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CHAPTER 6
Crete

IN a sense Greece was a prelude—or perhaps the battle around the outer walls before the withdrawal to the citadel, Crete. Here, in this inner keep, all men stood to their arms. Drivers without trucks, artillerymen without guns, cavalrymen without tanks fell in beside the infantrymen, and with rifle and bayonet prepared to face the enemy's airborne attack.

A small section of the Supply Column men who stayed on Crete continued supply work, but most of them joined the ranks of the fighting men, and in the final defence of Galatas made a stand that provides the highlight of this history.

With Greece in German hands, Crete became a shield for General Wavell as he dealt with the complexities of Middle East problems: a newcomer to the desert, Rommel had in a few days swallowed up most of Wavell's hard-won gains in Cyrenaica and now stood on the Egyptian frontier; there was a revolt in Iraq to be put down; and in Syria German infiltration made action imperative. A British division was to be sent to defend Crete and the disorganised Australians and New Zealanders taken back to Egypt, but the task of escorting large convoys was beyond the overworked British Navy, and the Anzacs stayed.

From 25 April until 1 May ships streamed back and forth between Crete and the evacuation beaches of Greece. As each wave of men came ashore on Crete it spread west and south-west, flowing along the narrow tracks between a jumble of hills and seeping away into the shady olive groves.

In the beginning it was a disorganised army, without guns or trucks and seriously lacking in other equipment. With the irrepressible spirit of a phœnix it pieced itself together, gathered in supplies as quickly as they could be brought from Egypt, gave every armed man a fighting role, and set about arranging yet another reception for the constantly following German forces.

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The first organised group of Supply Column men came with the first arrivals on 25 April; the last organised group was that from Kea Island, which arrived on the 27th. Thereafter the stragglers came drifting in in all manner of craft.

The ships of the first wave moved into Suda Bay on the afternoon of Anzac Day. The white walls of Suda clustered at the water's edge; rolling hills went back to snow-capped mountains. And in the foreground, intrusive and incongruous, bomb-scarred ships were discharging into a multitude of small craft shuttling back and forth between ship and shore. The stocking up of Crete was now a top-priority task, and everywhere there was movement, unceasing and urgent.

Landing craft took the men ashore. On the docks they threaded their way through a litter of military stores, wandered on along the palm-lined waterfront, where Bofors squatted in sand-bag nests, and tramped out along the white coast road to the west. At the end of a dusty march they found hot cocoa, chocolate, five cigarettes each and oranges waiting for them at a field kitchen in an olive grove several miles from the docks. From here they moved on to an overnight resting place under olive trees.

The next day the remnants of Supply Column formed up and to the skirl of pipes played by Driver Munro¹ marched the 10 miles to Ay Marina, a small village almost midway between Canea and Maleme, where New Zealand Force Headquarters was set up. As they stepped smartly past a field hospital nurses came out to cheer and to ask whether they thought they had won the war.

A schoolhouse on a terrace facing the sea became Column Headquarters, and the men scattered among the groves, each group selecting and settling around a tree as though it were home. There was a technique to dossing down under an olive tree. Once a man had some security of tenure and knew that the effort was worth while, he would choose the biggest tree he could find so that its ample trunk would provide a windbreak, then hollow out a shallow trench, building up the sides with the excavated spoil. The bottom was then padded with green oats, wheat, tares, grass, or

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whatever was handy, and a groundsheet—if a man was lucky enough to have one—was spread over the top. Whatever bedding a man had was made up on top of this. This was a comfortable arrangement, and though the nights were chilly at first, spring warmth soon provided an ideal climate for alfresco living.

For all its pastoral beauty and apparent remoteness from the pursuing Germans, Crete was not entirely peaceful. Already there were disturbing stories of an attempted sea invasion, and on 29 April sounds of gunfire were heard out at sea. Aircraft were in the sky, and for a day or so at least they were friendly, but it was not long before the familiar hostile drone of enemy machines sent men for cover, and the anti-aircraft guns began to bark.

Crete for a while offered a respite, but no real security and very little chance to rest. There was work to do. Supply Column, of course, had the inevitable job of feeding the troops, and on 28 April—the day of arrival at Ay Marina—a DID was set up at the schoolhouse by No. 1 Echelon supply details.

Next day the remainder of the Column was organised into three groups of about 100 men each. They were:

Headquarters group, consisting of Column Headquarters and J Section. Its officers were Major Pryde, Captain Morris and Lieutenant Julian.²

No. 1 Echelon group, which became a ‘company’ of four platoons under Captain Hook. Platoon commanders were Lieutenants Hastie and McKenzie³ and Second-Lieutenants Hunter⁴ and Henshaw.⁵

No. 2 Echelon group, similarly organised under Captain Boyce. Its platoon commanders were Captain Radford⁶ (an

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Ammunition Company officer), Lieutenants Rawle and Ward, and Sergeant Earl.⁷

Major Davis and Captain McIndoe operated the DID, and Captain Butterfield was requisitioning officer.

Thus reorganised, the Column began an unaccustomed life as an infantry unit.

The following day (30 April) Major-General Freyberg assumed command of the forces on Crete and the responsibility for the island's defence. He might have been excused misgivings. He had a curiously assorted army, much of it poorly equipped and untrained as infantry, and the territory he was to defend was a 160-mile-long island with its most easily defended coast facing away from the enemy. He formed four centres of resistance: Maleme, Suda-Canea, Retimo and Heraklion.

