitly unfortunately, for it was discovered upon attempting our first burst at the enemy that the gun was without a firing pin.’ They gathered enemy equipment, including a spandau, which gave good service until ammunition ran out at 12.30 p.m. Barney Wicksteed did good work as a sniper.

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Tom Walsh's section, with one trench blown in by a bomb, was fully occupied in firing at its front, the riverbed, ‘but,’ says Danny Gower,⁶⁷ ‘Tom Walsh suddenly turned round with his tommygun and dropped three Germans suddenly behind us, the three enemy coming right out of the olive groves. We took turns then facing front and rear, but after a while there was not much doing.’ Sergeant Forbes-Faulkner⁶⁸ saw across the riverbed Greek civilians being used methodically ‘during the day as cover while the Jerries organised themselves.’

As far as 17 Platoon is concerned, there seems to have been only one casualty; scattered paratroops (about twenty fell in the platoon area) had been quickly knocked out; the positions apparently held firmly all day, but movement in the afternoon brought fierce and most accurate fire from across the riverbed. ‘No. 17 Pln had a fairly easy time of it most of the day,’ writes Jim Craig. ‘As my position gave me a clear view of all my positions and I was expecting at any time to receive orders to counterattack, I did not deem it advisable to stray very far from my Platoon H.Q. where I could be contacted by Coy. Cmdr. or Bn. The sections seemed to be O.K. and had quite capable section commanders and I kept in contact with them by runner, however I now feel that on looking back I should have perhaps taken matters into my own hands, as we had cleaned out what enemy had come our way, in the nature of Paratroops and Gliders, and made a counter attack to retrieve No. 18's lost position, but it would have left our own position and the right flank of 16 Pln wide open.’ About 6 p.m. (according to Pat Thomas⁶⁹) a runner began visiting sections with an instruction to move back to Company Headquarters in groups of two or three, for the enemy had the area covered with machine guns.

On the left flank of D Company, 16 Platoon held positions on the hillside overlooking the dry riverbed, with a good field of fire but out of sight of the rest of the company. The platoon commander was Sergeant Vince Freeman. The pounding from the air was severe; there were bomb holes everywhere, but not

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one casualty. ‘There was not a tree standing in my area and our trenches were half filled in,’ writes Corporal Pemberton.⁷⁰ ‘“Windy” Mills⁷¹ had a Boys anti-tank rifle tied up in an olive tree,’ recalls Harry Wigley.⁷² ‘He had ideas of shooting at troop-carrying planes. I don't think that gun was ever found, nor the tree it was tied to.’

Stray paratroops (their chief object apparently was keeping the riverbed defenders occupied while the main force beyond landed and organised) soon were cleaned up by 16 Platoon, which dealt as well with two stray gliders, and also, the platoon fears, with several blue-dressed RAF men (‘our big worry’) escaping into the hills. A furiously swearing Private Gilbert,⁷³ his Bren full of dirt from the bombing, had to take it down, clean it, and assemble it before opening up with marked effect on gliders and their occupants in the riverbed. But every time the gun fired it sent up a cloud of dust which drew heavy machinegun fire and mortaring from the enemy quickly grouping across the river. Two guns from 27 (MG) Battalion gave a spirited performance until ammunition ran low in the afternoon. A wounded machine-gun officer (Second-Lieutenant Brant⁷⁴) was given first aid in Sergeant Freeman's pit: ‘he was offended because I pulled his identity discs out to check up just who was behind me. Wanted to know if I thought he was a Jerry.’

Apart from bursts of counter-fire from across the river, the rest of the morning for 16 Platoon passed ‘rather quietly…. In the afternoon there were no targets offering … nothing of interest’; it was ‘a reasonably quiet day and [the platoon] handled what there was around.’ Germans had worked up to under the riverbank in front of the platoon but came no further, content to call out in English, ‘Come down here, Comrade’. ‘They desisted in this when someone invited them to stick their— square heads above the bank and he'd give them Comrades.’

