the field artillery journal - Fort Sill - U.S. Army

1943 MOUNTAIN JAEGERS 165
Whoever attacks Crete must begin the attack from the
north and strive to occupy the island from west to east or
vice versa. The numerous defiles and mountain heights,
which again and again give the defender the best defensive
positions, make frontal attacks especially difficult and
costly. Outflanking movements and detours must therefore
be attempted time and again in spite of all difficulties of
terrain. But also in the lowland it is difficult for the
attacker to fight through the vast olive groves, which make
it almost impossible to reconnoiter from the air or on the
ground.
Little was known about the strength or the troop
dispositions of the English. At the close of 1940 they had
occupied the island with about one division and used it as
an air and
naval base.
After the
collapse of
the Grecian
front on the
mainland,
forces of at
most one
division
from the
British
expeditionar
y corps
might have
been landed
in Crete. In
addition to
these there
were about
10,000
Greek troops from Peloponnesus. The collective strength
of the enemy might therefore have totaled 40,000 men,
some of which were not (with respect to equipment or
weapons) fully prepared to be sent into battle. Whether
part of these again had gone to Egypt (or conversely,
whether reinforcements had come from there) could not
be ascertained with certainty.
By the use of parachute troops on May 20 the
connection between the west and the east was successfully
broken and coordinated communication between the
defenders stopped.
On May 21 in the afternoon occurred the landing of the
first battalion of mountain jaegers on the Maleme
aerodrome, which, to be sure, was still within range of
enemy artillery. To eliminate this and make the aerodrome
secure was, therefore, the first task. On the morning of the
23rd it was accomplished by outflanking the enemy from
the south, and a line approximately 7 kilometers south and
east of Maleme was reached.
Platoon by platoon more units of the mountain jaegers
now arrived, especially heavy weapons and artillery. The
leader of the mountain jaeger unit, Major-General Rin gel,
formed several fighting units, one of which mopped up the
western part of the island. It joined battle with guerrillas at
Kastelli and took the place by storm on May 24 after a
preparatory attack of stukas, the guerrillas suffering very
heavy losses. The next day some detachments reached the
district west of Kastelli, while other detachments attacking
above Kandanos also captured Palaiokhora after a short
battle late in the evening. During the following days the
enemy was mopped up in the western part of the island so
that that part was soon pacified.
In the meantime the fighting units pressing eastward
succeeded by bitter fighting—in which the favorable
terrain and the olive groves obstructing the view aided the
foe — in
throwing the
enemy back to
a defensive
position which
(beginning
from the left)
lay 5
kilometers to
the east of the
line Platanias-
Galatas-
Alikianou. A
frontal attack
alone could not
lead to a
decisive
victory, so an
outflanking
group was
formed of a
regiment of mountain jaegers which, by taking advantage
of the spur of Levka Oros, was to outflank the enemy
positions west of Khania, reach the Khania-Rhethymno
road in the district southeast of Souda, and thereby cut off
the line of retreat for the English.
In the course of the next day—May 25—the enemy
positions were wrested from the English meter by meter in
the frontal attack. Mountain positions were taken in bitter
encounters until finally in the evening a company of
mountain jaegers succeeded after a stuka attack in taking
by storm the mountain fortress of Galatas and holding it
against a night counterattack by the enemy. In the
meantime the flanking detachment had pressed forward to
the south wing of the foe and gotten ready to attack with its
right flank toward Alikianou.
On May 26 the attack was continued according to plan.
The outflanking detachment took Alikianou and gained the
line 542.12—Pyrgos, advancing through pathless
mountains and in burning heat. Further to the north the
enemy was thrown back just west of Khania, which was
captured by envelopment toward 1400 on the following