The New Zealanders, under the command of Brigadier Puttick,⁸ prepared defences in the Maleme and Suda-Canea sectors. Maleme, with its vital airfield, was given to 5 Brigade. Galatas, a pivot of the Suda-Canea defences, became eventually the responsibility of the heterogeneous 10 Brigade, which was formed partly from the unequipped ASC, artillery and Divisional Cavalry detachments and grew from what was first known as Oakes Force. Fourth Brigade, less 20 Battalion, and 1 Welch Regiment were west of Canea as a force reserve. The 20th Battalion was later incorporated into 10 Brigade, but as the divisional reserve it was not to be used without permission. Three Greek regiments, each of two untrained battalions, were also allotted places in the defence plan.

In the brief weeks before the German invasion there was much to do. Quite apart from the main task of preparing the island's defences, there was a vast amount of organisation to be performed, supplies to be obtained, and thousands of daily problems to be overcome.

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From the Middle East weapons, ammunition, food and equipment had to be brought. So urgent was the need for these and so inadequate the ports of Crete to handle the ships that the bare necessities of life for the men took second priority, and the thousands without so much as ground sheets, blankets and razors could not be immediately provided with these things from imports. To give each man at least one blanket, a general collection and redistribution was ordered.

Many men had saved their weapons and nothing else, but there were literally thousands without arms, equipment, essential clothing and other necessities, and many without even parent units to look after them. There were estimated to be 10,000 other ranks without arms, and according to an official report, ‘with little or no other employment other than getting into trouble with the civil population.’ All these were an encumbrance to the island's strained resources and were to be shipped away at the earliest opportunity. Most of the Supply Column men were included among those to be sent to Egypt; Captain Boyce's No. 2 Echelon group alone was earmarked from the start for a place in the defence forces. Of the rest of the unit, one group, the Headquarters group, was sent away. Captain Hook's No. 1 Echelon group remained in a state of suspense and in the end stayed to fight.

The Column was split within a few days of its conversion to infantry at the end of April. Boyce's group moved over to Galatas to join Oakes Force, one of the defence groups set up in the early days. Hook's group and Headquarters group awaited developments at Ay Marina, where of course the DID was operating.

About a week later—on 8 May—Headquarters and Hook's group were moved to a camp near Galatas. Nothing was known for sure, but there were rumours that Supply Column, Boyce's group excluded, was to be evacuated, and as if to confirm the story those at the Galatas camp began a march next day towards the port. While approaching Canea they were overhauled by a despatch rider and diverted to Camp A, behind Canea. Major Pryde and Sergeant-Major Pullen, however, embarked on this day at

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Suda as ship's staff on the vessel Rodi, a battered, former Italian vessel that had been captured at Tobruk.

The remainder of Headquarters and Hook's group settled down beneath the thick spread of the gnarled olive trees at Camp A. Life was leisurely and boring. Rations were short, but eggs, bread and oranges could be bought, often by barter with cigarettes. Enemy aircraft were not unduly troublesome, and the only duties were standing guard at the villa near the camp where King George II of Greece, Prince Paul, and their staffs were living.

When the Dutch ship Nieuw Zeeland, bringing among other things six I tanks and their crews and the Kiwi Concert Party—all most welcome—dropped anchor in Suda Bay on 14 May, there was again speculation among Supply Column men on their chances of being taken off. But space was limited, and when Headquarters and J Section had been allowed for, the situation resolved itself into an issue between Hook's group and Ammunition Company, an issue that was settled by a toss of the coin. The ASC padre, Father Henley,⁹ spun the coin. Eyes followed it through the air, and Hook called. As the coin fell to the ground someone in Ammunition Company said, ‘Now hook your frame out of it.’ Hook had lost.

With 1658 passengers—troops and civilians—on board, the Nieuw Zeeland put out from Suda at 1.40 p.m. as low-flying German planes came whining in for an attack.

Evacuation was always a possibility for Hook's group, but it never came. For the next week or so the men lounged about, dug a little, and uneasily watched the increasing activity of the air raiders. Some men helped unload ships.

King George and Prince Paul were visitors to the officers' mess during this period, and several times had cause to borrow a slit trench.

On the morning of the invasion Hook's group was still at the transit camp and still awaiting embarkation. It stayed to fight as part of a battalion under Captain Page, of the Royal Tank Corps. For its task it had, besides rifles, only two Bren guns, and a limited amount of ammunition.

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Boyce's group went through the pre-invasion lull in a different frame of mind. It had for the time being to forget its nostalgic longing for its trucks and for the perks that went with ASC work and go back to foot soldiering. ‘I felt like a cowboy without a horse,’ was how one man put it.

From the time it was peeled away from the rest of the Column, Boyce's group wandered from place to place, and was in five different positions before it finally established itself in what became 10 Brigade's defence line. When it left Ay Marina on 30 April it marched down the coast road to an area near Galatas to join Oakes Force, and the next day moved to Ruin Hill, a commanding feature west of Galatas that took its name from a ruined crofter's cottage on the crest. The group made its presence felt very promptly by seizing three warders from the nearby Aghya prison as suspected fifth columnists, but released them after questioning.

With a broad panorama of land and sea below them, the men settled here for a few days and adjusted themselves to Crete and the makeshift ways of their reorganised lines. Laden with pack, rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition, they could hardly be said to be reconciled to their earthbound existence, but they made the best of things. The cooks, in particular, adapted themselves to their primitive facilities—four-gallon petrol tins. They turned out breakfasts of tinned bacon and beans, and lunches of M and V, and sometimes boiled rice flavoured with dried fruit. With each meal was an issue of one and a half slices of bread a man, margarine and marmalade, golden syrup or cheese, and sometimes bully beef and salmon. To supplement this diet there were always oranges to be bought from the ubiquitous vendors, who throughout the Middle East had a habit of rising as though from the ground in the most unlikely places. On Crete they came with two brimming baskets slung across a donkey, or sometimes the vendor was just a boy carrying a single basket.

