Battle of Crete: What went wrong?

What went wrong in the Battle of Crete

  • Whole plan was wrong

    Votes: 13 31.0%
  • Freyberg made mistakes

    Votes: 21 50.0%
  • It was impossible to hold the island no matter what

    Votes: 5 11.9%
  • Other (plz specify)

    Votes: 3 7.1%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
So what went wrong in the battle of Crete and it was lost to the Axis?
The whole plan was wrong? Freyburg made mistakes? or it was impossible to hold the island?

Poll coming up soon...
 
The whole plan was terrible, but even that could have been avoided if it wasn't for Freyberg's bungling.
 
Faulty allied handling of situation; squandring the initiative when trying to take it like the May 22. counter attack on Maleme airfield.
Thought they would have learned something from being exposed to German tactics and operations in Norway, France and Greece. :(
 
Faulty allied handling of situation; squandring the initiative when trying to take it like the May 22. counter attack on Maleme airfield.
Thought they would have learned something from being exposed to German tactics and operations in Norway, France and Greece. :(

Couldnt they have called for naval support? I mean Cunningham was around and could bomb the German defensive lines before the allies assault the airfield...
 
I wouldn't say solely Freyberg; but the Allied forces failed to coordinate properly, essentially. Had they done so, it's unlikely they would have lost.
 
As I understood it, Freyburg refused to release units that were defending the beaches to help reduce and destroy the airborne pockets. That beng said, many were reduced and the battle could have been won by the commonwealth forces present. The RN did a stirling job interdicting the seas between mainland Greece and Crete, but the complete lack of aircover made this a very hazardous job.

I'm not a great one for fingerpointing, but in this instance IMHO the blame does lie squarely on the shoulders of Freyburg. He was given the information from ultra intercepts that the airborne troops were the main thrust and he refused to sanction the withdrawal and regrouping of troops that were defending against a non existent seaborne threat to netutralise the pocket on Maleme.

If you want a very good breakdown, analysis and narrative of the battle i'd suggest Anthoney Beevor's Crete.
 
Even if Freyberg called for air cover where they could come from? Malta and Cyprus are kinda far and Egypt's squads were busy fighting Italians...
 

sharlin

Banned
The Germans really could not keep feeding forces into the battle if it did go south for the Germans. The Paratroop regiments were not very big and were EXCEPTIONALLY well trained and the losses they suffered in Crete pritty much put the Germans off any form of large scale airborne operation in the war again.

The germans could probably not sustain heavy losses of transport aircraft either as they didn't have a reserve available at the time and trying to send in troops from the sea would have given them a close encounter with the RN.
 
Couldnt they have called for naval support? I mean Cunningham was around and could bomb the German defensive lines before the allies assault the airfield...

Perhaps but would probably result in more RN losses.
Seems to me the British were far too engulfed in war-winning WW1 doctrine. Taking the German example of Stoss would have helped immensely. Did read that the Germans had expected a determined counterattack during the night of May 21-22. and not expected to survive it; at least not in their positions.
 
I think the Allies did pretty amazingly well in the the face of the massive Nazi air forces, utterly outmatching Allied strength.

And it's not like there was a good route there for planes stationed in Britain, given that they didn't controls the middle Med. So, how could they have won?

True, they could've lost more planes in the battle, oh boy, by having them so outmatched.

I read about the battle in Churchill.
 
The Germans really could not keep feeding forces into the battle if it did go south for the Germans. The Paratroop regiments were not very big and were EXCEPTIONALLY well trained and the losses they suffered in Crete pritty much put the Germans off any form of large scale airborne operation in the war again.

The germans could probably not sustain heavy losses of transport aircraft either as they didn't have a reserve available at the time and trying to send in troops from the sea would have given them a close encounter with the RN.

Τhey did use them in Leningrad if i remember correctly... However i tend to believe that if Cunningham had bombed german lines in Maleme the counterattack would be successfull and perhaps changed the tide towards the Allies... If Germans couldnt send more paratroopers how would they attempt to recover Maleme with Royal Navy around?
 
Going from memory whilst the Allies had learnt via decrypting German messages that it was going to be a mostly airborne invasion this wasn't adequately communicated to Freyberg so he kept a large number of his available forces near the beaches to repell the expected seaborne main part of the invasion. The other major factor was the sevre lack of radios, and what they did have were tempromental so communications were difficult.
 
Let's not forget that the Germans made a ton of mistakes too. Failure to concentrate their forces, failure to provide air cover for the seaborne reinforcements, inadequate naval escort for those reinforcements, and so on.

If they had used the whole of 7th Fliegerdivision to seize Maleme Airfield and the surrounding area, then flown in 5th Mountain Division and pushed out from there the Allies could not have held them off. Properly escorted convoys with adequate air cover could have arrived nearly intact and provided much needed supplies and heavy equipment in a timely manner.
 
What went wrong was that Freyberg realized 24 hours too late that the major emphasis of the attack was the capture of Maleme Airfield. Otherwise Crete would have been a total victory for the Allies, with major psychological ramifications just as Barbarossa begins. For one thing an Allied victory at Crete would have shown the Germans are vulnerable.......
 
Τhey did use them in Leningrad if i remember correctly... However i tend to believe that if Cunningham had bombed german lines in Maleme the counterattack would be successfull and perhaps changed the tide towards the Allies... If Germans couldnt send more paratroopers how would they attempt to recover Maleme with Royal Navy around?

Leningrad was a special case by A-S War standards. So it's not really an example that the Germans could have done that everywhere else.
 
Getting more equipped troops to Crete in time may have provided the Allies with a reserve force to throw at the Germans. Unfortunately, the rate of the German advance was very quick in mainland Greece, so that troops and equipment were left back.
One easy POD to change that, would have been to have the German attempt to capture the Corinth Canal bridge intact end up as a failure. The bridge is blown up by the retreating Allies, allowing sone more troops to he evacuated to Crete from S. Peloponisian ports, before the Wehrmacht gets there a couple of days later than in OTL. These extra troops are sent with their equipment to Crete and are used against the Germans in Maleme.
180px-Corinth_Canal_2.jpg
 
Getting more equipped troops to Crete in time may have provided the Allies with a reserve force to throw at the Germans. Unfortunately, the rate of the German advance was very quick in mainland Greece, so that troops and equipment were left back.
One easy POD to change that, would have been to have the German attempt to capture the Corinth Canal bridge intact end up as a failure. The bridge is blown up by the retreating Allies, allowing sone more troops to he evacuated to Crete from S. Peloponisian ports, before the Wehrmacht gets there a couple of days later than in OTL. These extra troops are sent with their equipment to Crete and are used against the Germans in Maleme.
180px-Corinth_Canal_2.jpg

Τhis would buy them a few days (3 at most)... Would this be enough time for Freyberg to organise a better defence in Crete?
 
Top