The decisive battle against the Third Reich

The defenses of the British and Greek troops on the island of Crete soon reached a stage of collapse, although both the British and Greek troops tried hard to restore the situation.

The Greek army's attempt was to attack the "Eight O'clock" heights together with the National People's Liberation Army, but their attempt had no effect at all.

Qin Chuan believes that this has a lot to do with the British supply distribution.

Theoretically speaking, even if the German army is well-trained and occupies favorable terrain on high ground, the total strength of the British army, Greek army and militia is at least five times that of the German army... What's more important is that the German army is surrounded on a high ground and cannot If it moves, all its supplies must rely on airdrops from transport aircraft.

So this is actually an easy solution, which is to compress the space of the German army as much as possible, so that it will be difficult for transport planes to airdrop supplies to the German-controlled area. Even if they are dropped to the British and Greek coalition forces, they can use firepower to blockade them and blow them up directly.

The problem is that the British army has the most advanced equipment but not much will to fight, while the Greek army has the will to fight but no equipment. Especially the Greek militia... The militiamen fought bravely, especially at night. Several times they launched group charges towards the high ground where the German troops were stationed, but were suppressed several times by the powerful German firepower. So at dawn the next day, only about 500 of the more than 1,000 Greek militiamen were still fighting.

The slopes of the highlands were littered with the corpses of Greek militiamen. To the Germans' disbelief, many of the corpses held spears and axes instead of guns.

The German army even launched a counterattack against the militia... The firepower of the militia was unable to stop the German attack, so the German army easily obtained more space transport aircraft and used this time to airdrop ammunition and supplies.

This can also be said to be the fault of the British army. In fact, it is not that the British army does not have enough weapons and equipment for these Greek troops and Greek militias. It is just that the British have their own little calculations... They hope to control these troops, so they dare not trust and equip these independent consciousnesses. The Greek army is very strong, especially the National People's Liberation Army. Otherwise, the equipment of the National People's Liberation Army would not be so bad.

(Note: This is also related to ideology. The "National Liberation Front of Greece" was established by the Communist Party of Greece)

In other words, the British army, the Greek government army and the Greek militia actually had their own motives and were wary of each other. Although they had to fight the enemy together due to the airborne landings of Germany and Italy, they were in the same place, which gave the German army a chance to defeat them. .

The British military's effort was to mobilize the aircraft carrier "Indomitable".

This approach is of course correct. The biggest problem for the British army on Crete is that the airport is blocked and unable to exert air superiority, and the aircraft carrier is equivalent to a mobile airport on the sea. Montgomery tried to use this method to alleviate the problem on Crete. crisis and turn the tide of the war.

The problem is that the aircraft carrier is only a small airport, or to be precise, an ultra-small airport. It can only accommodate some short take-off and landing fighters and must have professionally trained pilots.

This made the investment of the "Indomitable" aircraft carrier not play a big role: at this time, the British army's carrier-based aircraft were still relatively backward "Sea Fighter" and "Flange-nosed" fighters. Italy can barely use it in its fight for air and sea supremacy. Facing the German BF109, it can only take a beating. Among them, the "Sea Fighter" is even an old-fashioned biplane.

On the third day of the battle, another piece of exciting good news came out from the German army: Malemai Airport had been put back into use under German control and emergency repairs.

Although it is only an airport, it is of extraordinary significance for the battle, because it means that German fighter planes can land at Malemai Airport for supplies, and then they can fully control the air superiority of Crete.

So Montgomery had to lower his head and said: "We have lost, withdraw the command headquarters!"

There is really no point in continuing to fight except for killing more people. The British have always valued interests and reality, so they announced their surrender after withdrawing the 14th British Infantry Division and several important generals of the Greek army as soon as possible.

The Greek army soon announced its surrender.

Of course, the National People's Liberation Army will not surrender. They just choose to quietly withdraw their troops and then disperse and hide among the people.

There was also an episode during the surrender:

The Italian army arrived at the Iraqi airport to surrender first, but Colonel Smith refused the Italian army's surrender after discussing with the Greek army.

"Defeat our German army!" Colonel Smith said to the Italians: "So, we only surrender to the Germans!"

This made Colonel Ennio, the commander of the 1st Italian Parachute Regiment, very angry. A group of defeated generals were still showing off their power in front of the great "Lightning Division".

So after giving the order, they planned to break through, but they didn't expect that the equipment of the British at the airport was not comparable to that of the Italian army. They "rumblingly" drove out a few tanks.

Colonel Ennio was stunned when he saw this situation... Most of the paratroopers were lightly equipped, and they didn't have "Iron Fist" in their hands, so they couldn't go head-to-head with these thick-skinned "Matilda" tanks.

At this time, the staff officer gave Colonel Ennio a step down.

"Colonel!" said the staff officer: "If we can make the Germans surrender by letting them come, there will be no need for any more casualties..."

Colonel Ennio said "hmm" with a very ugly face, and asked someone to notify the German troops on the high ground.

The German army did not dare to give up the "Eight O'clock" heights easily, because it was the main position to blockade the airport... They did not want the British or Greeks to seize the "Eight O'clock" heights and lift the airport when the German troops were about to surrender. of blockade.

So in the end the Italian army had to send a force to the "eight o'clock" heights to replace the German troops and accept the surrender.

When the Italian soldiers walked up to the "eight o'clock" high ground, they were all surprised to see the overlapping craters on the high ground and the corpses and broken limbs all over the ground, because the island was very humid. , some of the corpses were even smelly and infested with maggots.

"How did you do it?" an Italian captain asked the German soldiers whose uniforms were in tatters: "You persisted in this situation for three days?"

"Relax, Italian!" Alfredo replied on his behalf: "This is not the toughest battle we have ever fought, and the battle is not as difficult as you think!"

Alfredo was telling the truth, because the enemy's quality was uneven, and the German soldiers thought they could still deal with it.

But this was a bit ironic to the ears of the Italian soldiers... because they faced the same enemies, but they did not fight easily. Even now, they still have nothing to do with the British troops at the airport.