‘That night,’ writes Pemberton, who was in charge of half

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of the platoon, ‘16 Platoon was sitting very snug and in control of the position, and in the early morning I was surprised when Tom Campbell contacted me and said we were moving out as we could not contact the rest of the Battalion.’ The platoon suffered but one casualty all day: Private Simpson,⁷⁵ shot in the foot. ‘We had hoped that the 21 Battalion would have been allowed to have come down towards [16 Pl] as we were undoubtedly undermanned, and in a real manpowered charge early in day could have swung the tide,’ summed up Sergeant Freeman.

At Company Headquarters some men were redistributed into section posts in the immediate area. Here Captain Campbell's exasperating day from sunrise to dusk (at 8 a.m. his signals post had a direct hit from a bomb) was by no means over: the hardest decision would soon face him. Now, after dark, Sergeant-Major Fowler⁷⁶ and another soldier picked their way to Battalion Headquarters. ‘It was evacuated, all right. But where had they gone?’ Campbell continues: ‘From a conference held before the action there was the plan that we would congregate south if we lost the drome.⁷⁷ Then I thought that my company position might be wanted as a sort of pivot round which a counter attack could swing, especially if the battalion had pulled back to the south. I took stock of wounded nearby. They knew nothing of a counter attack. I decided to pull out. It was then 3 a.m.’

The situation among perplexed, weary, hungry and thirsty

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men was not improved by someone suddenly shouting, ‘Every man for himself!’, for morale had fallen flat with the news that the battalion had gone. Remnants of 18 Platoon with Sergeant Sargeson went far south on a hazardous expedition. Some of 17 Platoon with Lieutenant Craig began making south along the riverbank, were blocked, moved towards Point 107, and at sunrise were surrounded and captured. Company Headquarters, 16 Platoon and various strays followed Captain Campbell along a track running due east, skirted a party of sleeping Germans, met Captain Hanton and other mystified groups from the battalion, and at daybreak were nearing the protection of 5 Brigade's lines higher in the hills.

‘Farewell to Maleme aerodrome and some fine cobbers,’ wrote Sargeson.

A Company (Captain Hanton and Lieutenants Fell⁷⁸ and McAra⁷⁹; exact strength and weapons unknown), with the task of all-round defence, held its fire until parachutists were about 100 feet from the ground. Twenty-two Germans who landed alive in A Company's area were accounted for. Hanton, moving about, ‘saw dozens of corpses on the ground or in the trees…. During the lulls the men grabbed any German stores that landed near them. There were canisters of gear, food, motor cycles and even warm coffee from Hun flasks. The detailed organisation of the force amazed us at the time; we had not realised that so much care could be taken to win a battle.’

After breakfast, which had been delayed in the blitz, Lance- Corporal Chittenden and Bill Croft⁸⁰ had just returned to their pit near the coast gun when, unknown to them, the four German survivors from the glider came over the ridge. As Chittenden and Croft reached their trench Croft's ‘first reaction was to ask for a smoke,’ says Chittenden. ‘Producing tobacco I was passing some to [Croft] when I noticed his hands slowly rising and a look of alarm on his face. Looking upwards I was soon aware of the cause. Four Germans, tommyguns in

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hand, were standing at the end of the trench beckoning to us to get out.’ Croft, rising, received a full and fatal burst; Chittenden next knew that he was grappling with the German leader, rolling over and over, then was stunned by a heavy blow (a shot, or shots). Soon recovering, he walked off for first aid, and but for his wounds would have convinced nobody that four Germans were in the immediate vicinity. What happened to these four Germans is not known. Company Sergeant-Major Harry Strickland⁸¹ ‘was in our Company Headquarters area, not a German in sight, there was a bang, I was on the deck [a stretcher case] wondering what the hell had happened.’ Then along the ridge Lance-Sergeant McWhinnie,⁸² with two or three others, was bailed up, disarmed, and driven ahead until rescued, probably by one of the parties sent out from Battalion Headquarters.

