| The following is taken from one of the files at the
Second World War Experience Centre near Leeds; it is from the oral
record left by Tom Atherton who was with the Searchlight Regt. |
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| They were sent to Heliopolis, then to a new
unit, 27th Searchlight Regiment. When sent to Crete, Suda Bay, it
was already under attack from the Italian Air Force. They moved
from Suda to Hania and then to the Akrotiri peninsular; it was here that
they came under attack by Stukas prior to the invasion. For some
ten days or so they saw 'sixties and seventies at a time'.
"We had no Air Force, no opposition, just a couple of batteries
of anti-aircraft guns". |
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| They received the code word 'Cromwell' which
told them the invasion was imminent - with the Northumbrian Hussars who
were 'supposed to be responsible for ground protection while we dealt
with the air defence of the Suda Bay area and Hania'. However,
like many units on Crete they found that all communication was
broken. At one point 'my batman came running in to say a plane was
landing in the back garden. I told him not to be a B.F.'.
But a glider did come in. |
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| Although Atherton could see parachutists 'in
our area we were subject to gliders, not parachutists, gliders, and the
gliders were hit by anti-aircraft fire. One that came in my back
garden, literally, was an ammunition glider which exploded'.
Atherton believed that German intelligence was good. He and his
men captured three Germans with a map. His position was marked
with a figure '5' - they said it was the objective number and so far
they had reached '3' - it was time to move.
They held their area 'for about a week', they were not aware of plans
to evacuate. |
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| Atherton was critical of Freyberg giving up
Maleme; 'God knows what he was thinking about'. |
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| They needed to know what was going on; 'We
sent somebody down to our headquarters in Canea only to find
headquarters had gone, evacuated. And we'd received no
instructions, no messages'. They retreated to Sternes on the
Akrotiri 'which was the wrong thing to have done had we known the
position'. They did get some instructions 'I don't know they came
from' there was no 'command structure'. From there they moved
south and Atherton said that 'I got right the way through to Sfakia'.
However, 'there was no food', 'water was very poor' and then 'that's
where the surrender order came through'. |
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| Atherton's comment was that 'It was a wicked
waste of effort'. They were captured and he was kept on Crete
about 3 months 'then they flew us off by Junkers 52 with a tommy gun
escort to Athens'. |
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| His comment on his captors was probably
similar to that of many; 'I've got no, no grumbles about the German
front line troops, the mountain troops [regarding his treatment] but I
have a high disregard for the second line troops in, in Athens who
knocked hell out of us. The brave second line support!'
Following this he moved to various camps ending up at Lubeck on the
Baltic. |
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