Chapter Two
Having suffered the hard school of defeat in 1918, Germany was more open to new ideas to avoid a similar fate again. Key to German tactical doctrine, which came to be referred to as ‘Blitzkrieg’, literally translated as ‘lightning war’, were firepower and speed of movement. Blitzkrieg was a development of the tactics that had been so nearly successful in the spring offensives of 1918. Panzers now lighter, faster and more mobile, were combined with mechanised infantry into all arms panzer divisions that once unleashed, were to be closely supported by dive-bombers in the role of flying artillery.
German airborne forces were not a part of the core structure that was built up to support Blitzkrieg. However, paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger) and other airborne troops epitomised the key Blitzkrieg principle of speed and risk, and also demonstrated how the defeated of 1918 were willing to embrace new ideas and technology under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. Military parachuting and air landing of infantry was not an entirely new idea. In 1918 small French raids by two-man demolition teams dropped by parachute behind German lines to attack enemy communications and later the same year, the Allies conducted small-scale re-supply tasks by air during the MICHAEL and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. In the late nineteen twenties Italian paratroopers made mass jumps in North Africa and in 1931 the US Army Air Corps flew a field artillery battery complete with equipment to Panama as a demonstration of ‘Hemispheric Defence’. Two years later, in exercising the American preference of the day for air landing rather than parachuting the deployment was repeated but with a full infantry battalion.
It was, however, the Soviets who provided the example that led to the creation of German airborne forces. General der Flieger Kurt Student, who became the most famous of the senior Fallschirmjäger commanders, described those events:
For us Germans, the concept of vertical envelopment received impetus because of two events: First were the Russian manoeuvres in 1934-35, in which large numbers of paratroopers were dropped into open country. The second was in 1936 when Freiherr von Moreau’s transport flights flew some of [General] Franco’s troops from Morocco to Spain with decisive effect.
On the basis of these events, both the Army and the Luftwaffe set up parachute groups, in order to study and to test airborne operations. The results identified, in theory, three possibilities: One was that the Fallschirmjäger should be divided up into small units to jump behind the enemy’s lines where they could destroy specific targets, which the Luftwaffe at the time was technically unable to hit. Another idea was to land directly in the enemy’s rear in small units in order to give tactical support to army operations. The third possibility was that Fallschirmjäger should carry out their own operations in larger units behind the enemy’s front, without being in direct contact with the ground forces.
With the benefit of low-level experiments and with an emerging tactical doctrine, on 29 January 1936, Reichsmarshall Göring ordered the formation of what was the nucleus of an airborne force referred to as a Flying or Flieger Wing. This name was aimed to conceal the airborne force as a normal Luftwaffe ‘air wing’. A parachute school was established at Stendal in central Germany.
However, it took the approaching Czech crisis in 1938 to form 7th Fliegerdivision into an organised combat division. The plan was to deploy a force of three regiments (each equivalent to a British brigade), one of which would be fully parachute trained, with the other two regiments being ‘air-landing’ troops. General der Flieger Kurt Student explained that:
The Wehrmacht provided the 16th Infantry Regiment and handed it over to me, as far as tactics and training were concerned. However, a second regiment could not be provided, and we were helped by an unusual idea: Göring, who knew the SA well, took the leaders and the best men from that organisation and moved them without more ado into the Luftwaffe.
Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring.
Also in this way General Student successfully acquired the necessary men to set up a third regiment within a matter of months. With the infantry strength for a whole division now available, intensive training began but action in Czechoslovakia was averted by the Munich Conference.
General der Flieger Kurt Student.
The source of much of 7th Fliegerdivision’s manpower being the brown shirted political bully boys of the Sturm Abteilung (SA), the Nazi credentials of the Fallschirmjäger were high from the beginning. The need for ordinary recruits and replacements further reinforced the fanatically Nazi nature of the organisation by taking the pick of the Hitlerjugend movement, until forced to share the cream with the expanding Waffen SS. Although a similar political and military elite, the Fallschirmjäger, however, managed to avoid acquiring a similar reputation to that of the SS.
