Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join the member for Hindmarsh in support of this motion on the Battle of Crete. It was on 20 May 1941 that the battle for Crete began. If you look back at the circumstances at the time, what we knew was that the British had naval superiority most of the time in the Mediterranean and the Germans had air superiority. It was always going to be the case that the German invasion, once accepted by Hitler, was going to occur via air. The Germans knew that they had a limited period of time to capture Crete, because they knew there was going to be the invasion of Russia from 22 June 1941.

The Allied forces were really up against it during this battle. They had lost most of their heavy equipment when Greece itself had fallen. They had quite a few soldiers there but their equipment was not that great. They did not have that many artillery pieces, the tanks were worn out and not in particularly good shape, and even the Matilda tanks, with 40-pound shells, were not suited to antipersonnel fighting. The Germans were also very susceptible through certain weaknesses in their plan. The German paratroopers would parachute out with nothing more than pistol grenades and a knife. Their rifle would go in a different canister, and that could land hundreds of metres away. Even the way the parachutes functioned was a major problem for them—they could not steer them towards where their main weapons were.

It is no wonder that the quite decent defences put in by General Freyberg, the New Zealand general, made it very dangerous for the paratroopers who came in. That is why we hear these stories of 400 out of 600 German paratroopers being killed very early on in the battle. Most of the German casualties did seem to happen on the first day. There was even a reported case of an elderly Cretan civilian actually beating to death with his walking stick a German paratrooper. This really highlights the ferocity and the determination of the Cretan people in the defence of their island. The Germans had really made a mistake when they thought that the republican movement on the island of Crete was somehow going to be in support of the Germans as opposed to the King of Greece at the time. In actual fact, the Cretans did object to the invasion and they fought very hard. They paid a high price, as well.

On the morning of the second day, 21 May, there was an error of judgment in an infantry unit, and one of the commonwealth units withdrew from Hill 107, which then gave the Germans the opportunity to take the main airfield on Crete, the Maleme airfield. After that, the Germans were then able to reinforce with heavier weapons and more soldiers. For the next six days after that, the Allies kept on facing fresher and better armed troops. By 27 May, the British command in London decided that a withdrawal would take place.

The highlight of the battle for Crete was without doubt the ferocity and the determination of the Cretan resistance. As I said, they paid a very high price for it. The Germans lost just over 6,500 soldiers killed or wounded. It should also be remembered that over the course of the war 6,593 Cretan men, 1,100 Cretan women and almost 900 Cretan children were killed by the Germans. The price of liberty can be very expensive. I pay tribute to the Cretan people and all those who fought in the Battle of Crete.

See this speech in context