The Irish on Crete 1941
James Durney
As our plane flew in to Heraklion airport in September 2018, I found myself wondering if any of my fellow passengers onboard the Boeing 737 knew of the 1941 Battle of Crete and the many Irishmen that took part in it. The turbulence we encountered and our nervousness during our descent evoked the atmosphere of another night-time landing seventy-seven years ago as flak from Allied ground forces rent the skies. My seven-day holiday on the island was just three days short of the amount of time it took the Wehrmacht to seize the island from the Allied forces defending it.
The German attack began on 20 May 1941 with glider-borne and parachute forces landing around Maleme Airfield on the western end of the island. Other landings were made at Chania, and later in the day at Rethymnon and Heraklion airfields. The British commanders, General Sir Archibald Wavell and Dublin-born Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, knew only too well that Crete was a difficult island to defend. While British forces had been on the island for nearly six months, little had been done to turn it into the fortress that Winston Churchill had demanded.
Less than a tenth the size of Ireland, Crete was situated strategically about 100 miles south of Greece, on the direct route to Alexandria and the Suez Canal. Senior RAF officer on the island was Captain George Beamish, from Dunmanway, Co. Cork, who was capped twenty-five times for Ireland and was selected for the 1930 Lions tour.
Due to the breaking of high-level encrypted German codes, the Allies knew that Crete was a target; they had access to the complete German Operational Plan nine days before the attack began on 20 May. Allied forces resisted the paratroopers well during the first day of battle leaving the Germans in a precarious situation with none of the three airfields on the island secured. Most of the first wave of German paratroopers were annihilated within minutes following their drop, while many of their planes were shot down or crash-landed after anti-aircraft damage. An attempted seaborne landing was intercepted and routed by the Royal Navy.
However, mistakes were made on land which allowed the Germans to capture Maleme airfield and land massive reinforcements. Disaster soon followed as at sea Luftwaffe dominance of the air led to the loss of two cruisers and three destroyers. The fate of the island was doomed. Nevertheless, Allied reinforcements were rushed to Crete from Egypt. First Lieutenant Paul Chavasse from Castletownshend, Co. Cork, one of three brothers serving in the British armed forces, was on board the minelayer Abdiel which brought troops to the island on 21 May. But, two days later, the British General Staff in London decided the battle was lost and ordered the evacuation of the island on the night of 28 May. Unfortunately, the British 14th Infantry Brigade had not cleared the channel round the eastern end of the island as the sun began to rise. Stuka dive bombers attacked after dawn sinking two destroyers and badly damaging two cruisers. A fifth of the 14th Brigade were killed at sea, a far higher proportion than in the fight against the German paratroopers a few days earlier.
Admiral Cunningham ordered an end to the evacuation. However, as there were still many troops on the island General Bernard Freyberg implored Cunningham to try and bring them to safety. A second evacuation took place on the night of 31 May-1 June from Sphakia in the south of the island, with only a handful of ships available for the task, including a cruiser, three destroyers and the mine-layer Abdiel. Paul Chavasse recalled that the Abdiel left Crete ‘without nearly as many men as we could have carried’ and survived an air attack by a German bomber. About 18,600 men were evacuated; 12,000 men were left on the island and their fate as prisoners-of-war.
Among them was James Carroll, a sixty-year old Wexfordman, who was captured when his cargo ship, Dalesman, was sank by German aircraft in Suda Bay. Half of the crew was rescued by Allied ships, with the remainder taken prisoner, including Carroll. The Dalesman was later salvaged and repaired and entered German service.
Billy Jarvis from Derry was on board the heavy cruiser HMS York which had seen considerable action against the Italian Navy in the Mediterranean until the ship was disabled in Suda Bay by Italian motorboats in March 1941. York settled on the bed of the bay and was used to bolster anti-aircraft defences on the island which was preparing for the imminent German attack. Many crew members were re-assigned to units on shore and Billy Jarvis was given the job of boiling water for anti-aircraft gunners. Jarvis recalled walking over the mountains to the south coast of Crete to escape the German invaders. He was fortunate enough to be evacuated. Another Irishman Captain Beamish escaped in a motor launch with the Allied commander New Zealander Gen. Freyberg.
Despite their victory the German losses were high, with 4,041 killed and over 2,000 wounded. On the first day alone, Allied troops had killed 1,856 paratroopers. The high casualty rate made Hitler determined not to attempt a major air drop again. Allied casualties were also high, up to 6,000 dead and wounded; naval casualties alone amounted to 2,000 men. Many of the Allied dead are buried at the Suda Bay War Cemetery, overlooking the picturesque bay. The cemetery is permanently open and beautifully kept and records the deaths of 1,500 Commonwealth servicemen and several Germans. On my visit to Suda Bay Cemetery I sought out the graves of potential Irishmen. Amongst the headstones of the British, Australian and New Zealand dead were with many Irish names, like Terence Noel Gallagher, J. J. Moran and Bernard Higgins. However, all proved to be British-born of likely Irish extraction.
One of these which caught my attention was that of Francis Connor aged sixty-five, who was born in Liverpool in 1875. My subsequent research located his seaman’s card which stated he was 5’6” in height, with brown hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He was a donkeyman greaser on the cargo liner SS Logician. Donkey engines were used to operate the anchor windlass and bilge pumps and the donkeyman could also be called on to perform the duties of fireman or greaser. The Logician had arrived at Suda Bay on 14 May to assist in the evacuation and was attacked by enemy aircraft. On 16 May the ship was again attacked killing three of the ship’s crew – Frances Connor, Joseph Campbell and sixteen-year-old deckhand Kenneth Josse – and wounding several others. These wounded became prisoners of war. Other surviving crew members were evacuated by British landing craft. The Logician was finally sank on 25 May.
Despite their success in the battle of Crete the Germans never completely conquered the island. For the first time during World War II, the attacking German forces faced a substantial resistance from the local population as Cretan civilians joined the battle with whatever weapons were at hand – knives, scythes and axes. By the end of 1941 about 500 Commonwealth troops remained at large on the island. Although they were scattered and disorganised, these troops, along with the Cretan partisans, harassed German troops right up to the war’s end in 1945.
The Irish at War 