From a document captured in Crete:
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF THE FALLSCHIRMJÄGER
1. You are the elite of the German Forces. For you, the fight shall be fulfilment. You shall seek it out and train yourself to stand every test.
2. Cultivate true comradeship, for together with your comrades you will triumph or die.
3. Be shy of speech and incorruptible. Men act, women chatter; chatter will bring you to the grave.
4. Calmness and caution, thoroughness and determination, valour and a fanatical spirit of attack will make you superior in the battle.
5. Face to face with the enemy, the most precious thing is ammunition. The man who fires aimlessly merely to reassure himself has no guts. He is a weakling and does not deserve the name of Fallschirmjäger.
6. Never surrender. Your honour lies in victory or death.
7. Only with good weapons can you achieve success. Look after them, therefore, on the principle “First my weapons, then myself”.
8. You must grasp the full meaning of each operation so that, even if your leader should fall, you can carry it out coolly and warily.
9. Fight chivalrously against an honourable foe; sharpshooters deserve no quarter.
10. With your eyes open, keyed up to the highest pitch, agile as a greyhound, tough as leather, hard as Krupp steel, you will be the embodiment of a German warrior.
Even without the Fallschirmjäger being committed to action, Göring was enthused by the potential of his new arm and large scale airborne exercises followed. With the concepts validated, the Reichmarshall, not one to let an opportunity to empire build pass, fully supported plans to develop German airborne forces within the Luftwaffe. To that end, in 1939, 22nd Infantariedivision trained as air landing troops under operational control of the Luftwaffe. Meanwhile, Student became not only commander of 7th Fliegerdivision but also Inspector General of Airborne Forces.
The Division’s order of battle, to the envy of airborne forces since that time, was completed by the permanent assignment of both transport and offensive air-support squadrons. Firstly, there were two transport squadrons of Ju 52 aircraft, one squadron of fighter aircraft, one of bombers, and a recce squadron. In addition, to complete the ground ORBAT (order of battle), there was a Luftwaffe signal battalion, a strong medical group and other supporting arms necessary for operating in isolation. The division was raised on the expectation that it would fight with light scales, depending heavily on air support. However, as aircraft and equipment were developed, the Fliegerdivision’s support weapon elements grew in both number and combat power.
In 1939, Wehrmacht scepticism about the utility of the Fallschirmjäger relegated Student’s elite to a subsidiary role in the invasion of Poland and the weather denied them the one opportunity for a single battalion to demonstrate its capability. Frustrated and with sinking morale, it wasn’t until the following year that the Fallschirmjäger were to play a leading role in the campaign in the west (FALL GELB) and its immediate forerunner, the invasion of Norway (a single battalion drop in April 1940). In FALL GELB Student’s men were to seize the crossings of the Albert Canal and the super fortress at Eben Emael (see Battleground Fort Eben Emael) by surprise in the opening move of the campaign. Meanwhile, also jumping/landing ahead of the ground forces, the remainder of 7th Fliegerdivision and 22nd Infantry Division would descend on Fortress Holland. Operations were a success but the cost was high in terms of aircraft and men, including Student himself, who was badly wounded. Despite their losses, German airborne forces were planned to play a significant part in Operation SEALION. Perhaps fortunately, the cancellation of the invasion of Britain gave the Fallschirmjäger the opportunity to re-equip and retrain.
In early 1941, OKW formally grouped 7th Flieger and 22nd Airlanding Divisions into XI Fliegerkorps under command of Student, with Generalleutnant Süssmann taking over command of the Fallschirmjäger. By the spring, German airborne forces were again more than ready for action and Student was extremely ambitious for his airborne force that had no significant role planned for them in the invasion of Russia. Göring and Student, however, were able to persuade Hitler that the first predominantly airborne invasion would quickly deliver Crete into his hands. What ultimately sold the idea to Hitler was that the Balkan Campaign could be rounded off without seriously delaying or taking away resources from his main effort, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union – Operation BARBAROSSA.
The Ju-52 transport aircraft, known as ‘Tante Ju’ or Aunt Ju because of its solid construction and reliability.
