Heraklion:
The Battle, 20-28 May 1941
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2021

German planning for the airborne invasion of Crete, conducted hastily in the days following the collapse of Allied resistance in mainland Greece, concentrated on the airfields on the big island’s western end. Those could be covered, just barely, by German fighters operating out of newly-captured bases in Greece.

But of the seven operable airfields on Crete, only one boasted a concrete runway and revetments to protect aircraft from enemy air attack. Heraklion, the island’s capital, lay well to the east of the other German landing zones, outside the range of Bf.109 fighter cover though German bombers and longer-ranged Bf.110 heavy fighters could reach it. Maj. Gen. Kurt Student, commander of the German IX Flying Corps charged with conducting history’s first large-scale airborne assault, couldn’t leave such a relatively well-appointed airfield out of his invasion plan despite the difficulties imposed by spreading his forces thin. The forces assigned to take Heraklion would be much too far away from the other landing zones to expect any support from the troops landed there.

To defend the capital, New Zealand Lt. Gen. Bernard Freyberg, commander of the Cretan garrison, assigned Brigadier Brian Chappel’s British 14th Infantry Brigade. The brigade staff and its two infantry battalions – regular outfits previously assigned to garrison duty in the Middle East - had not seen action in mainland Greece. They arrived on Crete in November 1940, and garrisoned the Maleme airfield until 27 April, when they moved to Heraklion and Freyberg replaced Chappel as the island’s Allied commander.

British AA batteries have claimed a Ju52 over Heraklion.

Freyberg added the depleted Australian 2/4 Infantry Battalion, just evacuated from Greece, and the 2nd Battalion of the Leicester Regiment, also pulled out of Greece. The 2nd Leicesters arrived by warship on 18 May, just two days before the Germans invaded. Supporting them, Chappel had part of the 68th Medium Regiment of the Royal Artillery, a “bush artillery” outfit with 13 captured Italian field guns of dubious value, and the 211th Battery of the 7th Medium Regiment, 450 gunners mostly fighting as infantry. The 211th spiked its aging 60-pounder guns before evacuating from Greece and received four Italian 75mm guns when it arrived in Crete.

Three anti-aircraft batteries attached to the brigade sported 10 40mm Bofors guns and four 3-inch heavy anti-aircraft guns between them; a coastal artillery section added a pair of 4-inch naval guns. A Royal Air Force detachment operated from the Heraklion airfield, supporting the 112th Squadron’s handful of Gloster Gladiator and Hurricane fighters.

Finally, the 3rd Hussars provided a half-dozen Vickers light tanks, not all of them operational, and the 7th Royal Tank Regiment kicked in five Matilda heavy tanks, split in two still-smaller detachments with two tanks at Heraklion and the other three at Tymbaki on the island’s south coast. The 1st Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders had landed there as well on the 19th, and had just begun their march to Heraklion when the Germans airborne assault began.

Greek forces around Heraklion totaled about 2,700, with two ad hoc regiments of 800 and 1,000 men, plus the depot battalion of the 5th “Kriti” Infantry Division, left behind when their parent division moved to the mainland to fight the German invasion, and a battalion of militarized gendarmes. They came under Chappel’s command as well. An unknown but large number of angry Cretan civilians would also join the defense.

The attacking force consisted of Col. Bruno Bräuer’s 1st Parachute Regiment, with three battalions, reinforced by the 2nd Parachute Regiment’s 2nd Battalion. Two of his battalions (1st and 3rd) had their machine-gun companies detached and added to the forces dropped on Maleme Airfield. To compensate, Student added the 7th Airborne Division’s anti-aircraft machine gun battalion, slated to arrive by sea, but the British would turn back the German invasion convoys and this unit never arrived.

German bombs fall on Heraklion Airfield.

Much worse for Bräuer’s force, the XI Flying Corps supplying the transport planes for the operation didn’t have the aircraft to drop all of the invasion force at once. So the plan called for the drops over the three western zones to take place first. Then the planes would return to airfields in Greece, load up with Bräuer’s men, and drop them around Heraklion – hours after the invasion had commenced, with plenty of time for the local defenders to receive word of the parachute drops and prepare a reception for the Germans.