The next excitement came when Germans from the captured RAF camp began moving towards Point 107: there seem to have been two such sallies within two hours, each time with RAF men in front of them. These men, some with their hands up and crying ‘Don't shoot! Don't shoot!’ probably were being used deliberately as a screen. Both parties did not get far, for each time they were dealt with by men from A Company and Battalion Headquarters. The first skirmish was over quickly, and here Regimental Sergeant-Major Purnell⁸³ was killed. The second advance, beginning about 11 a.m. with a larger screen of RAF men, also ended when the Germans behind the screen came under fire.

‘From then on, there was the odd firing and movements from below [from the airfield and environs] but nothing of vital importance as far as we were concerned as a company,’ says Hanton. ‘Later on I tried to see how Fell and McAra were getting on in their platoon positions to the south. Neither a runner, nor myself later, succeeded in getting through. About lunchtime the CSM, Strickland, was shot through the stomach. … For the rest of the day, a comparatively quiet time. I

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don't recall being worried at all over the company's position and casualties.’

At 5 p.m. orders reached Company Headquarters that reserve companies of 23 and 28 Battalions would arrive by 9 p.m., and at that time the company was to pull back to the RAP ridge, and further back at midnight. Orders would come about the second move. ‘Was amazed to hear of it,’ wrote Hanton. ‘Things were not bad with me and T. Campbell whom I met next morning did not go out of his way to suggest that he was in hot water exactly.’

After dark A Company moved a little eastward to the RAP ridge. A runner took news of this move to Fell and McAra, and possibly during this move Fell, silhouetted against the skyline, was killed. The company stayed at this RAP ridge until the early hours of the morning. From there runners had been sent out on both flanks, north and south, to contact C and B Companies. Both returned to say they had gone quite a distance without meeting anybody. ‘All the time I had the gnawing feeling that I was all on my own,’ says Hanton. ‘I got the troops that were left, there might have been 50, and began marching down the RAP road, south-west, away from the coast,’ to meet, greatly to their relief, Campbell and a party of D Company men. After hiding in a gully for most of the next day, the united party went on and reached a new line being formed by 21 and 23 Battalions.

At Battalion Headquarters Colonel Andrew considered the blitz worse than the 1914-18 artillery barrages: ‘I do not wish to experience another one like it.’ He was wounded slightly: ‘a wee piece of bomb that stuck in above the temple, and when I pulled it out it was bloody hot and I bled a bit.’ A man nearby heard the angry Colonel exclaim: ‘We'll go out and get these b—s when the bombing stops.’ In the smoking and dusty aftermath no paratroops landed between Point 107 and the two ends of the airfield, but several gliders did, between Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company, coming down among dust curtains still hanging from the bombing. No glider troops fired on Battalion Headquarters, and the paratroops were too far away. For fifteen minutes pot-shots were taken at an enemy group about 700 yards away, near a dry watercourse

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towards Pirgos village. Two gliders were within 200 yards of Battalion Headquarters; their crews lay hidden and doggo among the plentiful cover of vines until the late afternoon.

An hour after the landing the erratic No. 18 wireless set was working again, and at 10 a.m. reported to Brigade the landing of hundreds of paratroops in the riverbed and further west. ‘It was now so quiet that we [Battalion Headquarters] were walking round freely,’ records Major Leggat, who goes further, saying he ‘was a bit bored from the lack of movement. Things were a bit quiet round Bn Hq and I went up to the top of the hill where I could hear a few shots.’