On 6 May the men loaded themselves up again and trudged down the prison road, past the massive, stone, white-painted prison that was soon to become a central feature in their lives, and down to where Russell Force was

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established near the Aghya Reservoir, at the foot of Observation Hill. Russell Force, created two days earlier, consisted of Divisional Cavalry and Petrol Company turned infantry. Its commander was Major Russell,¹⁰ of Divisional Cavalry.

Water was simmering over a fire and the men were settling in when an aircraft droned into view. Over went the pots and the fires hissed and spluttered, but the plane turned away with apparent disinterest.

The atmosphere here was pleasant if primitive. The men ate from tins, cooked their food with wood gathered from far and wide, and lived in bivouacs of grass. The main task was to keep lookout from a steeply rising spur just above the camp known as Observation Hill. Training included the siting and digging of section posts along the ridges, linking up with Divisional Cavalry to the west, and the preparation of range cards. From Divisional Cavalry they learned the rudiments of morse and semaphore.

Off duty there were diversions: a pool to swim in, wine to be bought and a few villages to visit, and there was even scope for misbehaviour. CB for the rebellious included climbing Observation Hill and reporting back as many times as possible in daylight, a form of punishment that at least helped to toughen up. On marches there were excellent beaches at Ay Marina where hot, dusty troops could cool off.

Food, which had to be packed across the fields from the road, usually around midnight, was in short supply, and the men contributed ten drachmae each to buy a sheep.

A mock battle staged by 19 Battalion for the benefit of Greek troops was the next disturbance. Boyce's group was on the ‘battleground’ and moved aside. After watching mortars plaster a hill, it moved back to its camp, but the next day—it was now about 13 May—shouldered belongings and moved back to Ruin Hill.

On the 12th a composite brigade, which later became 10 Brigade, had been formed from Oakes Force and 6 Greek

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Battalion. Colonel Kippenberger¹¹ took command on 14 May, and next day Oakes Force became the Composite Battalion. Composite Battalion consisted of three groups, each of which caused some confusion by calling itself a battalion. They were: RMT group, consisting of 270 officers and men of this unit commanded by Captain Veale,¹² of 4 Field Regiment, and with other artillery officers; 4 Field Regiment group, consisting of about 200 officers and men, mainly from this regiment, and commanded by Captain Bliss¹³; and a mixed group under Major Sprosen,¹⁴ of 5 Field Regiment, consisting of 250 men of Petrol Company under Captain McDonagh,¹⁵ about 140 of Supply Column under Captain Boyce, and about 150 officers and men of 5 Field Regiment directly under Major Sprosen.

The brigade consisted of this battalion, a Divisional Cavalry detachment, and 6 and 8 Greek Battalions.

Boyce's group itself was reorganised at this time. Radford became divisional ammunition officer, and the group—a company, really—reformed into three platoons under Lieutenants Rawle and Ward and Sergeant Earl.

Rumours and official and unofficial speculation of the probable invasion date were rife when Boyce's group was absorbed into these forces. There was an air of tension, and suspected fifth columnists, among them the warders from the gaol, were rounded up and imprisoned—the warders in their own lock-ups.

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Preparations were pushed ahead. All this time shipping had been running the gauntlet of prowling German planes, and under the rain of their bombs had been discharging at Suda. Ships were sunk en route and blown up in the harbour, and the supplies reaching Crete were a dribble. There was, fortunately, plenty of wire, plenty of light automatics, a fair number of mortars, six I tanks and sixteen light tanks, and even a few trucks had been brought ashore. Forty-six field guns, each with 300 rounds, reached Crete, but the New Zealanders had been busy forming an artillery force of their own with guns of various nationalities—3.7-inch British howitzers, French and Italian 75-millimetre pieces and a German 77-millimetre—and had been repairing them, devising sights and calibrating. Two items of which there was a desperate shortage were picks and shovels.

The general policy of Creforce was to seek arms and equipment rather than reinforcements, but before the German attack part of the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation arrived with coast and ack-ack guns, searchlights, and crews—a total of 2000-odd Royal Marines.

With this material and equipment the island's forces were formed.

Composite Battalion's positions were on a ridge running south from the sea just west of Galatas. Rising almost from sea level, the ridge ran inland in a series of rounded peaks to Ruin Hill. From there southwards the ground fell away into a valley of fields and groves. The Composite Battalion line followed this ridge inland to Ruin Hill, then with a bend like a hockey stick turned to the east to shield Galatas from the south.

Ruin Hill, a lozenge-shaped feature dotted with trees and crowned by a patch of wheat, was a key point. Northwards the men had a vista that took in Theodhoroi Island (seen over by Ay Marina), the Composite Battalion line (running from Ruin Hill itself, down over the hump of Red Hill to where the ridge tailed away into the sea), the white tents of 7 General Hospital, the village of Galatas, and beyond its off-white walls the town of Canea. To the south-west they could see across to a system of ridges which, piling up to a peak at Observation Hill, near where Divisional Cavalry was still

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in position, curtained Maleme and Galatas from each other. To the south they looked down on quilted olive groves, through which were traced cart tracks and ditches, and onto which was printed a clearing of fields, the white prison road and the prison itself. Behind all this were heaped the White Mountains, the backbone of the western half of the island. To the east and just south of Galatas was Pink Hill, and a little to the right of this and further away Cemetery Hill, where 19 Battalion and 6 Greek Battalion sheltered the other side of Galatas.

