Post by Sir John on Mar 11, 2013 18:24:50 GMT -5
As all Americans will know, Crete is an island south of Greece in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1941, our peace loving Italian brothers decided to show the world how good they were at warfare, so they invaded Greece. This did not turn out so well, certainly not as well as about 2000 years ago.
It did not take long to see that the Greeks were giving the "eyeties" a hiding, so the exasperated Germans had to lend a hand. This turned the thing around quickly and the Australian 6th Division, the one that took, Sidi Barrani, Mersa Matruh, Bardia, Tobruk and Benghazi off the Italians, was sent by that famous military strategist, Winston Churchill, to assist.
This did not go well, and in due course we were heading south with a large number of hard to get on with Germans at our heels. This entailed a move across to Crete, and we soon began to welcome a LARGE number of Ju 52s full of paratroopers, including an ugly bloke called Max Schmelling(sp). Max had had a bit of a fight with a bloke called Joe Louis and the score was one all.
This paratrooper assault was the first I think in modern warfare, and though it cost a huge number of killed and wounded wass successful. From there it was yet another evacuation from the beaches, and eventual arrival in Alexandria (in Egypt). The cost was so large that Germany never again tried a paratrooper assault!
My Corporal, during my disastrous time in the Australian Army, was a survivor of that evacuation though he had missed the thing by a day, and he and a few mates stole a fishing boat and made it across the Med on their own.
All this excitement caused the Germans to delay by about 6 or 8 weeks, their trip to Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad.
The Russian, General Winter, did the rest.
SJ
In 1941, our peace loving Italian brothers decided to show the world how good they were at warfare, so they invaded Greece. This did not turn out so well, certainly not as well as about 2000 years ago.
It did not take long to see that the Greeks were giving the "eyeties" a hiding, so the exasperated Germans had to lend a hand. This turned the thing around quickly and the Australian 6th Division, the one that took, Sidi Barrani, Mersa Matruh, Bardia, Tobruk and Benghazi off the Italians, was sent by that famous military strategist, Winston Churchill, to assist.
This did not go well, and in due course we were heading south with a large number of hard to get on with Germans at our heels. This entailed a move across to Crete, and we soon began to welcome a LARGE number of Ju 52s full of paratroopers, including an ugly bloke called Max Schmelling(sp). Max had had a bit of a fight with a bloke called Joe Louis and the score was one all.
This paratrooper assault was the first I think in modern warfare, and though it cost a huge number of killed and wounded wass successful. From there it was yet another evacuation from the beaches, and eventual arrival in Alexandria (in Egypt). The cost was so large that Germany never again tried a paratrooper assault!
My Corporal, during my disastrous time in the Australian Army, was a survivor of that evacuation though he had missed the thing by a day, and he and a few mates stole a fishing boat and made it across the Med on their own.
All this excitement caused the Germans to delay by about 6 or 8 weeks, their trip to Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad.
The Russian, General Winter, did the rest.
SJ
?