German parachute troops found the resistance from Commonwealth soldiers particularly brutal, but prevailed at terrible cost in the fight for Crete.
In May 1941, General Kurt Student’s elite paratrooper forces descended like an anvil on the British garrison defending Crete. Instead of winning a quick and decisive victory, the airborne troops found themselves locked in brutal battle against some of the toughest veterans in the British Army. Here, on the sun-parched Mediterranean island of Crete, the Germans appeared to be on the brink of their first military defeat of the war.
As part of Germany’s peripheral strategy against the British Empire in the Mediterranean, Hitler invaded Greece in early April 1941, with a provision for General Kurt Student’s airborne troops to seize the Greek island of Crete. Within weeks, Hitler’s panzer columns had decisively smashed all opposition in their path and were relentlessly streaming toward central Greece. Allied forces sent to the mainland had been completely outclassed and were soon left contemplating the prospect of another Dunkirk.
While German troops were enjoying incredible success in the Balkans, General Student feared that Hitler had changed his mind regarding the deployment of airborne forces in the Greek campaign. Desperate to get his men into the fight, Student decided to present the case for an air invasion of Crete directly to Hitler.
On April 21, he expansively outlined the many threats that Britain’s advanced air bases on Crete posed to German interests in the Balkans. Not the least of these were bombing raids against the vital Romanian oil fields at Ploesti, the German Army’s main source of oil. Hitler, immersed in the planning of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, reluctantly agreed to the invasion of Crete on the provision that he be delivered a swift and decisive victory.
Fearing Hitler might once again change his mind if preparations stalled, Student and his staff pulled off a logistical miracle by quickly procuring the 1,200 aircraft needed for the attack, code-named Operation Mercury. While brilliantly conceived, Student’s planning for the invasion was in many ways compromised by an unrealistic time frame. The Greek airfields, for example, were ill suited to accommodating so many aircraft and no ships were yet available to carry out additional seaborne landings. The tight schedule allowed little time to accumulate accurate intelligence about the enemy.
Based on air reconnaissance that had detected very few prepared defenses or troop deployments, the Germans believed the Allies were undermanned and totally unprepared. It was a bold assumption. For Student to launch a major operation of this kind without solid, detailed intelligence was deemed an acceptable risk. For the men going into battle, however, it was a matter of life or death.
For Operation Mercury, General Student would use his one parachute division, a glider regiment, and Maj. Gen. Julius Ringel’s tough 5th Gebirgsjager (Mountain) Division, part of which would be flown in when a suitable airfield had been captured, the rest ferried across by sea.