From its admirable grandstand Boyce's group saw everything that went on about it. Bombers, becoming ‘more prevalent’, as one man expressively puts it, could be seen hammering at the Suda Bay area and snapping back irritably at the anti-aircraft guns on the surrounding hills. RAF fighters from Maleme were seen to come out and, in spite of German fighter escorts, chase some of the invaders out of the sky. On 18 May one bomber of a flight attacking the port was seen to break away and, swinging over the clearly marked hospital area, let go a stick obviously aimed at a group of men bathing on a nearby beach. The first bomb burst billowed up among a row of bell tents at the northern edge of the hospital area, and from the hill men could be seen running about. Two NCOs were killed. The other three bombs of the stick fell in the sea, one near the bathers. Another incident seen from the hill was the machine-gunning of a small boat in the bay. Soon after another boat was seen to pull out from land and tow the craft in.

Orders to wire its area were received by Boyce's group on 17 May, and the next day dispositions of platoons were settled. As wiring was pushed ahead battle positions were assumed, ranging carried out, arcs of fire determined, LMGs sited, communications linked up and ammunition and water details dealt with. All the while a constant lookout was kept towards the sea.

There were three Bren guns—one to each platoon—but the group had as well a .55-inch Boys anti-tank rifle for which there were three rounds—one, it turned out, a dud.

The wiring plan, finished on 19 May, not a day too early, included a cunningly conceived ‘mat’ rigged by Lieutenant

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Ward in a vineyard to such effect that the invaders almost certainly believed it to be a heavily mined area; possibly it influenced their line of attack, which ignored the hill.

At evening on 19 May Boyce's group was ready in its defences. To the left (east) and slightly to the rear was the 5 Field Regiment group, and to the left of this again Petrol Company, these two forming the southern side of the Composite Battalion sector. To the right and north of Ruin Hill was another artillery ‘company’.

There was one other important Supply Column group on the island: the men who operated the DID and fed the Division. The Crete battle leaves in the mind a confused picture—like a hot mud pool bubbling and spurting steam at random—but through it ran a thread of organisation. It was a frail thread, not always equal to the strain, but along its slender length the army services continued to operate, improvising where necessary and taking the initiative where a break was found. The supply of rations was one of these services.

There was never enough food on Crete, but what there was had to be distributed somehow to the scattered New Zealand units. The prospect was not encouraging: the Column, as a supply unit, was whittled down to a skeleton; transport was negligible; and units were dispersed. The transport problem was solved by reversing the usual procedure: instead of units coming for their rations, the Column delivered to units, and these deliveries were to be maintained through almost continual strafing and bombing.

For the first few days the Division was supplied from an existing DID through a Supply Column officer, Lieutenant McIndoe. As the New Zealand forces grew the Column set up its own DID on 28 April in the disused schoolhouse at Ay Marina. Four Supply Column men, Sergeant Dunn¹⁶ and Drivers Brown,¹⁷ Fisher¹⁸ and Chinnery,¹⁹ were posted

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to the RASC depot at Canea. Although he was a sick man, Dunn kept his little section operating so that the DID was kept fully supplied with its requirements. Of these four, only Brown escaped from the island.

The ration scale was lower than usual, and was further reduced during the campaign on the orders of Force Headquarters. Requisitioned oranges and potatoes supplemented the diet.

The New Zealand DID had to divide its attention between the Maleme and Galatas areas and between the British and Greek ration strengths. In addition to supplying the Division, it fed 600 RAF personnel at Maleme, the 1300 Greeks of 8 Greek Regiment, which was down the prison road opposite the Divisional Cavalry, and 300 Greek officer cadets some miles past Maleme. Before the invasion a reserve of 80,000 rations and 5000 gallons of petrol, oils and lubricants (known to the Army as POL) were stocked up. To enable it to handle its divided area the Column dumped 20,000 of these rations and 500 gallons of POL south-east of Maleme.

To do its work the unit had at first only one 30-cwt truck on loan from 1 Welch Regiment. Later three three-tonners with Cypriot drivers were received, and eventually the fleet grew to five trucks. The Cypriots proved unsatisfactory—they drove poorly on the narrow roads and were unsteady under fire—and Supply Column drivers took over the vehicles.

The insecurity of the DID in no-man's-land between Maleme and Galatas was pointed out on 13 May by Brigadier Hargest,²⁰ and it moved on the night of 18–19 May to an open position under olive groves on the prison road, two miles south-west of Canea, not far from where Hook's group was still patiently waiting. The move to this new location was begun at 8.30 p.m., and by midnight all rations and every tin of the POL was stowed away beneath olive trees. The only shelter here were slit trenches that had been dug by the Welch Regiment.

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Operating from here as it had done from the earlier position, the supply section despatched trucks singly, each with a driver and NCO, to unit meeting points. Carrying parties shouldered the rations to their positions.

On the evening of 19 May, therefore, Supply Column was in three parts: Boyce's No. 2 Echelon group on Ruin Hill at an angle in Composite Battalion's defences; Hook's No. 1 Echelon group at Camp A, waiting and wondering; and McIndoe's DID on the prison road; just off the Canea-Maleme road.

As industrious as ever, the enemy all this time had been preparing to put into effect his Mercury plan. The island defenders were expecting at the most 10,000 airborne troops and 20,000 seaborne troops. This, in fact, was what the enemy was planning to send. Shielded by 650 fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft of the German 8 Air Corps, II Air Corps was to bring in troops in 600 to 650 troop-carriers and seventy to eighty gliders. The Assault Regiment was to capture Maleme airfield. The 3rd Parachute Regiment was to capture Canea. Two battalions of 2 Parachute Regiment were to take Retimo and probe into Suda. The 1st Parachute Regiment, supported by a battalion of 2 Parachute Regiment, was to take Heraklion. To follow up by sea and air was 5 Mountain Division.

