olive trees for the rear echelon. Most of the stragglers from Greece were transported on to Egypt, while formed units were moved out to their designated defence positions. They had been given little chance to sample the delights of Canea's thirty-seven brothels — 'thirty-six of them owner-driven' according to the New Zealand Division Provost-Marshal.
The bulk of the Australian troops were moved eastwards to Georgioupolis, Rethymno and Heraklion.
The New Zealanders, on the other hand, marched westwards to take up positions along the coast between Canea and the airfield of Maleme, where the Blenheims of 30 Squadron were now based to fly shipping patrols over the Aegean to chase off Stukas.
The Maori battalion set a cracking pace which some officers found hard to follow. In the village of Platanias the mayor and his daughters welcomed them with tables set out offering bread and white goat's cheese and red wine. A young woman holding a child began to weep when she saw the soldiers.
A New Zealand subaltern asked a Cretan why she cried. Her husband and brothers had been among those trapped in Epirus with the Cretan V Division.
Few of those marching out to their positions had been impressed by the preparations they had seen from the moment they landed. The dockside at Suda was a shambles. Only two small ships could be unloaded at the same time, so the rest had to wait at anchor in the bay, easy targets for air attack as the half-sunken wrecks testified. Churchill's call the previous November to turn Suda Bay into a 'second Scapa' had not been taken seriously by GHQ Middle East at a time of more urgent demands on other fronts.
Churchill's phrase had not been a mere figure of speech. He believed strongly in the importance of turning Suda into 'the amphibious citadel of which all Crete is the fortress' and had not forgotten the task during the winter. But the emphasis on Suda allowed Wavell to believe that, with all his other commitments, he could get away with reinforcing only the port area.
The most recent commander of the island, Major General E.C. Weston, had arrived in Crete at the end of March. His command, part of a Royal Marine formation known as the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation, consisted mainly of anti-aircraft and searchlight batteries. Before the German invasion of Greece, the raids were carried out by Italian torpedo bombers. Almost every gun on every ship in harbour banged away at them, the civilian gunners on merchantmen and Royal Fleet Auxiliaries perhaps even more enthusiastically than the Royal Navy. But the scream of Stukas, once the Luftwaffe took over from the Italians, announced a far more frequent and less sporting event.
The Palestinian Pioneers and a misnamed Dock Operating Company which consisted of shipping clerks in uniform, not stevedores, had the worst job, unloading ammunition and fuel from the ships in Suda Bay under one air attack after another. The red warning flag hoisted over naval headquarters on the quayside could not be seen from the hold of a ship, so often there was no warning of a raid until the Bofors guns opened up. The lack of warning made dockyard parties nervous, which did not help productivity. And the officer in charge of unloading foolishly refused to allow them to take cover, saying that they must consider themselves front-line soldiers. Not surprisingly, a very high proportion began to report sick.
Harold Caccia, having arrived at Heraklion with the other survivors from the Kalanthe, moved to join a skeleton version of the British Legation transposed to Halepa, next to Canea. On the way he saw what appeared to be one group of soldiers repainting a bridge and another preparing to demolish it.
For him this typified the appalling lack of preparation. 'We'd been there for six months. What had we been doing?' The strength of his feeling stemmed from the failure of the British to honour their assurance that they would look after Crete which he had delivered to the
The bulk of the Australian troops were moved eastwards to Georgioupolis, Rethymno and Heraklion.
The New Zealanders, on the other hand, marched westwards to take up positions along the coast between Canea and the airfield of Maleme, where the Blenheims of 30 Squadron were now based to fly shipping patrols over the Aegean to chase off Stukas.
The Maori battalion set a cracking pace which some officers found hard to follow. In the village of Platanias the mayor and his daughters welcomed them with tables set out offering bread and white goat's cheese and red wine. A young woman holding a child began to weep when she saw the soldiers.
A New Zealand subaltern asked a Cretan why she cried. Her husband and brothers had been among those trapped in Epirus with the Cretan V Division.
Few of those marching out to their positions had been impressed by the preparations they had seen from the moment they landed. The dockside at Suda was a shambles. Only two small ships could be unloaded at the same time, so the rest had to wait at anchor in the bay, easy targets for air attack as the half-sunken wrecks testified. Churchill's call the previous November to turn Suda Bay into a 'second Scapa' had not been taken seriously by GHQ Middle East at a time of more urgent demands on other fronts.
Churchill's phrase had not been a mere figure of speech. He believed strongly in the importance of turning Suda into 'the amphibious citadel of which all Crete is the fortress' and had not forgotten the task during the winter. But the emphasis on Suda allowed Wavell to believe that, with all his other commitments, he could get away with reinforcing only the port area.
The most recent commander of the island, Major General E.C. Weston, had arrived in Crete at the end of March. His command, part of a Royal Marine formation known as the Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation, consisted mainly of anti-aircraft and searchlight batteries. Before the German invasion of Greece, the raids were carried out by Italian torpedo bombers. Almost every gun on every ship in harbour banged away at them, the civilian gunners on merchantmen and Royal Fleet Auxiliaries perhaps even more enthusiastically than the Royal Navy. But the scream of Stukas, once the Luftwaffe took over from the Italians, announced a far more frequent and less sporting event.
The Palestinian Pioneers and a misnamed Dock Operating Company which consisted of shipping clerks in uniform, not stevedores, had the worst job, unloading ammunition and fuel from the ships in Suda Bay under one air attack after another. The red warning flag hoisted over naval headquarters on the quayside could not be seen from the hold of a ship, so often there was no warning of a raid until the Bofors guns opened up. The lack of warning made dockyard parties nervous, which did not help productivity. And the officer in charge of unloading foolishly refused to allow them to take cover, saying that they must consider themselves front-line soldiers. Not surprisingly, a very high proportion began to report sick.
Harold Caccia, having arrived at Heraklion with the other survivors from the Kalanthe, moved to join a skeleton version of the British Legation transposed to Halepa, next to Canea. On the way he saw what appeared to be one group of soldiers repainting a bridge and another preparing to demolish it.
For him this typified the appalling lack of preparation. 'We'd been there for six months. What had we been doing?' The strength of his feeling stemmed from the failure of the British to honour their assurance that they would look after Crete which he had delivered to the
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