Epic Memory: the Allied withdrawal and German occupation during WWII

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Allied troops had kept to the cover of camouflage and silt trenches, many of them dug by hand due to the lack of spades and shovels, tucked among olive groves during daylight hours. For two weeks German bombs fell around their positions. A continuous patchwork of stonewalled and terraced farming plots, many newly plowed, below the olive canopy -– scarcely broken from Heraklion to the Gramvousa peninsula in the far west – aided in the concealment of 28,614 troops. These men from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, plus an additional 15,000 Greek soldiers, battle-hardened yet downcast from service in Albania, lay in wait for the German incursion.

The airborne invasion began in the twilight of a Tuesday the 20th of May 1941. The serenity of the early-summer Mediterranean dawn was broken by the cacophony produced by airborne strafing and antiaircraft fire. The thrust of the German assault was focused upon western Crete at Maleme and Khania on the north coast. The gliders fortunate enough to make a “successful” crash-landing contained several heavily armed German troops. These were soon followed by large numbers of German aircraft containing parachute divisions. One eyewitness described the appearance and accoutrements of these airborne invaders:

"Nothing seemed to have been forgotten in the equipment of the men who landed by parachute. Besides their personal arms (automatic pistol and jack-knife) they carried two or three days rations, including the specially-prepared Wittler bread sliced and wrapped in cellophane or silver paper (it was supposed to last indefinitely until unwrapped, but it in fact did not); processed chocolate and rusks; tartaric acid, sugar, biscuits and thirst quenchers; cigarettes and contraceptives. They wore camouflaged overalls and crash-helmets. Their wrists and ankles were bandaged, as a rule, to lessen risk of sprains or breaks, With their packs they carried blankets, stoves and utensils for boiling water. Doctors arrived by parachute with complete sets of surgical instruments, bandages, cotton wool, quinine and a variety of different drugs" (Buckley, 1977).

Equipped for a Cretan holiday, these troops expected little resistance after the bombing campaign. Such figures dotted the skies over island during these initial days of unrest. Many were shot dead before they even reached the ground.

The allied Australian, British, New Zealand, and Greek troops inflicted heavy causalities throughout the first days of the invasion. Nevertheless, the relentless Germans soon obtained a foothold by taking the airfield at Maleme. Despite their best attempts, the allies suffered heavily from a lack of proper communications, ammunition, and supplies. After a week of continuous combat the order was given for withdrawal by way of the sleepy southern port of Hora Sphakion.

There was only one road south that penetrated the high White Mountains, and contemporary accounts state that it was so packed with refuges and stragglers that dispatch riders found passage difficult. The road was rough and unforgiving. The ascent to the rim of the Askifou plain was especially grueling. At this point the New Zealand Official War Artist Captain Peter McIntyre recounts: At last, at weary last, there was the top of the pass. Below us and ahead lay a beautiful plain like a cup in the mountains. There were green fields in vari-coloured pattern and little white villages clustered under the edge of the hills. Across the plain, the khaki columns crept like ants making thin wavering lines in the distance… The plain narrowed at the far end into another pass, and the bombers were pasting it. The line of men would move on and up, and then the planes would come and the line of khaki would melt into the rocks. The crash of bombs echoed through the mountains. Huge clouds of smoke and dust belched upwards from the passes (in Buckley 1977, 271).

The high valley of Askifou was dubbed the “saucer” by Allied troops because of its shape. Even though many found wells to replenish their dwindling water supplies few soldiers found respite in this area because of their exposure to enemy aircraft. The few vehicles that remained broke down en route and were pushed off the road, many into the depths of the Imbros Gorge which lie immediately south of the “saucer”. Upon arriving the end of the gorge one also reached the literal ‘end of the road’. The remainder of the march led over two miles of rough and unforgiving Cretan countryside down to the port.

In the evening of May 28th four British destroyers lay off of Hora Sphakion with orders to ferry as many troops as possible to Alexandria. The evacuation by sea would continue over the next four nights. When the last of the evacuation craft departed on the 31st 5000 troops were left stranded in Hora Sphakion with no chance of immediate escape. A few took their chances with smaller watercraft and attempted to reach the north coast of Africa. Some escaped to the refuge of the high mountains. Many became prisoners of war only to escape and join the Cretan resistance.

Today a monument stands at the edge of the harbor, a historical landmark commemorating the Allied withdrawal. This episode of the war figures prominently in the memory-history of Sphakians not only because of local involvement in the event but also because it marks a narrative beginning for the “Cretan resistance”—the Sphakians were left to fend for themselves. The Germans would occupy the island for almost four years. The remote and harsh terrain of the region made it a center of the Cretan resistance movement. Out of this period of turmoil Sphakians would produce new heroic figures of resistance in the mold of Daskaloyannis.

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