Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
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In OTL the Germans had no idea about the existing tanks in the island and vastly underestimated the Allied numbers. They thought that the whole force was the equivalent of 2 infantry regiments and 1 artillery regiment, 5,000 overall including both Greeks and Commonwealth.
To quote from Antony Beevor's book:
Well, what actually happened was the following (copy pasted from Beevor):
Now the civilian Cretans will have 20,000 of their young men, all of them veterans, back in the island.
Der Furor Teutonicus you say ? Cretans are not impressed.
To quote from Antony Beevor's book:
Well, what actually happened was the following (copy pasted from Beevor):
Now the civilian Cretans will have 20,000 of their young men, all of them veterans, back in the island.
Der Furor Teutonicus you say ? Cretans are not impressed.
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The cretan divison was evacuted early with most of their gear and all of their officers . It alone would make german invasion almost impossible . I imagine the divison eventually gets split into two or three even . First as the cretan garrison , then maybe as garrison for other islands and the last part for the most keen people a greek divison in the invasion of italy. They can take over alot of the beach defenses and the british can concetrate on the airfields alot more than otl thanks to that is my thought as the most logical butterfly.
My thought and hope is that the greek provide like a corps for the italian invasion and maybe one of the divisons could be armored by then from old british tanks when they upgrade to the proto comet thats coming very soon ? They are also troops + the island garrisons with wich to do a balkans adventure in 1944 with local resources is another butterfly to be honest.
My thought and hope is that the greek provide like a corps for the italian invasion and maybe one of the divisons could be armored by then from old british tanks when they upgrade to the proto comet thats coming very soon ? They are also troops + the island garrisons with wich to do a balkans adventure in 1944 with local resources is another butterfly to be honest.
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The disadvantage was they had non -British-proprietary ammunition for their rifles and machine guns as well as any heavier weapons (artillery etc) they might have
All of this makes me think that there's no On The Bounce invasion as surely the Germans both 1) appreciated Allied forces more and 2) will have figured out that Crete has got a reasonable amount of evacuated troops - more so than OTL's apparently farcical intelligence report
Wasn't a lot of the German Intelligence aparatus at the time either not up to standard, riddled with inflitration by british agents, or dogmatically political? I know the Germans had problems with their agents being flipped by british intelligence, hell they gave a British double agent a iron cross at some point for all the 'good work' that he was doing. So I'm not sure how good their actual intelligence would be at the time, or whether their photo interpreters were up to snuff, or if theres large SS formations involved they could be rejecting reality as not conforming to their expectations.
I could be wrong, but it seems like once battles like this got going the Germans seemed to discount or not use intelligence assets as they probably should.
I could be wrong, but it seems like once battles like this got going the Germans seemed to discount or not use intelligence assets as they probably should.
That was Juan Pujol García, and he was never a German agent, he simply made them think he was a spy friendly to their cause.
Ah fair enough.
Not sure which one it would be the remit of, but how good where the German intelligence services actually at with photo interpretation? This is pretty early on in the war so both the Allies, and the Germans wouldn't have had as much practice, so would they even be able to pick out the camoflagued posistions on the island when the Soldiers have had time to dig in a disguise them?
Canaris was indeed a member of the Schwarze Kapelle, along with his deputy, Hans Oster, and several other senior members of the organisation.
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I mean, at this point in time he is running a German spy ring that doesn't exist, supposedly in Britain (where he has never actually visited) while he is actually in Portugal (I think), while supplying them with fake information. And the Germans didn't notice. They spent the entire war believing he was a loyal agent. Despite the fact that he kept making mistakes until the Americans told the British about this guy. I mean, he doesn't even understand the British currency system at this time!
And the British completely subverted German intelligence during the war. Their entire Britain based intelligence apparatus were actually working for British counter-intelligence (or they got caught immediately). Now, not sure how good they were outside of Britain.
The Germans (or maybe it was the Germans piggybacking on the Italians) did have some outstanding intelligence successes during the war, such as the much discussed Bonner Fellers, whose mail to Roosevelt they were basically reading until the Americans back in the USA finally figured out that their codes were broken.
There's also been some references over in a 'D-Day 1943' thread to claims that the Germans may have been listening to Churchill's telephone conversations with Roosevelt - although I'm personally not clear at this point (pending further research) if those claims are anywhere near as well-grounded as it seems to me that the Bonner Fellers one is.
ITTL, that won't give them anything, as the British will be on the homes stretch by the time the Italians manage to steal the Black Code.
I would highly recommend that anyone read CSM Coward's book. He was a remarkable man and that film doesn't do him justice. He actually broke into Auschwitz to see what was going on and smuggled people out.
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