Operation Mercury (21 page)
Authors: John Sadler
That Ramcke's advance had been stopped in its tracks and his eastern flank disposed of did not solve the essential problem; only a strong, vigorous and utterly determined counter-attack could recover Maleme and ensure the Axis defeat. With every hour that passed, regardless of loss, they would continue to grow stronger. Killing Germans, and in this the New Zealanders had excelled, just wasn't enough, the occupation had to be eliminated altogether.
By now the airfield had begun to resemble a scrapyard for wrecked aircraft. So many of those which had landed had crashed or been riddled as they unloaded. Amongst the battered survivors of the Assault Regiment there was no sense of victory and the newcomers from the Alpine Division found themselves hurled into a cauldron:
They [the aircraft] lay there immovable, like giant captured birds, and slowly the work of destruction by the British Artillery was completed. With the aid of a captured Bren Carrier a group of paratroops and aircraft personnel did their utmost to clear the Landing ground, but the wreckage still constituted a severe obstacle to further landing Operations. If the following day were to bring further losses on landing space the problem of supplying the defenders would become acute.
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Brigadier Hargest had been entrusted by Puttick, as his immediate superior, with the job of mounting the counter-attack. Both of these were good soldiers, brave and dedicated but, as Freyberg ruefully commented afterwards, they had been bred and trained for the wrong war. Had Kippenberger been in command then undoubtedly the day would have concluded differently but the 20th and 28th Battalions, made available for the blow, were to be fought by an officer whose ideas had been formed in the grinding attrition of the trenches. There is also evidence to suggest Hargest was utterly exhausted and, in less demanding times, would have been rotated out of the line to recuperate.
The New Zealand line now rested primarily along a north-south axis but with the northern flank extending eastwards parallel with the coast road. The area was by no means secure, with pockets of surviving parachutists barricaded into such impromptu strongpoints as they had been able to occupy. Even if these remnants lacked an offensive capability, they could still operate as a very effective thorn in the flesh of the defenders.
Lieutenant Colonel Dittmer, commanding the 28th (Maoris), suggested a preliminary sweep through the area to eliminate these lodgements before moving up fresh troops for the attack, though it was decided that it was now too late for such an initiative, eminently sensible as the suggestion was. It was proposed that the blow would be struck by the two reserve battalions alone, rather than launch a sustained advance by the total of five which would then be in the line.
By 1.00 a.m. the troops were to be at the start line, just to the west of the Platanias River, with the assault on Pirgos timed for three hours later. The 20th would pass north of the road and the 28th south, their attack supported by a trio of the light tanks driving along the road and forming the link. Having taken and consolidated their grip on Pirgos the attackers would, after a halt of thirty minutes push on to clear the airfield. Somewhat bizarrely, the orders provided for the 28th to fall back and allow the 20th to garrison Hill 107. Whether the other three battalions were expected to advance and consolidate is not clear.
That the operation be successfully completed at night went without saying: should the New Zealanders be exposed in open field once the sun rose and the prowling Luftwaffe held the skies, then they would be shot and bombed to extinction. In order for the 20th to move forward they had first to be relieved by the 2/7th Australians who, lacking trucks, had to wait until an adequate number could be assembled. This was complicated by the attentions of the Luftwaffe which unnerved many of the drivers.
Lieutenant Colonel Walker, commanding 2/7th, had entrusted his second in command, Major Marshall, with the unenviable chore of mustering an adequate number of trucks. As dusk was around 8.00 p.m., this would be the soonest it was deemed safe to begin the move west. The trucks should be ready some hours beforehand. The Major's task was a difficult one. Apart from the anxiety of the drivers, the Luftwaffe was also much in evidence:
We turned a corner and found half a dozen planes above with the obvious intention of stopping us somewhere. I stopped the column until I was sure Savage with A Company had caught up and then we sailed on. It was rather exhilarating. The planes had now obviously got onto us, but the road was winding along a valley, and there were few straight stretches. The planes cruised about those stretches waiting for us ⦠twice I watched a plane single us out, bank and turn to machine gun us along the straight and I told the driver to crack it up. It then became a race to the curve ⦠We streaked along and I hoped the battalion was following.
