The battle for Greece & Crete.pdf - Army Museum of South Australia

The situation was not helped when it was estimated that it would need 650 tons of supplies each day tosupport the troops and only about 80 tons per day was being delivered. The fact that what supplieswere being delivered could not be unloaded during the day because of air attacks did not assist thesituation. To speed up the unloading in the short time available about 400 Australian and NewZealanders volunteered to form working gangs to unload the supplies under the difficult conditionwhich prevailed.By the 24 th May General Freyberg realised that Crete could not be saved and on the 26 th May headvised General Wavell that a decision should be made to immediately to evacuate if there was to beany chance of saving the bulk of the troops.On the 26 th May two British Commando Units were landed at night at Sunda Bay to support theexisting troops, unfortunately it was too late.On the 27 th May General Wavell decided to abandon Crete and to evacuate the troops over the nextfour days.Order for Capitulation of CreteSecond/7 th Infantry Battalion and Second /8 th Battalion31 st May, 1941Lieutenant Colonel Colvin,In view of the following facts, my orders direct me to give precedence in evacuation of fighting troops..This has reduced the active garrison below what is required for resistance for the possibility ofevacauation. I therefore direct you to collect such senior officers that are available in the early hours oftomorrow and transmit these orders to the senior of them. These orders are to make contact with theenemy and to capitulate.Evacuation“A copy of surrender Document at Spharkia Crete May 1941”It was decided that the evacuation would take place from two points. One would be Heraklion, withthe 2/4 Infantry Battalion the first to leave from this point on the 29 th May. The other being at Sfakia(Stakia) on the southern coast this required the troops to cross the White Mountains. It would appearthat this was another command blunder due to the height of the mountains and the narrow tracks thetroops would have to negotiate.During the period 28 th to 31 st May about 18,000 troops were evacuated. One of the last Australians tobe evacuated was (later Major General) Paul Cullen AC. OBE. DSO* ED and just as well as his birthname was Cohen and being Jewish he changed his named in June/July 1941in case he was caught bythe Germans. The change was promulgated in all unit routine Orders. Paul was part of the 16 thBrigade Composite Battalion which was made up of troops from 2/2 & 2/3 Battalions.Unfortunately, Retimo was over run following additional German troops being landed by sea. On the31 st May the 2/1 st Battalion surrendered.About 6,000 troops did not get off Crete including many of the 2/7 th Infantry Battalion who had beenacting as a rearguard with the Royal Marines. A number of those who were left behind fought withthe partisans in the hills, about 600 managed to escape to Egypt and unfortunately the rest werecaptured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as POWs in Germany and other occupiedcountries.- 18 -