When the men on Crete went to bed on the night of 19 May this German force was stirring to life. In Greece, in the Dodecanese and on some of the larger islands of the Aegean there was movement of men and planes. The propellers began to spin and equipment-laden troops filed into their aircraft. The clock ticked past midnight, and the first troop-carriers roared, lifted cumbrously into the air, and swung away to the south.

Out of the clear Mediterranean sky around 6 a.m. on 20 May the first throbbing flights of bombers came down over Maleme for the usual session of ‘morning hate’. For about an hour they beat up a thunderous pall around the airfield, then droned off to the north. Quietness settled again. ‘An unnatural quietness—like the heavy, tense atmosphere that precedes an electric storm,’ wrote Rawle,

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who from Ruin Hill had heard the rumble of heavy bombing coming from both Maleme and Canea. ‘Even the birds were silent, as though they sensed the distant pulsating engines before the human ear could hear them.’

The men at Maleme had finished their breakfast in peace when the bombers came again and for ninety minutes pulverised the earth around the airfield. After each wave of bombers came the fighters, raking the ground through the rising dust. Then, as the blitz lifted, the tri-motored Junkers 52s spread across the sky and paratroops fluttered away behind them.

Galatas escaped the main weight of this air bombardment, and while those at Maleme were flattened to the earth, the troops at Galatas were already dealing with the first invading Germans. The first enemy troops bumped on to Cretan soil here about 8 a.m.

In the ominous lull after the first Maleme bomb the Supply Column men on Ruin Hill bolted their breakfast; they were hurrying to their battle stations about 7.20 a.m. as the drone of the first Galatas-bound aircraft came from the north. Skimming low over Theodhoroi Island, they came over at a cheeky altitude. Then down came the bombs and a curtain of machine-gun fire, erupting around Galatas, the ridges running down to the sea and between the prison and the lake or reservoir of Aghya.

On Ruin Hill the men had still not reached their trenches when the aircraft came over, and they flattened where they were. The strafing dragged through its clamorous course of howling engines, blasting bombs and tearing machine guns. Then about eight o'clock the situation changed abruptly.

‘By now the air was full of aircraft and the roar and din was deafening,’ writes Driver Farley.²¹ ‘Someone ventured to look up, and then exclaimed, “Hell, look at the size of these things.” I took a glance and saw planes bigger than anything I had ever seen before, and they were just crawling through the air like a hawk compared with a sparrow.’

They were not so large as they may have appeared, but to these crouching men their tapered wings seemed to span

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the sky. The men who had reached their positions saw more.

As the Germans' zero hour ticked by ‘we saw three gliders flatten out near the dam,’ writes Rawle. ‘A state of paralysis seized us. Our mouths went dry. Then a wedge of low-flying Junkers, trap doors open, came in over Theodhoroi Island, lazily droned inland and split up into groups of three.’

Spraying explosive bullets as they went, these machines banked in over the tree-covered plain and the hills behind Canea. Then the fighters and bombers drew off and the air barrage ceased. The slow, heavy machines were down to about 300 feet when the parachutists came plummeting out, their parachutes snapping taut and ballooning out. Rawle says, ‘We could see every detail: the swinging trap doors in the belly of the fuselage, the pilots craning to see their handiwork.’

Then the spell broke. Machine guns and rifles crackled on all sides and the bullets went zipping among the descending enemy. From one plane dropping in this area, only three men reached the ground unhurt, and those dropping nearer the British lines were mostly killed in the air or on the ground.

Parachutes could be seen sagging to earth around the prison, on the rising ground near Galatas, in the groves around Ruin Hill, in front of Petrol Company and on the heights south of the road across the valley. Around the prison men could be seen freeing themselves from their harness and arranging their parachutes as ground signals.

At 1200 yards these men were a tricky target, and the Bren guns of 1 and 2 Platoons, which were given the task of checking this activity, were indifferent in their aim. However, the spattering of bullets sent the prisoners running for cover, and they did not appear again until later in the day. An enemy mortar to the right of the prison also withdrew behind the shelter of the building.

The paratroopers continued to drift down from passing flights of Junkers. About 150 who landed near Galatas found themselves in 19 Battalion's area: they were quickly dealt with. Composite Battalion kept up fire from behind its defences but made no sorties. In their training the men of this unit had given an unfavourable impression and it

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was feared that in an attack they would be unable to hold together; their consequent disorganisation would have left a dangerous gap in the defences. Colonel Kippenberger pleaded unsuccessfully for either 19 or 20 Battalion to be brought under command to counter-attack.

On Ruin Hill Boyce's group had a purely defensive role too. It was to hold the hill and that part of the line behind the wire between the hill and Petrol Company's right flank. Supply Column men had to watch in maddening frustration while the enemy troops did as they wished around the prison—even to the extent of driving a British truck up and down the road between the prison and the dam as they concentrated their troops—and they were disappointed they could not patrol. But here again the decision against patrolling was based on what had been seen during training. ‘I am sorry I didn't give permission to use patrols, but anyone who saw the ASC patrols would understand why I did not,’ Colonel Kippenberger explains. ‘Under fire their common-sense asserted itself and they did patrols much better than in exercises, which they undertook unwillingly.’

