Operation Mercury (18 page)

4. Airborne parachutists leaving planes to land on the island of Crete, below.

(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-08215)

5. Dead German paratrooper enshrouded in his parachute.

(Courtesy of the Naval Museum, Chania)

6. German paratroops in a street in Canea, as prisoners of war, captured by 2 NZEF in Crete.

 (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-01153)

7. The grim task of burying German dead.

 (Courtesy of the Naval Museum, Chania)

8. A German troop carrier on fire over Crete during the Second World War.

(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-07491)

9. Soldiers marching to transit camp in Crete. Officers at head of column are Major R.L.C. Grant
(left)
and Captain D.W. Burns, Divisional Signals.

(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-10468)

10. German parachutes near Galatos hung up in olive trees. Shows soldiers Cyril Ericson (holding map case) and Ernie Avon.

(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-00470)

11. New Zealand soldiers keeping under cover in a cave while awaiting evacuation from Crete.

 (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo DA-10636)

12. The iron bridge over the dried up bed of the Tavronitis. Failure to dispose Allied troops west of the Tavronitis to meet the airborne threat prior to 20 May was a significant factor in permitting Student's badly mauled paratroops to gain an unchallenged foothold west of the dried up river bed.

 (Author)

13. Looking back (northwards) up the Imbros Pass, the modern road leads down to the south coast in a dizzying sequence of tight hairpins but in 1941 the road was unfinished and the retreating troops were faced with a rough scramble down the forbidding reaches of the gorge itself.

 (Author)

14. Memorial Cross at the German war cemetery Maleme.

 (Author)

15. The war memorial, Galatas.

 (Author)