WI: Allied victory in the Battle of Crete

Witch bring us to point IV: without a whole new german army in North Africa and the germans the campaign there is indeed over relatively quickly.

Sicily will be a harder nut to crack TTL. At the minimum The Germans Divisions that would have been sent to reinforce Tunisia will now be sitting on Sicily.
 
Sicily will be a harder nut to crack TTL. At the minimum The Germans Divisions that would have been sent to reinforce Tunisia will now be sitting on Sicily.

Probably not all but yes, at least part of them. That and the americans are gonna be greener compare to OTL. Still, the WAllies should be a good while ahead of schedule.
 
Deploying W force to Greece never made sense to me, if W force had been sent to Crete, Crete could have been held destroying the Axis invasion force would be significant UK victory.
Only military supplies should have been sent to mainland Greece with RAF squadrons on Crete providing as much air cover as possible.
Greek forces withdrawn from mainland should be sent to Egypt or Palestine to regroup before returning to garrison Crete.
Supplying Crete will be difficult but not impossible, Crete will be as big a pain in Axis side as Malta, holding Crete make's resupplying Malta easier.
 
The Germans have already been beaten once. Their transport squadrons have been mauled and their airbourn division wiped out or captured. The haven't the naval strength to force an invasion convoy through to Crete...

Because of the many British warships in the Aegean Sea? /snark

There were some British ships operating there during May 1941, but they couldn't stay there long. By the end of June, there would be no British (or other) naval opposition to a seaborne Axis invasion. Nor air opposition; all British aircraft were pulled out even before MERCURY.
 
In the same article it states that Tympaki airfield was abandoned due to air raids from Egypt. It would be realistic then that the Germans would pull their aircraft back to the Greek mainland from island airfields if under constant air attack from allied aircraft based on Crete.

Half truth! Fake news!

The other two strips on Crete on still going.

The Tympaki team (led by David Sutherland of the Black Watch) discovered that due to air raids from Egypt, the airfield had been temporarily abandoned and the aircraft based there had been relocated.


Maleme operationEdit

The Maleme team was made up of Captains Michael Kealy and James Allott who landed on Crete aboard the Greek submarine Papanikolis. After a difficult march, they reached Maleme but were also unsuccessful. They discovered that the airfield was strongly guarded and was recently equipped with electrified fences, making it impossible to penetrate its perimeter.
 
Is it possible that as the situation gets worse for Rommel in Libya the Germans occupy Tunisia at an earlier date in 1942? I am not talking about occupying Vichy France as well but grabbing Tunisia. Could the Vichy be forced to give in?
Well there were already the Paris Protocols which were negotiated in May of 1941 that granted the Germans the right to establish military bases in several French colonies including Tunisia, they also agreed to turn over a lot of the French lorries in North Africa to help with the Afrika Korps' logistics problems. If things are going worse than in our timeline then I could see the Germans taking full advantage of it.
 
Well there were already the Paris Protocols which were negotiated in May of 1941 that granted the Germans the right to establish military bases in several French colonies including Tunisia, they also agreed to turn over a lot of the French lorries in North Africa to help with the Afrika Korps' logistics problems. If things are going worse than in our timeline then I could see the Germans taking full advantage of it.

The problems with that is to actually get your hands on the goodies since they're all controlled on the ground by the local leaders, who appart from the aforementionned governor of Tunisia, tended to be anglo-phobic. In fact, North Africa (and the main french fleet who was then at Mers-El Kebir) came somehwat close to secede from Vichy in 1940 and only backed down when they where guaranteed that the armistices gave the germans absolutely no right on North Africa. I'll actually contradict myself here and say that they're is two ways you can make the local french switch: occupy Vichy (like OTL) or push them to hard to support the germans in any ways. This was actually one of the few area where Hitler was cautious OTL too.

French politics between may 1940 and late 1943 was really, really, complicated and full of conflicted loyalties.
 
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For what it's worth these are from notes I took from a book called Five Ventures from the reference section of Redcar Library and dated 9th May 1994.

Middle East Command 1st February 1941 - 11 divisions and one brigade
  • Egypt and Western Desert 4 divisions and one brigade (1st and 7th Armoured Divisions, 2nd New Zealand Division, 6th Australian Division and the Polish Brigade)
  • Palestine 2 divisions (7th and 9th Australian Divisions)
  • Sudan 2 divisions (4th and 5th Indian Divisions)
  • East Africa 3 divisions (1st South African Division and the 11th and 12th African Divisions)
Not mentioned in the notes were the 1st Cavalry Division in Palestine and the 6th Infantry Division one of whose brigades (the 14th) was in Crete.

Greek Force (Wilson)
  • I Australian Corps (Blamey) with the 2nd New Zealand Division and 6th Australian Division
  • 7th Armoured Brigade Group from the 2nd Armoured Division
  • To be reinforced by the 7th Australian Division and the Polish Brigade ASAP
  • 58,051 strength at the beginning of the campaign
  • 42,311 evacuated
  • 15,740 losses
Equipment left behind​
  • Practically all artillery, heavy equipment and motor transport
  • The troops who returned were short of machine guns, mortars, ammunition and even rifles
  • Most of the signals equipment and close support weapons
According to the Mediterranean and Middle East Volume I it looks as if one HAA battery and one LAA battery both of which were intended for Malta were sent to the Greek mainland to protect the RAF bases there.