Thus free to move about as they pleased, the invaders quickly gathered their forces and within an hour put in a thrust towards Galatas. The 6th Greek Battalion, straddling the prison road, had not distributed ammunition received the previous day, and when the Greeks' few rounds were expended they withdrew. The German drive came on Petrol Company. Weaving through the thickets and groves, the Germans approached to within 100 yards before they came into the open. The Petrol Company commander, Captain McDonagh, was fatally wounded and the second-in-command, Second-Lieutenant Jackson,²² seriously hit. Senior NCOs took over, and the line held. Some of Pink Hill, which had not been properly manned, was lost, however, and Galatas was threatened.

As the racket of the approaching battle clapped down around them, civilians on the outskirts of Galatas panicked, and their screams as they fled from their houses could be heard from Ruin Hill above the general din. Three Greek

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girls who found their way into Supply Column's lines took refuge in Lieutenant Ward's slit trench and huddled there until driven out by mortar fire next day.

Galatas, meanwhile, was threatened from the north also. Paratroopers had captured 7 British Hospital and drove some of the staff and patients along the road to Galatas. The 18th and 19th Battalions took a hand, rescued the prisoners, recaptured the hospital and wiped out the enemy.

On the south of Galatas Greeks formed a line and advanced, linking up with 19 Battalion to the east. In Galatas, however, there were still a few stray Germans.

About midday bullets came whizzing up from the groves towards Supply Column on Ruin Hill. The Headquarters runner, Driver Johnson,²³ unwillingly provided a bright interlude when he was shot in the buttocks. As the others went to earth he was heard to cry, ‘My God, I'm hit in the bum,’ and there was a general howl of laughter. Corporal Ewing,²⁴ of the RAP, responded to the distraught pleas of a Greek couple whose child had been badly injured in the aerial blitz; he went to their cottage and was not seen again.

Things began to warm up again on Ruin Hill about 2 p.m. when mortars, machine guns and aircraft swept the area in support of the attack against the Petrol Company positions. The Germans advanced some distance towards Petrol Company without encountering opposition, then abruptly met withering fire from rifles and machine guns. With 50 per cent casualties, half of whom were killed, the Germans fell back to the prison, now being used as a dressing station. Some detachments, however, still remained on Pink Hill.

Away to the south-west, near the dam, Divisional Cavalry was isolated and threatened by superior forces, a situation in which it had been ordered to withdraw. A patrol was sent out to tell it to come in, but Major Russell was already bringing his force in. The group took up a position at Galatas.

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As dusk approached all German thrusts had been repelled, but the situation was uneasy. A German prisoner said that more troops were arriving that night, and at 7 p.m. Colonel Kippenberger suggested to Divisional Headquarters that if no counter-attack could be mounted to clear the prison area, where it was suspected that a landing field was being prepared, 10 Brigade should withdraw after dark to a shorter line north and south, straddling the Maleme road.

The attack was ordered and assigned to 19 Battalion. It might have accomplished a great deal, but actually achieved nothing; it falls into the category of ‘might have beens’, which are fairly freely scattered throughout any battle, and of which Crete had its fair share. One company passed between Ruin and Wheat Hills, and the other company between the latter and Galatas; three light tanks of 3 Hussars were in support and one of them became noisily entangled with Supply Column's wire. There was a certain amount of vagueness about the whole affair. Composite Battalion men might have lent supporting fire, but knowing nothing about the counter-attack, could do nothing to help. The attackers themselves, with no clear idea of where their objective was, settled down for the night after going a few hundred yards. The operation was to have been resumed in the morning but was called off.

As the noise of this skirmish died away, Supply Column men not engaged in digging better positions with the few precious picks and shovels available tried unsuccessfully to sleep.

Hook's group, at Camp A, had put in a very useful day—a rather busier one, in fact, than Boyce's. Breakfast was sizzling over the fires when the air blitz started, and the men grasped their rifles. For a while they were spectators. They watched the first flights of Junkers come in lazily from the sea and spill out parachutists over Galatas. The multi-coloured parachutes drifted out of sight behind a ridge. Elsewhere things were happening; they could hear the battle of Crete crackling to life, but they had nothing to do but watch the north. At last, between 9 and 10 a.m.,

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as a number of civilians and evacuated seamen were wandering through the positions, a flight of broad-winged Junkers flew over them and some parachutists came swinging down.

Bren and rifle muzzles went into the air and the bullets tearing upwards caught several Germans as they swung in their harness; the fabrics of some parachutes ripped to shreds and the men fell like stones. One whose parachute became entangled in an olive tree was quickly disposed of.

Those who reached the ground took refuge in heavy undergrowth close to Hook's group. Lieutenant McKenzie set about organising a defence line, linking up with Australian troops on the left and a New Zealand ordnance group on the right.

In the midst of all this a British captain, resplendent in brass buttons, sat under an olive tree, apparently taking notes on what was happening.

In front of 4 Platoon was a clearing about 100 yards broad, ending in a partly dry creek. Into this clearing parachuted a large, bright container. Second-Lieutenant Henshaw and Sergeant Jefcoate debated its contents; possibly it was a booby trap.

‘I asked Corporal Campbell²⁵ to jack up a couple of shots into it to see if it would explode,’ says Jefcoate. Campbell was applying this test when a runner came forward from Hook with instructions to clean out a machine-gun post the enemy had established beyond the creek—about 300 yards away—opposite 4 Platoon and covering the container. Jefcoate says:

Henshaw immediately said to me, ‘Come on and bring the boys,’ and he dashed off ahead. Darcy Hatsell²⁶ was on his right, I on his left and slightly behind, and Campbell, Jim Washer²⁷ and Wickie Newman²⁸ on my left. As Henshaw neared the container, which we had to pass, we met a burst of fire. Henshaw fell beside the container. Hatsell said, ‘I'm hit,’ and I felt a crack on my right ribs.