When the parachutes opened at about 1730 on 20 May, the defenders were ready for them. The German Air Force worked over the defenses starting at about 1600; the four operational fighters of 112 Squadron, facing certain destruction from the waves of Bf.110 heavy fighters accompanying the bombers, abandoned Heraklion and set out for Egypt. The ground crews would now fight as infantry.

Bräuer’s assault plan brought his headquarters and 1st Battalion down several miles east of Heraklion, where they landed and gathered in fairly good order. The reduced 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Parachute Regiment – only two of its companies could be carried by the available aircraft – landed well to the west of the city to seal the coastal road against Allied reinforcements. But the other two battalions came down on the outskirts of Heraklion, and there the defenders proceeded to cut them to pieces. The 2nd Battalion of the 1st Parachute Regiment attempted to land directly on the airfield, and was promptly attacked by both the Australians and the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch. That shattered the battalion, dispersing the survivors in the area east and south-east of Heraklion.

Maj. Karl Lothar Schulz, who would later command the 1st Parachute Division, gathered most of his 1st Battalion and moved directly against Heraklion, where he was met by the fanatic Greeks of the Kriti Division Depot Battalion. Raw recruits for the most part, with a handful of instructors, they at first barred the way to Heraklion but Schulz and his men broke into the city and German patrols actually reached the port. Additional Greek troops and crazed armed civilians counter-attacked, forcing Schulz to call a retreat before his paratroopers became trapped in Heraklion. Schulz claimed that the city had surrendered, but he appears to have mistaken a French-speaking Heraklion civilian, Sotiris Papapolychroniou, for the city’s mayor.

German Ju52 transports take on supplies to drop over Crete, 21 May 1941.

On the following day, the Greeks threw back Schulz again, while the British repelled an attempt by Bräuer to advance from the east. The Germans suffered from a lack of food and water, while the Greeks deployed captured recognition panels inside their perimeter, causing the German Air Force to drop weapons and supplies to them instead of the Germans. For the next several days the Germans held back, gathering stragglers and a handful of reinforcements dropped by parachute – most additional troops went to the west end of the island to help capture Maleme, where Student now made his main effort.

By the 25th when the Germans tried again, the Allies had re-shuffled their dispositions. The Greeks withdrew by sea to Knossos for rest and refit, while the British took over defense of Heraklion itself. The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders had arrived after bashing their way past the paratroopers behind their trio of Matildas. The Germans again failed to take Heraklion, but on the 26th Freyberg informed his superiors that Crete was lost, with the Germans having secured Maleme Airfield and the nearby port at Chania.

Despite Prime Minster Winston Churchill’s demands that the troops on Crete fight to the last man, Sir Archibald Wavell, commander of British forces in the Middle East, ordered an evacuation. Two cruisers and six destroyers would arrive at midnight on the 28th and depart by 0300 on the 29th, taking the remaining 4,000 British troops with them. Two destroyers, Imperial and Hereward, were lost to German air attacks with heavy loss of life, though tales of drunken Australians being left aboard the sinking Imperial appear to be a fabrication. Many more soldiers and sailors were killed in repeated air attacks against the two cruisers.

Several hundred men were also left behind to be taken prisoner – most of these Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders who had not yet made their way north from Tymbaki. Only one Greek soldier was evacuated. The Greek garrison commander of Heraklion surrendered the city on the 30th.

Greek casualties were heavy, but not recorded; the Germans conducted multiple massacres of unarmed Cretan civilians in reprisal for armed resistance and Bräuer would be hanged by a Greek court after the war for his role in atrocities committed on Crete. The Germans did not break out their losses by regiment, but overall lost approximately 3,000 killed and 2,000 wounded in the battle for Crete.

The Germans won the Battle of Heraklion, as they did eventually capture the city and its airfield. But they had been balked at their attempts to take it by force, thanks to a poor attack plan that deliberately divided their forces, and stout resistance from both the British and the Greeks.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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