Gliders
The Germans were severely restricted by the Versailles Treaty in the field of military aircraft, including troop transports. Consequently, as Göring explained in the early 1920s, there was to be an emphasis on the glider as the foundation of the future German Luftwaffe; and therefore, by the mid-1930s, sport gliding and glider technology was well established across Germany.
At a political rally in the early thirties, Hitler had been impressed by a spectacular display of formation glider flying and pin-point landing. In 1936 when he met Professor Georgie from the Research Institute of Gliding at the Dramstadt Technical College, the idea of a military utility for gliders came into his mind. Returning to his laboratory and workshop after his meeting with the Führer, Professor Georgie tasked his flight construction manager Hans Jacobs to look at the possibility of transporting troops by glider.
This idea naturally came as a great surprise to me. Up until then we had only developed various types for sport gliding, so it was rather difficult to answer the question. However, my thoughts followed this line: a glider towed up to 6,000 – 9,000 feet can, with an angle of descent of 1 in 18, fly silently for tens of kilometres into enemy territory, all of this in the morning twilight so that the plane cannot be seen. So the idea of deploying the military glider had been born.
At the beginning of 1937, after some theoretical designs had been produced, orders were issued by the Reich’s Aviation Ministry to build a mock-up of an aircraft, which could carry the pilot and up to nine armed and equipped soldiers. This dummy was viewed by representatives of the Ministry, and an order followed immediately for the construction of three prototype aircraft. A military troop-carrying glider was by no means unanimously considered useful (and the Fallschirmjäger regarded gliders as unwelcome competition for resources), but the more visionary commanders prevailed. They saw that its foremost advantage was its ability to land troops together as a coherent section ready to fight, rather than an equivalent number of expensively trained paratroops scattered over several hundred yards. Another feature that appealed to the Luftwaffe was a glider’s ability to make a silent approach.
Work on a military glider began promptly in March 1937 at Dramstadt, based on converting existing designs, and setting up an experimental flight, along with a training command, to gain experience in the Luftwaffe’s newest aircraft – the ‘Attack Glider’.
Colonel Mrazek described the continuing debate over the usefulness of the glider from a military point of view:
A second demonstration was held, this time before the Army General Staff. Ten Junkers (Ju) 52s transporting paratroopers, and ten gliders carrying glidermen towed behind ten more Ju 52s, flew to the airfield at Stendal. There the gliders were cast off, and the paratroopers dropped. The gliders dived steeply and came to rest in close formation, discharging glidermen in units ready to fight. On the other hand, the parachutists, who had the ill luck to encounter a stiff breeze, from which the gliders had actually benefited, landed widely dispersed, in some cases a considerable distance from their ammunition, which had been dropped by parachute. Though this experiment could not, of course, obscure the importance of paratroopers in a future war, it at least proved conclusively that the troopcarrying glider could become a weapon of great value.
Full production of the DFS-230 Attack Glider began at the Gotha aircraft plant, while the Luftwaffe began to train its first 60 military glider pilots on the prototypes and the first production gliders.
DFS-230 Glider
The basis of the DFS-230’s design was a meteorological aircraft that was essentially a small engineless transport, which during the redesign process lost its sleek curves and long elegant wings. The result was a short airframe and stubby wings, designed to bear weight and provide sufficient lift for the glider to descend steadily from its release point to its objective. What proved to be impossible was for the loaded aircraft to ride thermals and to remain soaring for protracted periods, as a sport glider would.
A summary of the technical details follows:
Fuselage: Covered with a painted canvas fabric, the DFS 230’s fuselage was made up of a framework of steel tubing capable of accommodating a pilot and eight or nine men and equipment, giving a total payload of 2,800 pounds. The aircraft eventually had a position for a light machine gun in a slit in the fuselage on the starboard side.
Undercarriage: The fuselage had wheels for taking off which were normally jettisoned once airborne. These could be retained should the glider be returning to a nicely manicured airfield, but for tactical landings, the DFS-230 would land on a skid fixed below its fuselage.
Wings: With a span of 72 feet and a surface area of 444 square feet, the DFS-230’s wings were constructed in traditional glider manner from plywood, which was covered with the same canvas fabric as the fuselage. The DFS-230 had a high wing design braced from the fuselage.