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Henshaw was dead and Hatsell wounded in the right lung. Jefcoate, who was carrying the spare ammunition in his haversack, told Hatsell to crawl back to the lines while he went on. Jefcoate dashed for the creek with bullets whipping up the dust around him. He flung himself into the creek bed—and landed in the platoon's latrine.

I joined Campbell, Washer and Newman in the bottom of the creek (Jefcoate's story continues). A redheaded Tommy sergeant came from somewhere. He had a few hand grenades and was trying to get close to a house near the creek in which some Jerries were sniping from a window. He went off on his own job, and we tried to find out just where our objective was hidden.

At this stage two Greek boys, civilians, armed with old Greek rifles with long octagonal bayonets attached, came along the creek and said to us, ‘We find 'em,’ and away they went too. The next thing we knew a grenade exploded near us. Several more arrived and exploded too close for comfort. I stood up to have a look in the direction from which they were coming. Campbell stood up also. The next thing I knew a grenade hit me in the stomach with an awful smack but did not explode until it was passing my right knee.

That put Jefcoate out of the running, but the other men went on and flushed a German nest from a grain field.

The English sergeant, meanwhile, was working in towards the house, visible also from D Section's positions under the olive trees. During this time the metal container was recovered and found to contain a Spandau machine gun and four boxes of ammunition, which Driver Drake²⁹ brought into action as English troops closed in on the house. A grenade through a window finished the job, and shortly afterwards the English troops emerged escorting twenty-seven Germans and displaying a red and black swastika flag.

This ended the day's excitement for No. 1 Echelon. Unmolested for the rest of the afternoon, this group utilised the time digging in, arranging passwords and organising pickets. During the night there was only one disturbance. Hearing movement in the undergrowth, the sentry, Driver Taylor,³⁰ called halt three times, and receiving no reply

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fired a few shots. The noise ceased, but it was an uneasy night. A search at first light revealed a dead donkey.

The DID on the prison road escaped attention from paratroops on this first day, though the men there saw them fall some distance away—too far away to deal with. Their open dump, however, was an invitation to aircraft, and fighters prowling around at tree-top level came down with machine-gun and cannon fire at the slightest sign of movement.

From the moment of the invasion the distribution of rations was immensely complicated. Fortunately many of the troops were too busy and too tense on the first day to give food even a thought; movement on the roads in daylight became impossible for ration trucks. That night the trucks growled cautiously along dark roads as drivers peered about for familiar landmarks—and for any sign of the ubiquitous enemy.

At the end of the day the enemy in the Galatas area was on the defensive; but at Maleme he had succeeded in getting a toehold on the vital airfield and by the next morning was in full possession of it.

Further east, at Retimo and Heraklion, German parachutists and glider-borne troops had come down as scheduled during the afternoon, but at neither place had serious threats developed, and when darkness came the situation, though uncomfortable, was in hand.

While, under cover of darkness, the defenders of Crete were swinging picks to improve positions, watching for signs of the enemy or just trying to sleep, more planes were droning down from the north. First came the brisk little Messerschmitts and the Dorniers, and behind them the Stukas. As the sun came up over the island the fighters and bombers went to work again with punctual enthusiasm.

At Maleme soon after 8 a.m. a Dornier that had been bombing the airfield perimeter swooped down and landed. Shellbursts blossomed around it, but the plane gathered way again and was quickly off the ground. From this the enemy learned that although he held the airfield it was still

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not his to use at will. Elsewhere—on the beaches and further inland—troop-transport machines crash-landed, and more paratroops came showering down. Not until late in the afternoon did the enemy attempt to use the airfield for a hazardous air ferry service. Like firewalkers, the Ju 52s skimmed down, discharged their troops, and took off again.

At Galatas the day began with the expectation of trouble. During the night a message had come from Force Headquarters that the German plan was to mass parachutists along the valley road and thrust through Galatas and the hospital and along the main road to Canea. Ammunition was to be dropped at midday at points to be indicated by the enemy with green smoke signals. In addition to this, other reports said that the Germans had landed on the coast by the hospital.

As it turned out the day was relatively quiet along most of the front—to begin with, patrols failed to locate the reported landing parties—but there was a spirited dispute over the possession of Cemetery Hill, which the Germans had occupied during the night. Apart from this the main activity consisted of exchanges of fire: mortar bombs and machine-gun and rifle bullets from the enemy, and artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire in return. This included fire from two Vickers established that morning on Wheat Hill, to the left rear of Captain Boyce's company, where 5 Field Regiment group was in position.

The Luftwaffe, of course, was everywhere, though Ruin Hill escaped attention for some time. During the morning it was allotted its share of mortar and machine-gun fire, and a platoon headquarters sited in a hole on the slope of the hill was demolished by a direct hit from a mortar bomb, fortunately while the platoon commander, Lieutenant Rawle, was away.

The scene of the main action of the day was Cemetery Hill. A company of 19 Battalion, with some help from two light tanks and supported by mortars, pushed the enemy off this feature soon after midday, capturing about fourteen machine guns and ammunition, destroying four mortars and taking several prisoners. But the hill was bald and a most

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uncomfortable spot from whichever way it was defended. Machine-gun and mortar fire sent the 19 Battalion company back, and the hill became no-man's-land.

Enemy attention to Ruin Hill became more troublesome at midday, and the first casualties of the day came in the afternoon. A mortar bomb burst right in a trench, wounding five, two seriously. Lieutenant Ward was stunned by flying rock. The three Greek girls in his trench fled. One of the wounded died shortly afterwards; it was the first death.

Because of casualties and fire, it was decided about 4 p.m. to pull 1 Platoon back from the forward positions. A Bren gun was moved up to the crest and installed in the ripening wheat.