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Having finally secured the transport and begun their move to the west past Souda, it was only too easy to become lost as they skirted the beleaguered port, riven by the incessant bombing. The trucks were obliged to play this deadly game with the swooping predators, when a mistimed burst of speed or an involuntary halt could invite an early death. As a result the leading elements did not come up with 20th Battalion till dusk, around 8.00 p.m. and it was much later before the final elements straggled in.
Freyberg, at 9.15 p.m., had given Puttick the strictest of injunctions that the 20th had to stay put until it was relieved. The General still feared a seaborne assault. Puttick was not about to disobey so stern an order. When more than two hours had elapsed and the threat had clearly been dealt with, these orders should have been seen as redundant. However, Puttick lacked either the confidence or the imagination to budge. Lieutenant Colonel Gentry, whose job it was to liaise with Hargest, was his GSO1:
I was asked to go up to 5 Brigade Headquarters with one Major Peck commanding the light tanks with a view to giving any assistance that I could. At that stage there was little I could do and as I came back along the coast road to my great joy I saw the Royal Navy dealing with the seaborne invasion â a never to be forgotten sight â but there was no sign of 20 Battalion which I had expected to meet on the road. Puttick was asleep when I got back to Divisional HQ so I rang Inglis and told him about the battle at sea and asked why 20 Battalion was delayed. He told me that Puttick had given him orders that 20 Battalion was not to leave its positions until the relieving Australian battalion had arrived. As the reason for that order had now been overtaken by events I asked him to get the 20th on the road as soon as possible â even then it took far too long.
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By now Dittmer was fretting at the start line and it would take Major Burrows with the 20th a good couple of hours to slog forward to align for the attack. The cloak of darkness was infinitely precious and everyone on the ground was aware of the risks once its enveloping shroud was burnt off by the dawn.
Burrows had sought orders directly from Puttick to begin moving forward without attending on the relief but the request was denied. Dittmer had prevailed upon Hargest to repeat the same request but he also was refused, on the grounds, incredibly, that the position must be fully held whilst the possibility of a seaborne invasion remained. Puttick had, of course, seen ample proof that this threat had been dealt with.
Utterly frustrated, Burrows acted on his own initiative and ordered the companies forward as each was relieved. By 2.00 a.m. he arrived at Hargest's HQ; forty-five minutes later only two of his companies had come up. He felt it best to attack with what was available though this seemed to cause Hargest to âwobble' about the viability of attacking at all. Puttick, when consulted, gave orders that the assault must begin â by now Dittmer's Maoris had been kicking their heels for over four hours. At 3.30 a.m. the tanks finally lurched forward, flanked by a section from the 28th to provide close support against grenades and Molotov cocktails.
No sooner had the advance commenced than the leading elements of both battalions ran into scattered German strongpoints, more numerous and better posted than had been anticipated, dug in behind solid masonry and with an abundance of automatic weapons. As Burrows recalled:
⦠[after] about half a mile we struck the first of the enemy posts. A German light machine gun, perhaps thirty yards away, opened fire with tracer bullets, followed immediately by tracer from other enemy posts across our front. The sudden shock of this outburst, the deadly hammering of several automatics firing together and the astonishing brightness of tracer bullets made men pause, even recoil, but not for more than a second or so. On my left and my right there was a sudden surge toward the enemy posts and not too long afterwards the shouting and the firing and the explosions of hand grenades died away and the advance began again.
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Private Melville Hill-Rennie found himself on the far left flank of the advance and he later related how:
⦠suddenly we ran into our first opposition. A Jerry machine-gun nest opened fire on us at a range of 50 yards and they got four of our boys before we could drop to the ground ⦠Jerry was using tracer and it was strange to lie there under the olive trees and see the bullets coming. I could see the explosive ones go off in a shower of flame and smoke as they hit the trees. We waited on the ground and finally the order came for my section to advance and wipe out the nest. We edged forward on our stomachs until we were within 20 yards of the Nazis who were tucked away behind the large tree and then opened fire with our one Tommy-gun, one Bren and eight rifles. As we kept up the fire the platoon officer cautiously crawled round to the side and slightly to the rear of the tree. Although it was still dark we could tell by the way the Jerries were shouting to each other that they didn't like the look of the situation. When we got round behind the tree the platoon officer jumped to his feet and hurled three Mills bombs, one right after another, into the nest and then jumped forward with his revolver blazing. Single-handed he wiped out seven Jerries with their Tommy-guns and another with a machine gun.
