Chapter Three
Arriving in Greece only days before the operation was due to be launched, the Fallschirmjäger had little time to acclimatise and prepare their equipment for the coming operation. Hauptmann von der Hydte, I Battalion Fallschirmjägerregiment 3 (I/FJR 3), described the camp set up by his men just to the east of the airbase at Topolia.
Tents were quickly put up, well apart from each other and irregularly dispersed among the trees, and the whole battalion was soon under canvas. Within a few hours of arrival the six hundred young men were already disporting themselves in the evening sun.
The pleasant holiday atmosphere was not to last long before warning orders were issued. While the Fallschirmjäger were relaxing in bivouacs at the airfields, Student had moved his headquarters from Berlin and reopened it in Athens on 7 May 1941. Here the detailed plans were made and officers came to be briefed. ‘The orderly brought,’ said von der Hydte, ‘instructions that I should report at eleven o’clock at Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens for a conference with General Student.’
One look at the hermetically-sealed and shuttered room in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, where the commanders of all the Fallschirmjäger regiments and battalions were gathered to receive their orders, was sufficient to dispel the secret of our target: a large map of Crete was prominently displayed upon the wall.
In a quiet but clear and slightly vibrant voice General Student explained the plan of attack. It was his personal plan. He had devised it, had struggled against heavy opposition for its acceptance, and had worked out all the details. One could perceive that this plan had become a part of him, a part of his life. He believed in it and lived for it and in it.
Time for some sightseeing before the off. The Pathenon Athens.
The plan was however bedevilled by a number of practical problems. Chief amongst these was that an adequate number of bases for both transport aircraft and von Richthofen’s fighters and fighter bombers could not be found and aircraft were crammed into the available space. To make matters worse, with the priority firmly on BARBAROSSA, units to man and run the improvised bases were lacking. Again improvisation was needed and the situation was only inadequately resolved by the drafting of Luftwaffereservists and even infantry officers to the task. As we will see, this was to have a significant effect on the conduct of Operation MERKUR.
Availability of operating staff was not the only problem that would impact on the operation. Oberst von Heyking explained:
Each of these two landing grounds was made up of flat terrain between mountains. The ground was very sandy and the aircraft wheels sunk in up to the axles. When landing or taking off the aircraft threw up huge dust clouds hundreds of feet into the air, which afterwards fell to the ground very slowly because of the high temperatures and lack of wind in the narrow valley. These difficult conditions would prevent our wing forming up and taking off on the day of the operation.
The wing commander did not think that the operations could be carried out effectively from these two landing grounds. But he received no help from XI Fliegerkorps, probably because communications were difficult to establish with the other sectors and perhaps because there were no other fields available.
… When a plane taxied, it caused huge clouds of dust. This was not long in covering the planes and entering the engines. … Means had to be found to get our wing to take off in tight formation and over a short period of time. Two days before the operation, a take-off exercise was planned and seventeen minutes elapsed between one flight taking off and the next getting ready for take off: this was the time needed for the dust clouds to clear.
General der Flieger Wolfram Frhr. von Richthofen.
Confirmation that X-Day would be the 20th came on 18 May and orders were issued to the men the following day, when the purposeful activity of battle preparations began in earnest. Von der Hydte recalled:
As it grew dark we were transported in trucks to the airfield, where we were greeted by the ear-splitting roar of a hundred and twenty air-transports as they tested their engines in preparation for the take-off. Through clouds of dust we could see red glowing sparks flaring from the exhausts of the machines, and only by this light was it possible to discern the silhouettes of our men. Flashing the pale green beams of their torches in order to indicate their whereabouts, the hundred and twenty officers and NCOs of my battalion tried their best to make themselves heard above the thundering of the engines. The picture reminded me of glow-worms in August.
During the hours which precede a sortie everything seems to become bewitched. Arms containers being hoisted into the racks spill open, aircraft are not where they should be, and the most important machine is liable, for some reason or another, to pack up. But the most extraordinary thing is that despite these numerous hitches the take-off invariably seems to proceed satisfactorily.
