Operation Mercury (31 page)

Each trooper had a memorandum of these sewn into the lining of his pack. They are a mix of Teutonic sentiment and sound advice:

 

1. You are the chosen ones of the German army. You will seek combat and train yourselves to endure any manner of test. To you the battle shall be fulfilment.

2. Cultivate true comradeship, for by the aid of your comrades, you will conquer or die.

3. Be aware of talking. Be not corruptible. Men act while women chatter. Chatter may bring you to the grave.

4. Be calm and prudent, strong and resolute. Valour and the enthusiasm of an offensive spirit will cause you to prevail in the attack.

5. The most precious thing in the presence of the foe is ammunition. He who shoots uselessly, merely to comfort himself, is a man of straw who merits not the title of parachutist.

6. Never surrender. To you death or victory must be a point of honour.

7. You can triumph only if your weapons are good. See to it that you submit yourself to this law – first my weapon and then myself.

8. You must grasp the full purpose of any enterprise, so that if your leader is killed you yourself can fulfil it.

9. Against an open foe fight with chivalry, but to a guerrilla extend no quarter.

10. Keep your eyes wide open. Tune yourself to the topmost pitch. Be as nimble as a greyhound, as tough as leather, as hard as Krupp steel, and so you shall be the German warrior incarnate.

[Freyberg] had known nothing of Ultra until Wavell appointed him to command in Crete and so he was quite without experience in interpreting it. Yet almost at once he was compelled by events to make operational decisions in the light of it, without the benefit of a second opinion or any advice whatever [Group Captain Beamish, the Ultra intermediary on Crete, was not in the chain of command]. [Moreover]
in the whole course of history no island had ever been captured except from the sea
[author's italics] the only evidence that the new airborne arm could overpower ground defences consisted of [the evidence from Eben Emael and associated minor operations]. The first parachute battalions in the British army would not be formed for another six months. Finally the fact that the Royal Navy's command of the Mediterranean was being seriously challenged for the first time since Nelson's victory over the French in Aboukir Bay in 1798 was in itself enough to reinforce fears of attack by the traditional means... In spite of Ultra [Freyberg's] apprehension of danger from the sea can only be faulted by an abuse of hindsight.
¹

Ultra, Britain's best kept secret in 1941, was born of Enigma and this was the brainchild of a German inventor Arthur Scherbius whose objective had been to design a machine that could both encipher and decipher automatically. The concept was not a novel one, the machines all worked on a rotating disc principle and Scherbius was not the first to attempt a mass produced version.

His design came onto the market in 1923 and was adopted by the German army five years later. Its capabilities were sufficient to also enthuse the Navy and, latterly the Luftwaffe. Its value was for usage in all secret messaging that was vulnerable to interception – primarily radio traffic.

What, in modern business parlance, would rank as the Engima's unique selling point ‘USP' was its reflector disc which empowered the machine to both crypt and decrypt. Powered by dry cell batteries, it was also lightweight and easily portable, in appearance as innocuous as a contemporary portable typewriter. It's potential in the field of modern warfare was immense.

Because of its ability to multiply possible encryption's to such an infinite degree it was thought utterly impregnable to ‘cracking' by even the most gifted of cryptanalysts, the Germans believed that hundreds or even thousands of mathematicians could labour for generations without success. This belief persisted even once the codes had been thoroughly penetrated.

It was not in fact the ‘boffins' at the British Government's Code and Cipher School (GCCS) at Bletchley Park who first began to fracture the Enigma but the cryptanalysts of the Polish army who achieved miracles by means, mainly of pure applied mathematics with some ‘mechanical aids'. The latter, which were to assume increasing importance at Bletchley, were electro mechanical devices that tested the solutions of encrypts much faster than could be achieved by pure manpower – ‘bombes' as they were known.

In July 1939 as the threat of war loomed British and French Intelligence officers attended their Polish counterparts in Warsaw where they were presented with a facsimile of the Engima the ingenious Poles had constructed. However, they'd been beaten by the Enigma designers who'd now added two additional discs thus multiplying the complexity.

Room 40 at Bletchley continued on the Polish model with the recruitment of civilian academics, an eccentric and eclectic mix of genius whose existence became the stuff of legend. The most outstanding of these was Alan Turing whose Olympian intellect stood out even in such gifted company. He could be described as the originator of the computer and it was he who designed the bombes at Bletchley.

An element of operator laziness and, in the case of Luftwaffe personnel, inexperience, greatly facilitated the cryptanalysts work as did the use of some partial guessing or ‘cribs' as they were known. The intellectual powerhouse that was Hut 40, backed by thousands of hours of work, achieved miracles, firstly the Luftwaffe codes were broken and then others.

Some of the naval codes and that used by the Gestapo were never cracked. ‘Shark' the Atlantic U Boat key remained inviolate all through the murderous months of 1941 - 1942 when the Battle of the Atlantic hung in the balance and thousands of seaman with hundreds of thousands of tons of merchant shipping succumbed to U Boat attacks.