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Most of these obstacles were encountered by Burrows' companies from the 20th, north of the road, where the fighting was at close quarters, desperate, confused and bloody. Dittmer and his Maoris had a somewhat easier task â the surviving Germans had previously been harassed by the guns of the 23rd and had withdrawn southwards, leaving only a few, but very troublesome, snipers. The net and crucial effect was that by the time the sun rose in the east behind them the men of the 28th were stuck at the crossroads north of Dhaskaliana. Pirgos lay before them but the place was strongly held and the 20th still lagged some way behind. The cloak of night had vanished altogether.
Hill-Rennie remembered that as the 20th battled its way past Pirgos, the blessed dark had given way to morning light. The combat had been intense, the grinding, savage business of clearing one barricaded village house after another, each of the solid dwellings converted with German thoroughness into a mini strongpoint. By the time he and the other survivors had fought their way to within sight of the airfield the Messerschmitts were already in the air and making their presence felt. It was now 7.30 a.m. on one of those cloudless and perfect Mediterranean spring mornings, when the bright, clear light tilted the balance inexorably in favour of the invader.
Captain Dawson, acting as Brigade Major, retired to report to Hargest on how matters now stood. He was not confident that an attack could be launched in daylight with the vultures already gathering in the skies above, like a horde of vast and deadly mosquitoes. No sooner had he gone, however, than Burrows with his two companies came up. He and Dittmer decided to press on, C and D companies of the 20th would attack the northern flank of the village and press on toward the eastern edge of the airstrip. The Maoris would assault Hill 107 while the tanks would storm the town head on; a role for which they seemed unable to offer much enthusiasm. For this they could scarcely be blamed, their thin armour and inadequate firepower would be pitted against 20-mm cannon and captured Bofors deployed by the entrenched defenders. Almost immediately the lead tank was hit and âbrewed up' â only the wounded driver survived. Roy Farran, commanding the troop, had dashed under cover amongst the bamboo to avoid being strafed and had sustained damage to the tracking. It would be possible to repair his tank by cannibalising the one damaged â but this meant a long wait while the necessary mechanics could be found.
Without armoured support C company could gain no effective lodgement and D, while they reached the perimeter, took heavy casualties. The 23rd, detailed as a mobile reserve, did not lend any weight to the faltering attack and only one company followed the Maoris as they stormed Hill 107. Dittmer and his men performed bravely against an entrenched enemy, stronger in numbers, with a far greater weight of fire and closely supported from the air:
We must get forward and get above and round the Germans whose bullets and mortar bombs were cracking round us. We could at times see German machine gunners running up through the trees. We collected in small groups and worked forward. Men were hit, men were maimed. The din of the fight was incessant. There seemed to be German machine guns behind all the trees. If we could silence one or two immediately in front we might break through.
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The fighting became increasingly confused and hand to hand. With banners, the arrogant blaze of the swastika, mounted on poles, the paratroopers counter-attacked in turn only to be driven back by these magnificent warriors, shouting their proud tribal challenges and sending the Germans scurrying back, â⦠the Huns with their fat behinds to us going for their lives down the gulley.'
Brigadier Hargest, still at his HQ, had come to the notion that things were going rather well and that the evidence of increasing numbers of German planes over and at Maleme suggested they were preparing to pull out. Even when Roy Farran and the remnants of his battered troop returned to confirm that Pirgos was likely too tough a nut, Hargest persisted in issuing optimistic signals. It must have been suffering from acute nervous exhaustion at this point and his reserves of endurance were utterly exhausted. The consequences of this lack of coordinated and inspired decision making at 5 Brigade were, ultimately, disastrous.