These shots came from a gunner enterprise. On the hill just above the two 4-inch coast guns, Lieutenant Williams⁸⁴ of 27 Battery had an observation post which soon became useless for observing and directing fire when communications failed. By 10 a.m. the Germans were into the RAF camp, and soon a few had moved on into a clump of olive trees containing the RAF's RAP. From this grove the first advance (a tentative affair) began probing up the lower slopes of Point 107 in an area apparently not covered by A Company. Williams and another artillery officer, Lieutenant Cade,⁸⁵ quickly grouped together straggling British gunners⁸⁶ and airmen (one defensive position was along a stone wall), sent a runner to Colonel Andrew for aid, and then prepared a bayonet attack. Some men stuck knives on their rifles. ‘Very soon a large party (30 to 40) appeared variously uniformed, and partly uniformed men with hands above their heads, many terror-stricken, all yelling and pleading with us not to shoot (meaning at the enemy) but to let them come on or they would be shot in the back,’ writes Twigg, who was ordered on to the hill when the attack began. ‘Among these men were some of our Bn,’ including the battalion provost sergeant (few men would wish a provost sergeant such a fate),

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Gordon Dillon, and Sergeant McWhinnie. ‘When any defences were seen the Jerries just took one or two of us and pushed us ahead onto the defence. The Jerry doing it put a Luger in your back and just pointed. It was easy to understand,’ writes Dillon. ‘They would keep close behind in case of shooting. It was well planned and with the intention of pushing into our positions.’ He adds: ‘Some damn good shots picked the three Jerries off.’

Descriptions from various viewpoints now understandably enough clash, but clearly, with ‘astonishing ease’ the gunners, three or four men with Major Leggat, and Twigg with a few signallers dealt with the very few Germans behind this distressed screen and restored the situation. But the sally had cost Sergeant-Major Purnell his life. ‘During all this time [from 10 a.m. to at least 11 a.m.] parties of men were moving about on the aerodrome and the hill, and it was quite impossible to know who was who; there was a great deal of shouting back and forth and the ubiquitous adjective was the best countersign,’ noted Lieutenant A. R. Ramsay, of the Fleet Air Arm.

A similar assault occurring perhaps three hours later was only partially checked, but this time military etiquette was deliberately flouted. Petty Officer Wheaton (an electrician working on the airfield) and a RAF man, on capture, were given a red swastika flag by a German officer, ordered to march in front of a group of German tommy-gunners, and to shout to parties to surrender. Flag in hand, the hapless petty officer was driven forward until, with a sudden dash for liberty, he landed in a trench where New Zealanders, firing an automatic weapon, drove back the enemy and rescued the airman, now badly wounded. As this drive began, a Marine officer came down from the hill, spoke of ‘a screen of captured RAF men’, and urged Palmer⁸⁷ to take his Bren carrier up to the gun position. ‘We had been told not to move the carriers without orders from Colonel Andrew,’ Palmer relates. ‘I suggested to the officer that he got permission from Battalion Headquarters. Private “Sandy” Booth,⁸⁸ who was present, offered to gather

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a party of men and take them up to cover the gun position. He gathered a party of about 20 RAF and Anti-aircraft men telling them it would be better to fight on the hilltop (Point 107) than be killed like rats in the olive grove.’ A few followed Booth to the top of the hill.

Meanwhile, back at Battalion Headquarters, with all telephone wires cut and useless, messages and information came and went laboriously by runners or patrols who performed many acts of devotion to duty. The four Bren carriers seem to have been overlooked for patrol work. The Colonel himself (and by now some impression should be emerging of the atmosphere and handicaps under which he was working) tried to get through to Headquarters Company, and later went towards B Company to see the situation there for himself. Brigade reported over the air that the enemy was landing in New Zealand uniforms—false—but this was at exactly the time when leaderless groups⁸⁹ of displaced airmen were milling about Point 107, another vexation to the commander upon whom the pressure of events increased mercilessly throughout the day. No news at all came from Headquarters Company at Pirgos perhaps at any time a German thrust would come from the east. At 10.55 a.m. the Colonel asked Brigade by radio if 23 Battalion could contact Headquarters Company. Accordingly,