Final Embarkation

On the morning of 31 May arrangements were made with the embarkation authorities to evacuate those patients and medical personnel who had arrived overnight. At 4 p.m. eighty walking wounded were conducted to Sfakia, and taken on to the beach at 9 p.m. That night the Royal Navy with all the ships available – the cruiser Phoebe, the minelayer Abdiel, and the destroyers Jackal, Kimberley, and Hotspur – carried out the last organised evacuation from the beach. All the walking wounded were embarked in the early hours of 1 June. Fighting troops in organised units and wounded were given priority. A number of medical personnel, including a party of fifty whose embarkation had been arranged, had to give place to other units; and when the evacuation ceased, they, with a large number of British, Australian, and New Zealand troops, remained on the island. Most of these men became prisoners on 1 June, but a few escaped to live in hiding assisted by the Cretans, or to continue the battle in the hills. Odd members of medical units made a belated escape in landing craft used to embark the evacuees, and after a most trying voyage in these open boats reached the coast of Africa behind the British lines in the Western Desert.