Ultimate Blitzkrieg - The WW2 Battle of Crete

Exploring a momentary time in history; on May 1941, 14,000 German paratroopers supported by nearly a thousand aircraft were dropped on the island in a unique blitzkrieg operation. An airborne invasion of this scale would never be repeated. Several thousand elite paratroopers, the pride of the Nazi Luftwaffe strikeforce, were killed and hundreds of planes lost in 10 days of fierce fighting. Despite the huge cost, the Germans defeated 30,000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops supported by Greek partisans.

Allied forces were evacuated off Crete's south coast in a dangerous operation that cost the lives of almost 1000 British seamen and Allied soldiers. Protected by a series of bloody and heroic rear-guard actions to slow down the German advance , thousands of soldiers embarked on a forced march over the mountains of central Crete to meet Royal Navy ships which would take them 400 miles across the Mediterranean to Alexandria in Egypt. This was a mini Dunkirk but many didn't make it.

The resulting German and Italian occupation of Crete was marred by massacres on both sides: of both German soldiers and Greek partisans and civilians. More than 8,000 Cretans lost their lives in the resistance. When 20,000 Italians surrendered in 1943 they were made POW's too but almost a third drowned at sea after German merchant ships carrying them to the mainland were torpedoed by British submarines. These forgotten tragedies constituted one of the world's biggest maritime disasters.