Part 70: The Aftermath

Historical Post: The Aftermath

The end of our campaign was slightly gamey, in a sense: there is no real reason for the Allies to need to hold Suda until the 28th, apart from the fact that in real life, the Allies were able to hold it until then and it did allow for some seaborne extraction to occur, as well as holding the path towards Sfakia. The retreat was quite disordered, as they tend to be, with many soldiers suffering during the trip down to the southern coast, as supplies, food and water was very scarce, especially after the Allies lost the port at Suda. Layforce suffered greatly due to the fact that they were the rear-guard of the Commonwealth Forces, and only about a quarter of them managed to escape with their lives.

Campbell and the rest of the Commonwealth forces at Rethymnon were forced to surrender en mass, although because of their presence, 5th Gebirgs did divert to Rethymnon rather than keep pressing south to Sfakia, which likely allowed many Allied troops to evacuate. In Heraklion, 14th Brigade was extremely surprised that they were forced to evacuate, as they felt they had won the battle in their sector and that the rest of the island had "let the side down". Their retreat was quite orderly, and was almost all done by boat extraction, something that is present in the game but more limited, for game reasons. Unfortunately, many 14th Brigade soldiers did not manage to get back to Egypt, as the destroyers and small boats they used to evacuate were attacked by the Luftwaffe, and many of them were sunk.

The story for the remaining Commonwealth forces is a mixed one. Some surrendered to the Germans, some fled to the hills: of the latter, some joined the resistance and fought with the Cretans for the rest of the war, while others took other opportunities to escape the islands.

Cretan civilian against the Germans was strong from the outset, and resistance movements were present amongst the Cretans from the very start, which is unlike the more gradual development of resistance groups in other countries. The civilian response to the invasion was used by the Germans as an excuse for the vast reprisals against Cretan civilians. The resistance continued, however, and would be a thorn on the side of the Germans and Italian occupying troops. Patrick Leigh Fermor remained on the island to help the resistance movements, and even carried out a daring mission to capture a German general.

German-occupied Crete only surrendered once the War in Europe was essentially over, and as mentioned, were allowed to keep their guns for 2 weeks post-surrender in order to defend themselves against Cretan partisan attacks. Eventually the British came back, but peace on the island would not remain for long, as Greece was embroiled in a civil war soon afterwards.