Major Schulz I Battalion Fallschirmjäger Regiment 1 talking to his men before their drop on Iraklio.
Hauptmann von der Hydte decided not to join his men in preparing equipment and aircraft, as ‘One can, of course, join one’s officers and NCOs, but the only result is that 122, instead of 121, voices are bellowing unintelligibly in the darkness’.
Assembling a mass of strike aircraft and the slower moving transports and glider tugs required daylight, so it was not until dawn on 20 May 1941 that the airborne invasion of Crete could begin. This timing dictated the carefully sequenced events of the entire day.
It was a few minutes after 5 a.m. when my aircraft, piloted by the commander of the flight himself, taxied out onto the runway. The first light of dawn scarcely penetrated the red dust, raised by the machines during the night, which hung like a dense fog over the airfield.
The aircraft braked; on our right we could see the shadow of the controlsentry, who would give us the ‘All Clear’ in a moment or two. Then his torch blinked green. We started to move, the wheels knocking hard on the bumpy ground, faster and faster until suddenly the knocking ceased and gave place to a gentle sensation of gliding as the machine lifted itself from the runway and rose in a wide sweep upwards. Except for the crew, not one of the thirteen men seated in the plane uttered a word. Everyone was preoccupied with his own thoughts. When there is no going back, most men experience a strange sinking feeling, as if their stomachs had remained on the ground.
Suddenly the bright light of the morning sun broke through. The plane had risen beyond the layer of dust and fog.
A Ju-52 disappears into a dust cloud kicked up by the three engines. This caused severe problems from the beginning.
The results of exercises similar to that conducted by Oberst von Heyking allowed the leading aircraft to concentrate into a stream and head south to Crete on time. Despite the difficulties the operation had got off to a reasonable start.
Meanwhile, aboard the aircraft, after a night with very little sleep, the Fallschirmjägers’ singing quickly gave way to sleep. For the ten men crammed into the light framed DFS-230 glider behind its tug aircraft the rush of the propeller wash was both uncomfortable and noisy. One early casualty was a glider carrying Generalleutnant Süssman and elements of his divisional HQ. In the dawn light his slow moving tug and glider combination was crossed by a faster moving bomber shortly after leaving the coastline. Flying into the turbulence caused by the faster aircraft’s slipstream, the DFS-230 broke its tow and the pilot was unable to regain control of the collapsing aircraft, which crashed into the island of Agina, with the loss of all ten Fallschirmjäger aboard. MERCURE had her first victims.
The aircraft pressed on with the parachute aircraft slowly closing on the slower moving glider tug combinations, who were due to land first at around 0815 hours. Ahead, von Richthofen’s aircraft could be seen in action over the objectives, doing their best to suppress enemy flack. In one of the leading aircraft of the LLSR was hero and veteran of Fort Eben Emael, Oberfeldwebel Helmut Wenzel:
Crete appears in the distance. Get ready! We stand and hook up the static lines of our parachutes, check each other out and prepare for the drop. I realise we are flying at 180 metres (550 ft); this means it will take some time to float down, thus increasing the risk of being hit in the air! No sooner has this thought crossed my mind when the clocking noise of bullets and little holes in the aircraft tell us that we are already under fire. Events reel off very rapidly as we approach the drop line. The chap behind me is hit and curls up on the floor, probably dead. There is no time to see to him – we have to get out and jump! Heaving out my bicycle first, I jump ahead of my men, holding my camera with one hand, as it will not fit inside my jumping smock any more, my gas mask taking its place.
As I float down, bullets whistle past me and I hear the crackling noise of small-arms fire. The enemy is putting up a hot reception for us and, looking down I can see we are dropping right onto enemy positions.’
On their way and in good spirits. A stick of thirteen men and at least two containers.
The battle for Crete, foretold by ULTRA, had now begun in earnest but would the ambush Churchill hoped for work?