Build up of forces on Crete.
Arrived 31st October 1940 to 6th November 1940
HQ 14th Infantry Brigade
151st LAA Battery, RA
156th HAA Battery, RA
42nd Field Company, RE
2nd Battalion Lancashire and Yorkshire Regiment​
Arrived 13th November 1940
2nd Battalion The Black Watch
50 Middle East Commando​
Arrived 17th February 1941
1st Battalion the Welch Regiment​
Arrived 10th May 1941
AA portion of the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation​
Arrived 16th May 1941
2nd Battalion the Leicestershire Regiment​
Arrived 19th May 1941
1st Battalion the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders​

Garrison on 20th May 1941
15,063 British (5,200 original Crete Force, 6,399 evacuated from Greece and remained, 3,464 from Egypt)
6,451 Australians evacuated from Greece
7,100 New Zealanders evacuated from Greece

28,614 Total British Empire and Commonwealth​

The Anzacs were organised into the 19th Australian, 4th NZ, 5th NZ and 10th NZ Brigades. The 10th NZ Bde was formed on the island.​

Greek forces on Crete
11,000 Army
2,800 Gendarmes
300 GMA
800 GAFA

14,900 Total organised into units of 1,000 strong but poorly equipped​

There were also 16,000 Italian prisoners on the island.

Before the evacuation there were 16 heavy and 36 light anti-aircraft guns on the island. It was estimated that another 40 heavy and 12 light AA guns were needed plus 72 searchlights.

On 14th May 1941 there were 16 light tanks belonging to the 3rd Hussars and 7 infantry tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment. Both were part of the 1st Armoured Brigade and before the evacuation of Greece they had 52 tanks each.
 
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The offical history has a slight variation

A few British units were, however, carried to Crete from Egypt during April and May. The convoy bringing the M.N.B.D.O. reached Suez via the Cape on 21st April; its anti-aircraft regiment and two coast defence batteries arrived at Suda Bay on 9th May. Royal Marine detachments, acting as infantry, which arrived then or later amounted together to less than a battalion. This addition brought the total of anti-aircraft guns in Crete by 19th May up to 32 heavy and 36 light (of which 12 were not mobile), and 24 searchlights.
 
Probably, though not sure the Allies would benefit much.

Well, as the greekification of the agean theater keep going in paralel with the rebuilding of a small greek army I imagine he would end up in charge there. Being in charge of a whole theater is no small feat, even when its a side show, there isn't a lot of generals who could perform at that task. Papagos has showed he could do it well enough in Albania and Epirus so he will be able to fulfill that need ably.
 
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It shouldn't make a big difference but it would go into the greekification of the agean theater as the greek manage to rebuild a small army.

The reason I was not sure was that iOTL while he did well when commanding against the Italians Papagos seemed to lose his effectiveness when the Nazis became involved.

He certainly made several hard to understand decisions during the latter part of the defense and made no effort to join the "Free Greek" forces.
 
The reason I was not sure was that iOTL while he did well when commanding against the Italians Papagos seemed to lose his effectiveness when the Nazis became involved.

He certainly made several hard to understand decisions during the latter part of the defense and made no effort to join the "Free Greek" forces.

Thats true, tough one may see it isn't entirely his fault since he had to deal with political directives to hold the line in Albania when it became absurd to do so. While those are lesser know he also did well enough during the Greek civil war and was pivotal in the royalists victory. Hence why I tend to give him the benifice of the doubt and assume that, like many other generals, he was shocked by his first experience of the german blitzkrieg but could have adjusted given time to think things true.

OTL joining the free greek was rather hard, with a long run to the border through german-occupied territory needed to reach turkey and then hope to be able to make it to british occupied mid-east. Here he only need to make it to the sea with a good timing and get into a boat and there we go.
 
he had to deal with political directives to hold the line in Albania when it became absurd to do so

Papagos was no mere line soldier, but a political heavy hitter himself.
He was a Minister in at least two separate military juntas even before WW2.
(and his career post WW2 can easily be viewed as that of a military dictator)

I rather think he had "the juice" to implement a more balance posture in Spring '41 had he wanted to.

why I tend to give him the benifice of the doubt and assume that, like many other generals, he was shocked by his first experience of the german blitzkrieg but could have adjusted given time to think things true.

He was warned often enough but AIUI (and I'm no expert) made no effort to establish an effective defensive line against the German thrusts

While those are lesser know he also did well enough during the Greek civil war and was pivotal in the royalists victory.

AIUI He had a preponderance of both forces and technology from US aid.

OTL joining the free greek was rather hard, with a long run to the border through german-occupied territory needed to reach turkey and then hope to be able to make it to british occupied mid-east. Here he only need to make it to the sea with a good timing and get into a boat and there we go.

True but that is after the occupation was complete. He could very easily have left around the time of the surrender.
 
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Papagos does not have to be an active field commander. He could serve as a chief of staff like Marshall and Brooke. I don't see Greece being too active conventional forces wise. Most of the fighting will be commando raids and insurgency against the Germans. I see a brief island hopping campaign that will end in 1943. Italy and of course Normandy/Southern France will take priority.
The SAS and SBS will be more busy in the Aegean with Crete as a home base.
 
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