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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.
German paratroopers land in Crete. On 25 April 1941, King George II and his government left the Greek mainland for Crete, which was attacked by Nazi forces on 20 May 1941. [168] The Germans employed parachute forces in a massive airborne invasion and attacked the three main airfields of the island in Maleme, Rethymno and Heraklion.
The Italians were repulsed without the aid of the expeditionary force. A German invasion in April 1941 overran mainland Greece and the expeditionary force was withdrawn. By the end of the month, 57,000 Allied troops were evacuated by the Royal Navy. Some were sent to Crete to bolster its garrison, although most had lost their heavy equipment. [5]
Part of the larger Greek resistance, it lasted from 20 May 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the spring of 1945 when they surrendered to the British. For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population.
Operation Margarethe I (German invasion of Hungary. Carried out 19 March 1944.) Operation Margarethe II (scheduled German invasion of Romania) Operation Tanne Ost (German invasion with the goal of capturing the Finnish island of Suursaari (Russian: Gogland) in the Gulf of Finland after that country signed the Moscow Armistice on Lapland War).
On May 20, 1941, thousands of elite German paratroopers, the Fallschirmjäger, assaulted the island of Crete. [2] It was the beginning of one of the largest paratrooper assaults in modern history, ultimately involving 22,040 German soldiers. [3] It was also the first time German troops faced a unified resistance from a civilian populace. [4]
The Battle of Crete began on 20 May 1941 with a large-scale airborne invasion aimed to capture the island's strategic locations. As was proven in practice, one of the most important locations was the Maleme airstrip and its surrounding region.
The Battle of Crete began on 20 May 1941 with a large-scale airborne invasion planned to capture the island's strategic locations. Kandanos is located on the road from Chania on the north coast to Paleochora in the south, which was a candidate landing point for potential Allied reinforcements from North Africa.