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Monument to the Battle of Crete in Sfakia with the flags of Greece, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The military history of Greece during World War II began on 28 October 1940, when the Italian Army invaded Greece from Albania, beginning the Greco-Italian War.
The Battle of Crete (German: Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, Greek: Μάχη της Κρήτης), codenamed Operation Mercury (German: Unternehmen Merkur), was a major Axis airborne and amphibious operation during World War II to capture the island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, with multiple German airborne landings on Crete.
The occupation of Greece by the Axis Powers (Greek: Η Κατοχή, romanized: I Katochi, lit. 'the occupation') began in April 1941 after Nazi Germany invaded the Kingdom of Greece in order to assist its ally, Italy, in their ongoing war that was initiated in October 1940, having encountered major strategical difficulties.
For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population. In the Battle of Crete, Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes, or even bare hands. As a result, many casualties were inflicted upon the invading German paratroopers ...
Operation Albumen was the name given to British Commando raids in June 1942 on German airfields in the Axis-occupied Greek island of Crete, to prevent them from being used in support of the Axis forces in the Western Desert Campaign in the Second World War.
The first German garrison unit was the 5th Mountain Division, which had seen combat during the capture of Crete.In late autumn 1941, the 5th Mountain Division was replaced by the 713th and 164th Infantry Divisions, which in early 1942 were reorganised as Fortress Division Crete (German: Festungs-Division Kreta - FDK).
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On 6 April 1941, despite having officially joined the Axis Powers, the Bulgarian government did not participate in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the Battle of Greece. On 20 April, the Bulgarian Army occupied most of Western Thrace and the Greek province of Eastern Macedonia , which had been already conquered by Germany, with the goal of ...