DEFENCE OF CRETE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1941, Page 4

DEFENCE OF CRETE

ACCOUNT BY BRIGADIER INGLIS SOME SEVERE HANDICAPS. ENEMY AIR SUPERIORITY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.3 a.m.) RUGBY, June 23. Brigadier Inglis, one of the New Zealand commanders in Crete, who is now in England, has given an account of the Crete operation. He explained that the bulk of the defenders of the island had been evacuated there from Greece. Many of them were non-combatants and ' unarmed. and therefore were unable adequately to contribute to the defence of the island. It had been impossible to evacuate them to Egypt for the same reason that it was impossible to make good losses in the equipment of the troops evacuated from Greece to Crete —namely overwhelming difficulties imposed on shipping by the control of the air by the enemy. Further, ports and beaches on Crete had been heavily dive-bombed for some time before the actual invasion of the island took place.

| Describing the first day of the invasion Brigadier Inglis said a terrific circus of aircraft, of all types, came in from, the north. They carried out an hour's heavy bombing and machinegunning. Then parachutists were dropped. At Heraclion, these mostly fell among our troops and they were soon dealt with. At Malemi they actually captured the aerodrome for a short time, but were driven out by Australians and New Zealanders. Airborne troops, with large quantities of weapons, which were landed next day by aircraft carrying out a continuous bus service between the island and the Greek mainland, played a most important part. The German parachutist, said Brigadier Inglis, was young, fit, not particularly tough and fairly easy to dispose of. Brigadier Inglis said no air force sufficient to deal with the huge masses of German aircraft could have operated from the three Cretan airfields. While Egypt was too far away as a base for fighter aircraft the German bases on the Greek maimand were so close as to, have rendered it iior-eless to maintain fighter planes on the Cretan airfields. The Cretan operation was dominated by German air superiority. Referring to certain reports that the bayonet charge had became obsolete, Brigadier Inglis said that was far from the truth. Crete proved the enormous power of a bayonet charge by welltrained and determined troops. It was one of the things the Germans feared most.