Braking mechanism: For tactical landing the glider relied on friction to bring it to a halt. Eben Emael’s assault force, training over winter, tried to enhance the friction by wrapping barbed wire around the skid, but eventually resorted to a saw-toothed braking device. Braking rockets and drogue parachute were fitted to later models of the DFS-230.
Weight: Empty: 2,800 pounds. Laden weight: 4,600 pounds.
Flying speed: The optimum speed for towing was 120 miles an hour, with a similar speed for the glide down to the landing zone.
A late version DFS-230 armed with a machine gun.
Here a Stuka flies alongside the DFS-230 glider.
A British wartime sketch showing the construction and layout of the DFS-230.
Following the success of the principally glider-borne Albert Canal/Eben Emael operation, an additional unit was formed within 7th Fliegerdivision, the Luftlandesturmregiment (LLSR or Airlanding Assault Regiment). Trained as parachutists and glider troops, their role, as an elite within an elite, was to deliver the vital initial attacks. Landing concentrated in their gliders were able to be in action very quickly. Consequently, they were suitable for coup de main operations of the sort they were to perform in Crete in support of Student’s main effort.
Invasion Plans
Persuaded of the utility of Student’s proposition for an airborne invasion of Crete, between 20 and 25 April 1941, the German High Command (OKW) worked on drafting directives for Operation MERKUR. In a warning order issued on the latter date, overall command of the operation, both ground and air forces, was assigned to Generaloberst Lohr, the head of Luftflotte 4 he was allocated the aircraft of VIII Fliegerkorps and the soldiers of XI Fliegerkorps for the operation. Five days later, Führer Directive No 20, setting out the aims and objectives of the operation was promulgated.
The aircraft of Generaloberst von Richthofen’s VIII Fliegerkorps were to conduct aerial recce over Crete, mount preliminary attacks on the island’s coastal and airfield defences and launch sorties to neutralise anti-aircraft defences during the airborne landing of XI Fliegerkorps. Thereafter, VIII Fliegerkorps was to provide close air support to the ground forces. Student’s XI Fliegerkorps was to consist of 7th Fliegerdivision, under the command of Generalleutnant Süssmann and 5th Gerbirgsjägerdivision (mountain), under the command of Generalmajor Ringel, reinforced by Gerbirgsjägerregiment (GJR) 141 from another mountain division. This change in ORBAT, made as late as 8 May, was the result of the airlanding 22nd Infantariedivision being mal-located for an operation that was being mounted in a tight time scale and in the shadow of preparations for Operation BARBAROSSA. Generalmajor Julius Ringle’s 5th Gerbirgsdivision, who had performed well in the invasion of Greece and were readily available. They, however, had no experience of airborne operations and most would be flying into airheads captured by the Fallschirmjäger. Other elements of 5th Gerbirgsdivision, along with some tanks from 5th Panzer Division would travel to Crete by sea. Naval support for the operation, which included transportation of men and panzers, was the responsibility of Admiral Schuster, with Italian destroyers under command.
Although the operation was to be conducted as quickly as possible, X-Day (the German equivalent of Zero or D-Day; the day an operation begins) still had to be finalised. Setting a date was impossible, as Generalmajor Conrad Seibt, XI Fliegerkorps chief logistics officer, was experiencing considerable problems supporting the deployment of the Fliegerkorps from its bases in the Braunschweig/Stendal area of Germany. Although recently elevated to corps status German airborne forces still lacked corps troops, particularly logistic units. Regrouping von Richthofen’s air transport units from preparations for Operation BARBAROSSA also caused delays.
In Operation FLYING DUTCHMAN, 7th Fliegerdivision left its barracks under heavy security for an undisclosed destination. All Fallschirmjäger insignia were to be removed and the division was to travel as ordinary Luftwaffe personnel, with all parachute equipment packed away out of sight. As usual the junior officers and men had not been told of their destination but there were rumours based on informed guesses. Measures to ensure that security was maintained included Hauptmann Schulz’s orders to his Fallschirmjäger MG Battalion 7:
No member of the battalion is to carry any personal papers or documents with him. Buying and sending postcards as well as using the civilian postal service are strictly forbidden.
