perseus
Active member
I’ve been wondering if there was anything more that General Freyberg commanding the Allied force on Crete could have done to prevent the German airborne invasion given that he knew most of the details in advance via Ultra intelligence.
Under his command were about 14,000 mostly lightly equipped Commonwealth troops in addition to 9000 Greek and 25,000 recently evacuated troops from Greece. The latter were of variable quality, some without weapons. In addition there was a large number of Civilian militia mainly armed with obsolete, ancient or improvised weapons of various types. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete
German forces consisted of 750 glider troops and 10,000 paratroops. We can probably assume these were of the highest quality. 5000 airlifted mountain troops and 7,000 amphibious troops were also allocated for the invasion, few of which were involved in the early stages due to intervention from the Royal Navy, although some mountain troops were flown in later. At the Critical battle around Maleme airfield, the first assault involved gliders and approximately 2,000 parachutists jumped in waves of 200 each at fifteen-minute intervals. Therefore, during the first assaults these paratroops were considerably outnumbered, armed with only grenades and a pistol during the drop with their heavier weapons parachuted separately in containers. http://www.feldgrau.com/cretewar.html
I suggest that the paratroopers would have been highly vulnerable whilst landing and so an infantryman equipped with a pistol, bayonet, stake or knife could easily finish them off whilst still rolling on the ground. So it seems that even poorly equipped soldiers could have made a useful contribution assuming they were distributed widely under the drop zones, and as far as I could see only the valleys, dried riverbed and coast were suitable locations. See map at http://www.nzetc.org/etexts/WH2Cret/WH2CretP002a.jpg
However, Freyberg wanted to send many of the ‘unarmed’ soldiers back to Egypt. Although the National Militia took their toll of the paratroops, perhaps they could have been better co-ordinated with the full time troops as well.
Another approach might have been to increase mobility so more widely spaced forces can be rushed to the appropriate drop zone. There were only a few tanks that were serviceable and these quickly broke down, but surely there were motorised vehicles around that would be useful against light infantry? With a car, or truck you could take the windows out, place sandbags in front, cut out a ‘sunroof’ for the gunner, place a Bren gun on top, hang chains to protect the tyres, and cover it with olive branches for camouflage. These could then be quickly driven to any of the flatter exposed landing spots within minutes, all of which had adjoining roads. Each wave of enemy paratroops would then be taken in turn whilst landing by saturating them with mobile machine gun fire at close quarters.
One problem is that Freyberg couldn’t make his preparations look too obvious since this may have compromised the source of information. On the other hand airborne troop landings had been attempted on several occasions during the previous year and some changes may have been expected due to his recent appointment and the German occupation of mainland Greece. Many detailed criticisms of the defence are documented here, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/the-battle-for-crete/the-controversies
However, here I’m mainly questioning whether the poorly equipped personnel could have been better deployed and whether some ‘armoured’ vehicles could have been improvised.
Under his command were about 14,000 mostly lightly equipped Commonwealth troops in addition to 9000 Greek and 25,000 recently evacuated troops from Greece. The latter were of variable quality, some without weapons. In addition there was a large number of Civilian militia mainly armed with obsolete, ancient or improvised weapons of various types. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Crete
German forces consisted of 750 glider troops and 10,000 paratroops. We can probably assume these were of the highest quality. 5000 airlifted mountain troops and 7,000 amphibious troops were also allocated for the invasion, few of which were involved in the early stages due to intervention from the Royal Navy, although some mountain troops were flown in later. At the Critical battle around Maleme airfield, the first assault involved gliders and approximately 2,000 parachutists jumped in waves of 200 each at fifteen-minute intervals. Therefore, during the first assaults these paratroops were considerably outnumbered, armed with only grenades and a pistol during the drop with their heavier weapons parachuted separately in containers. http://www.feldgrau.com/cretewar.html
I suggest that the paratroopers would have been highly vulnerable whilst landing and so an infantryman equipped with a pistol, bayonet, stake or knife could easily finish them off whilst still rolling on the ground. So it seems that even poorly equipped soldiers could have made a useful contribution assuming they were distributed widely under the drop zones, and as far as I could see only the valleys, dried riverbed and coast were suitable locations. See map at http://www.nzetc.org/etexts/WH2Cret/WH2CretP002a.jpg
However, Freyberg wanted to send many of the ‘unarmed’ soldiers back to Egypt. Although the National Militia took their toll of the paratroops, perhaps they could have been better co-ordinated with the full time troops as well.
Another approach might have been to increase mobility so more widely spaced forces can be rushed to the appropriate drop zone. There were only a few tanks that were serviceable and these quickly broke down, but surely there were motorised vehicles around that would be useful against light infantry? With a car, or truck you could take the windows out, place sandbags in front, cut out a ‘sunroof’ for the gunner, place a Bren gun on top, hang chains to protect the tyres, and cover it with olive branches for camouflage. These could then be quickly driven to any of the flatter exposed landing spots within minutes, all of which had adjoining roads. Each wave of enemy paratroops would then be taken in turn whilst landing by saturating them with mobile machine gun fire at close quarters.
One problem is that Freyberg couldn’t make his preparations look too obvious since this may have compromised the source of information. On the other hand airborne troop landings had been attempted on several occasions during the previous year and some changes may have been expected due to his recent appointment and the German occupation of mainland Greece. Many detailed criticisms of the defence are documented here, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/the-battle-for-crete/the-controversies
However, here I’m mainly questioning whether the poorly equipped personnel could have been better deployed and whether some ‘armoured’ vehicles could have been improvised.
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