In the fall of 1940, Adolf Hitler was certain that Josef Stalin was preparing to attack him. Word of the Soviet dictator’s paranoid purges of his military’s high command in the late 1930s had been reassuring news to the German Führer in Berlin. But when news reached Hitler in 1940 that the Soviets were busily training an entire new officer corps, the Führer began to worry again and ordered his generals to draw up plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union. His timetable was thrown off, however, by a series of unexpected developments in the south.

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Chagrined over his own lack of conquests while Hitler’s forces were overrunning most of Western Europe, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Greece on October 28, 1940. Undertaken at the wrong time of year, the offensive quickly bogged down in the autumn rains, and when the Greeks counterattacked on November 5, they drove il Duce’s forces back to their starting point on the Albanian frontier.

British forces were fighting alongside the Greeks, and Hitler was forced to intervene lest his enemies establish a foothold on his southern flank. German armies surged into and subdued the Balkans, saving Mussolini and securing the south — most of it. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill then sent units of the Royal Navy into the eastern portion of the Mediterranean in anticipation of a German invasion of Crete, the largest of the Greek isles, off the southeastern coast of the Greek mainland.

It was a foregone conclusion that the Germans would target the big island next. Britain’s presence there gave the Allies an invaluable base for their air and sea fleets to threaten supplies and reinforcements destined for Axis forces in North Africa. Royal Air Force bombers based on Crete could also reach the vital Romanian oil fields, which fueled the German war machine, and Crete might even provide a staging area for an Allied invasion of Southern Europe.

For the Germans, time was of the essence. Operations in Greece and Crete had to be concluded successfully before the invasion of the Soviet Union could be undertaken with prospects for a speedy victory before winter. The elite airborne forces commanded by General Kurt Student were placed on alert on May 1, 1941. They would have only 20 days to prepare for the assault on this distant, unfamiliar island. Operation Mercury, as it was called, was set in motion.

Because the campaign had to be carried out in great haste, there was little time for preparation on any level. A total of 500 Junkers Ju-52/3m transport planes would be required to convey the airborne troops into battle. The planes had been severely overworked during the recent attacks on Yugoslavia and Greece, however, and their airframes and engines were in need of major servicing. On May 1, the entire fleet flew north to dozens of aircraft maintenance facilities scattered throughout Germany, Austria and Bohemia-Moravia. By May 15, 493 overhauled, rewelded and otherwise repaired Ju-52s were back in Greece. The next problem to be dealt with was locating appropriate staging areas for the airborne armada.

The handful of Greek airfields with paved runaways were already occupied by the German VIII Air Corps’ bomber units. The transports would have to make do with dusty fields and dirt roads. When Colonel Rudiger von Heyking surveyed the runways for his 150 Ju-52s, he reported to his superiors: ‘They are nothing but deserts! Heavy-laden aircraft will sink up to their ankles.’

Heyking’s dismay was warranted. His airfield outside Topolia had been plowed up by its previous commander in an attempt ‘to make it more level.’ The result was that takeoffs and landings raised dense clouds of dust that rose to 3,000 feet and made it impossible for formations to follow each other at intervals of less than 17 minutes. It was a problem that plagued the Germans throughout the developing theater. Transport groups at Dadion, Megara, Corinth and Tanagra were forced to use fields made of shifting, unstable sand.

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