It is forbidden to sing Fallschirmjäger songs. Railway coaches as well as vehicles must bear no identification marks. The special markings identifying our battalion [the Panther] must disappear from all vehicles.
Hauptmann Freiherr von der Hydte commander of 1st Battalion Fallschirmjäger Regiment 3 (I/FJR 3) described their departure with just a hint of disappointment:
During the night the troops and vehicles were entrained. We pulled out of the station in the first grey light of morning towards a rising sun and an unknown destination. We were travelling through suburbs. Houses and streets drifted past the windows. There were quite a lot of people – workers going to their morning shifts in the factories – to be seen in the streets, but nobody took any notice of our train. No one waved. Nobody wished us well. The sight of military transport was all too familiar by the end of the second year of the war. People were much too occupied with their own sorrows and their own jobs to worry about the destinies of those who were carried past them to die. Our departure was an insignificant, anonymous particle of the gigantic war machine.
Most of the journey was by rail aboard troop trains.
The majority of the 1,500 mile journey through the Balkans to Athens was to be completed by rail, aboard slow moving troop trains. However, the division’s 3,000 trucks and other vehicles were offloaded in Rumania leaving the last torturous 500 miles to the concentration area to be completed by road. The majority of the Fallschirmjäger eventually arrived at their designated bivouac sites, near their assigned airfields, between 8 and 12 May. Despite the security measures, 7th Fliegerdivision reported progress across the Balkans, sent by ENIGMA encoded radio signals, which within eighteen to thirty-six hours were in the hands of Wavell and Freyberg’s ULTRA liaison officers.
X-Day, an event closely monitored by the Allies, was eventually settled as 15 May. However, getting all the stores and equipment required for the operation was extremely difficult, against the priority afforded to BARBAROSSA. The greatest problem facing Generalmajor Seibt was aviation fuel. He needed sufficient fuel for three sorties by the transport aircraft but the Corinth Canal was blocked by the wreckage of the bridge blown by the Commonwealth Allies on 26 April and it was not until 17 May that Kriegsmarine clearance divers removed sufficient wreckage for the tankers to slip through, with armed troops aboard to ‘encourage’ the captains. The fuel eventually arrived in drums at the airfield on 19 May, causing a delay in launching the operation of five days.
Ground
Arriving in Greece in the late spring of 1941, the most apparent of the conditions facing the Fallschirmjäger was the heat and they only had temperate weather equipment. They were briefed concerning the island of Crete:
The island of Crete is approximately 240 kilometres (160 miles) long and varies in width from 12 to 50 kilometres (8 to 35 miles). The interior is barren and covered by eroded mountains which, in the western part, rise to an elevation of 2,456 metres (8,100 feet). There are few roads and water is scarce. The south coast descends abruptly towards the sea; the only usable port along this part of the coast is the small harbour of Stahion. There are hardly any north-south communications and the only road to Sphakia which can be used for motor transportation ends abruptly 1,100 metres (3,600 feet) above the town. The sole major traffic artery runs close to the north coast and connects Souda Bay with the towns of Maleme, Hania, Rethymno and Iraklio. Possession of the north coast is vital for an invader approaching from Greece, if only because of terrain conditions. The British, whose supply bases were situated in Egypt, were greatly handicapped by the fact that the only efficient port is in Souda Bay. The topography of the island, therefore, favoured the invader, particularly since the mountainous terrain left no other alternative to the British but to construct their airfields close to the exposed north coast.
Student’s Plan
The plan that General der Flieger Student arrived at was based on an estimate that concurred very closely with the threats identified by British commanders in Crete, from Brigadier Tidbury through to General Weston. Two versions of the plan were presented; a more cautious plan based on seizing objectives in the Maleme/Hania area, then building up strength, German forces would fan out in a conventional manner to occupy the remainder of the island. However, this plan was too slow for the BARBAROSSA planners to accept and Student was directed to adopt his second plan, a simultaneous descent across the island onto what was thought to be light opposition.
See map on page 39.
Packing ammunition into colour coded parachute containers.