The attack from the valley was still expected, and the Ruin Hill defenders, on their important feature, were not altogether happy. However, reinforcements in the form of twelve gunners under Lieutenant Dill³¹ enabled 1 Platoon positions to be manned again. No. 3 Platoon, less one section, took up positions on the eastern side of the hill, the remaining section linking up with Petrol Company across the hollow, 200 yards back from the wire.

The day drew on but there was no attack. The atmosphere was taut and the tension was reflected in an inability to swallow food. ‘I recall on about the second day there was bread and margarine with cheese passed around,’ says Farley. ‘It took me all my time to swallow a bit of bread. It just seemed to stick in my throat. A drink of tea was a Godsend; in fact I drank it out of an unwashed M and V tin that was at hand on the bank and declared it the best drink I had ever had.’

But though there was no attack, the enemy was visibly active. Away on Observation Hill (also known as Signal Hill) to the south-west, Greek civilians who had been released from the gaol could be seen driving a laden donkey up to the summit, possibly to establish a German observation post.

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Hook's No. 1 Echelon group did little this day. In the morning it retired sixty yards nearer Canea with the intention of digging an anti-tank ditch. However, a new order sent it further away from its old position, and after taking up a new defensive position it was engaged in digging and wiring, a task in which it persisted in spite of constant air attack.

As darkness closed down on Crete again the men on Ruin Hill saw red, green and white flares, darting tracer and bursting shells scintillating over Cemetery Hill. Around midnight vivid orange flashes stabbed the darkness out to sea and searchlights swung across the sky. Guns grumbled, then explosions erupted dyspeptically. A searchlight's beam would sweep an arc then freeze onto a spot, with tracer darting after it. Then the steady glow of fires tinged the night. All this, although it was not clear to those on land at the time, was the intercepting by the Royal Navy of the Germans' first attempt to bring in troops and equipment by sea. Not one craft reached the island.

As the clock turned around into 22 May—the third day of the invasion—the New Zealanders were preparing a counter-attack to retake Maleme airfield. From the start everything seemed to go wrong. There were delays that held up the zero hour three hours. It was 3 a.m. when 20 Battalion and 28 (Maori) Battalion went forward. In the darkness they made headway, but as daylight showed the Germans what was happening, intense mortar and machine-gun fire, and the omnipresent Luftwaffe, checked the advance on the edge of the airfield and drove it back.

The attack had failed and the Germans now firmly held the airfield. But it was still an unhealthy spot, and the constantly landing Junkers bringing in more troops put down and took off with alacrity among shellbursts. Some were hit; others careered into wrecked planes or cartwheeled into craters. The alert infantry claimed some with small-arms fire. It was a rare chance for them to tackle aircraft on their own level. But the planes kept on coming.

The comings and goings at Maleme began a hopeful story. Perhaps because men were seen to run to some planes as they touched down, a report got about that the Germans

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were getting out. These men were observed to be working parties unloading stores, but the report of possible evacuation outstripped the true facts. It was carried to Headquarters New Zealand Division by Brigadier Hargest and filtered down to the troops as a rumour offering unbelievable hope. The constant stream of planes roaring up from Maleme and wheeling out to sea past Theodhoroi Island seemed sure confirmation.

To test the story 10 Brigade was instructed to apply pressure. Patrols were sent out and one attack was made by men of 19 Battalion south across the valley road in the mid-afternoon, but after three hours' desultory fighting they withdrew. Composite Battalion did its part by sending out patrols: to Ay Marina and Stalos, towards the Aghya Reservoir, and into the hills directly west of Red Hill. Some found Germans and exchanged unpleasantries. Others found absolutely nothing. The two patrols that went towards the reservoir were commanded by Captain Boyce and Lieutenant Dill. They met and disposed of light opposition. Except for Boyce's batman, no Supply Column men took part.

Apart from these activities, 10 Brigade contented itself with silencing several mortar positions, shooting up some near the prison with machine guns, and blasting the Signal Hill position with artillery.

By the morning of this day—22 May—the Supply Column men on Ruin Hill were weary. They had had little sleep and had been under fire from the air and ground; lethargy hung on them, and they had to resist a desire to stretch out in a slit trench and let the heat and the pulsating throb of aircraft engines lull them to sleep. Even under attack the desire to sleep became almost overwhelming.

Snipers' bullets began to fly about during the morning from among the olive groves and the cottage close to Ruin Hill. The few targets that were seen were fired on promptly, and 3 Platoon in particular had good shooting that morning. One rubber-booted German, however, slipped right through the platoon, glimpsed but not tracked down.

Aircraft were left strictly alone as the Luftwaffe was quick to resent interference from the ground. Supply

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Column sent back a report on the mortar position on Observation Hill and as shellbursts mushroomed on the summit a cheer went up. The guns then turned on the prison.

There was swift retaliation: enemy mortars and an automatic firing explosive bullets began to bark, and like angry hornets six Messerschmitts whined down and sprayed everything in sight, Ruin Hill included, for forty-five minutes. When the strafing eased up the bombers blanketed Wheat Hill. Then incendiary bullets set alight ripe grain near 1 Platoon's Bren gun on Ruin Hill.

Petrol Company, almost next door, continued to take punishment from mortars and machine guns, and Sergeant Earl's platoon, on a flank extended to support Petrol Company, took the overs.

No one in Supply Column had a busier day than the group's commanding officer, Boyce, for in addition to his sortie in charge of a patrol, lack of communications made him a regular commuter between Ruin Hill and Battalion Headquarters.

The enemy appeared to have a fixed idea that the best way to Galatas