Although the toll on the British was less than Richthofen thought (only two destroyers had actually been sunk at the time of his diary entry), it was still considerable. Three other warships were damaged to the point of uselessness, and more than 1,000 men had been lost. Still, the exultant Luftwaffe general could not prevail on his distant, overly cautious superiors to launch another fleet of troop-carrying boats. Help would continue to arrive with maddening slowness via the depleted squadrons of cargo planes.

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If the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht were unconvinced of their own success, the British certainly were not. By retiring to Alexandria, Cunningham was disobeying direct orders from London to retain control of the sea lanes north of Crete at all costs. The rueful admiral could see that control of the sea had passed from surface forces to air power and that his superiors’ notion of war at sea was outmoded. He radioed the chiefs of staff that his losses were too great to justify trying to prevent further attacks on Crete, adding that his men and the vessels they sailed were nearing exhaustion.

‘The operations of the last four days have been nothing short of a test of strength between the Mediterranean Fleet and the German Air Force,’ Cunningham reported on May 23. ‘I am afraid that, in the coastal area, we have to admit defeat and accept the fact that losses are too great to justify us in trying to prevent seaborne attacks on Crete. This is a melancholy conclusion, but it must be faced.’

There would be no landings of seaborne Germans, however, and the battered Ju-52s resolutely continued to land with their human cargo. The 100th Mountain Regiment, some of the men still wet from the previous day’s abortive cruise, was gradually brought up to strength with airlifted new arrivals. The tough, well-equipped veterans began to prevail in this confused campaign so marred by crucial blunders on both sides. The Allies, bereft of air support due to a lack of aircraft carriers or suitable airfields in range of the combat zone, were gradually pushed to the coastal areas of the island’s eastern end, where they awaited evacuation by what remained of the demoralized British fleet.

As late as May 27, Churchill telegraphed General Sir Archibald Wavell, commander in chief of Middle East forces, ‘Victory in Crete essential at this turning-point in the war.’ The same day Wavell despondently replied, ‘Fear we must recognise that Crete is no longer tenable….’

The British evacuation would have been a suicidal venture if Hitler had not already begun withdrawing his air units in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union. At Heraklion, however, destroyer Imperial’s rudder became hopelessly jammed, compelling the British to transfer her crew and troops to destroyer Hotspur, and then scuttle her. A handful of remaining Stukas came across the rescue force on May 29, damaging cruisers Ajax and Orion and several destroyers, sinking the destroyer Hereward, and killing another 800 men.

Although the Luftwaffe’s neutralization of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet made it possible for Germany to conquer Crete, it would be a hollow victory, so costly that Hitler swore off any further large-scale paratroop operations. He did not bother turning his expensive acquisition into a Nazi bastion to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and possibly secure victory in North Africa. Crete proved little more than a cemetery for thousands of wasted German lives — a sacrifice General Julius Ringel, commander of the 5th Mountain Division, said ‘would not have been too great had it meant a beginning, not an end.’

The Royal Navy lost a total of nine ships and 2,000 sailors during the campaign for Crete. On land, 1,700 Allied soldiers were killed and 12,000 captured. A total of 4,000 German soldiers were killed, and 220 of the nearly 500 transport aircraft involved were lost. After the invasion of Crete, Hitler told Student that the day of the paratrooper was over. The German armed forces would never again launch a large-scale airborne assault. The Allies, however, proved Hitler incorrect when they used airborne troops effectively against him during the D-Day operations three years later.

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