From the outset, Student knew that he lacked sufficient aircraft to drop/land 7th Fliegerdivision in a single lift and that there would have to be two lifts. He identified the need to take at least one of the airfields for the fly-in of the Gerbirgsjäger and to defeat the main body of the enemy in the Souda/Hania area. This requirement led him to identify the Maleme airfield and Prison Valley as his main effort in the coming attack and he therefore allocated the LLSR (Gruppe West) and Fallschirmjäger Regiment 3 (half of Gruppe Mitt) to this task. The other airfields at Rethymno (remainder of Gruppe Mitt), Iraklio (Gruppe Ost) and Kastelli, were also important but lacked the necessary proximity for a speedy strike at the strategically important facilities of Hania and Souda. With insufficient aircraft, there would be a morning drop in support of his main effort by Gruppe West at Maleme and the half of Gruppe Mitt in for Prison Valley. The aircraft would return with a second lift in the afternoon, to drop the second half of Gruppe Mitt at Rethymno and Gruppe Ost at Iraklio. The Gerbirgsjäger would follow, with elements being flown in and others coming by sea, arriving P.M. X-Day and on X+1. Generalmajor Ringel later recalled that reading the operation order ‘…sent a chill down my spine, for it was clear that the operation so laconically described would be a suicide adventure’. The Fallschirmjäger were, however, altogether more sanguine about the prospect of executing Student’s plan, being a self professed elite and having been virtually excluded from significant operations in the last year. Further details of the German plan will be found in relevant chapters.
Intelligence
It is unusual to consider the intelligence available after examining the plan but Student’s plan was arrived at with scant and precious little accurate information on the defences of Crete. Such intelligence as was available had originally been produced in support of Operation MARITA and dated from four months earlier in December 1940. As Crete was not in MARITA’s target area this intelligence was very general. Additional information only gradually drifted in from von Richthofen’s VIII Fliegerkorps once his aircraft started operating over Crete in late April. However, as the northern coastal strip where both objectives and Commonwealth troops were concentrated, was covered in olive and citrus groves, this intelligence was limited. The trees gave ample cover to a force whose experience at the hands of the Luftwaffe in Greece had taught them to be very aware of the necessity of camouflage and concealment.
|
German Estimate |
Actual Allied Total |
|
No Greek units on the Island. |
10 Greek units totalling about 11,000 |
|
Italian PWs: 600 officers and 15,000 other ranks |
Broadly CORRECT |
|
5,000 men concentrated around Hania |
CORRECT – in December 1940 but in May qui: 20,000 evacuees |
|
30 tanks |
Broadly CORRECT – 9 x I Tks Tanks and 16 x Lt Tks |
|
30 x heavy AA and 40 x light AA positions. |
CORRECT |
|
2 x heavy and 7 x light coastal guns. |
Broadly CORRECT |
|
300 other guns. |
Over estimate approx 100 |
|
10 single engine a/c and 4 twin engine a/c at Maleme |
Correct on 17 May. Nil on 20 May |
|
6 aircraft at Iraklio |
Nil |
|
Seaplanes at Suda |
Nil Visitors only |
The table on page 45 gives the Commonwealth Forces detailed in the intelligence report No. 157/41 by 1c of 7th Fliegerdivision on 19 May, against those actually on Crete on 20 May 1941:
Statements both verbal and written in orders indicating that more enemy troops than formerly identified in orders may be encountered on the ground, suggest that there may have been, at best, a suppression of information that could have called the operation, vital for the future of the Fallschirmjäger, into doubt. At worst this may have been an act of cognitive dissonance, similar to that prior to Arnhem, where facts that did not fit the conceived plan were blanked from the mind of commanders and their staff. One witness, Hauptmann Altmann, who was to land in the first wave of gliders, recounts that he was told, as he boarded his glider, that the enemy on Crete totalled not 11,000 but nearer 48,000. The implication of this is that if this officer well down the chain of command knew this at dawn on 20 May, then senior officers must have known the true scale of opposition they faced at least twelve hours earlier and made a conscious decision to commit the Fallschirmjäger none the less.
A member of the LLSR dressed and equipped for glider operations. Parachutists wore knee pads and wore their smocks over webbing to avoid snagging parachute rigging lines.