One of the limitations with ULTRA as the Enigma intelligence was designated was that officers in the field never saw the original decrypts, these were frequently unintelligible and needed to be translated and, effectively, interpreted, so that which was passed on was in an edited form. In the early days this fine art of interpretation was left to linguists rather than intelligence officers (IOs) with the risk that a competent IO might have read the decrypt in a subtly different way.

As ULTRA was Britain's most closely guarded secret, perceived as the trump that could tip the finely wrought scales between survival and defeat, entry to the circle of initiates was restricted. The source of the intelligence had to be concealed so that the Germans would not come to suspect Enigma had been broken. Field commanders were generally told that information had been gleaned from well placed agents or detailed reconnaissance.

Freyberg was not within this charmed circle, ULTRA intelligence was thus filtered through Cairo and, as early as 1 May there was an intimation of the intended attack on Crete, four days later further intercepts revealed the main targets and set a date the 17th when the assault would begin. This signals traffic, crucially, mentioned seaborne elements and made reference to 5th Mountain Division.

Creforce HQ had been set up in a disused quarry above Souda Bay, utilising a network of caves that offered good protection from aerial bombardment. Freyberg's staff was somewhat makeshift, with a chronic shortage of signallers and reliable wireless sets. Weston, huffed at his removal from overall command, retained a separate and well equipped HQ. Freyberg was too punctilious to ‘pull rank'. In the troglodyte world of Creforce HQ Captain Sandover was the IO responsible for decrypting the ULTRA intercepts.

It must, therefore, be borne in mind that Freyberg was not in the ‘know' where this marvellous intelligence was coming from, the signals were codenamed ‘OL' for ‘Orange Leonard' the usual fiction about agents in place being employed. The key Engima decrypt, (OL 2/302), was passed to Creforce at 5.45 p.m. on 13 May and, on the surface, was pure gold.

This confirmed that the date of the attack was to be the 17th as previously understood, (this was moved to the 20th subsequently), it specified the first day's targets for the paratroops as Maleme, Chania, Rethymnon and Heraklion. It revealed the extent of the air support that would be thrown into the fight, that additional troops would be brought in by glider and, latterly, once an airstrip was secured, by transports. It finally confirmed that elements of the projected invasion force would arrive by sea, together with AA batteries.

In addition 12th Army will allot three Mountain Regiments as instructed. Further elements consisting of motor-cyclists, armoured units, anti-aircraft guns will also be allotted … Transport aircraft of which a sufficient number – about 600 – will be allotted for this operation, will be assembled on aerodromes in the Athens area. The first sortie will probably carry parachute troops only. Further sorties will be concerned with the transport of the air landing contingent, equipment and supplies, and will probably include aircraft towing gliders … the invading force will consist of some 35,000 men, of which some 12,000 will be in the parachute landing contingent and 10,000 will be transported by sea …Orders have been issued that Souda Bay is not to be mined, nor will Cretan aerodromes be destroyed, so as not to interfere with the operation intended.
²

 

Although the units to be employed in the assault were listed there was no specific mention of which units would appear where or how, precisely, they were to be landed. ULTRA, despite the very precision of the intelligence actually misinformed Freyberg or allowed him to form a wrong assessment – that a substantial element of the attacking force would be amphibious.

Given that Crete was an island and that, as mentioned, the concept of vertical envelopment was untried, this was not an unreasonable conclusion. Had the fine detail shown that only relatively minor elements of the force would be coming in ships then the General might have re-considered his defensive strategy. The decisions made during the critical period of 21/22 May need to be considered in the light of this. Freyberg was convinced that the initial airborne landings were merely an overture and that the more solid threat would come over the water.

To understand the apparent lethargy that seems to have informed decisions at 5 Brigade HQ during the crucial battle of 20 May we need to understand that everyone believed that strong coastal defences were required and that the air drop was but the first phase in a combined air and sea operation. Given the intelligence that had been provided and the natural assumptions surrounding the defence of an island fortress, it is difficult to overly criticise the decisions taken, one of which, significantly was that there were insufficient troops available to establish a viable presence west of the Tavronitis – a key failure.

If we consider Ralph Bennett's appraisal of Freyberg's position it is difficult not to agree, only with the benefit of hindsight can we appreciate the seriousness of the error. Given the knowledge he possessed at the time, prior to the attack, Freyberg would have appeared grossly negligent had he not given considerable thought to coastal defence. As John Keegan also points out:

Bennett's reflections on the early work of Hut 3 – precisely in the Crete period – are of the greatest relevance to the understanding of Freyberg's conduct of the battle, since they disclose the serious shortcomings of the ULTRA messages he was sent. What these messages reveal appears to be a complete picture of the impending airborne invasion. What they do not disclose, crucially, is who is going to land where. The objectives – Maleme, Rethymno, Heraklion are given; so is the strength of the force, 7th Parachute Division, a reinforced 5th Mountain Division. The units of the force are not, however, matched with the target zones. The crucial synthesis of the German operation order OL 2/302 of 13 May 1941, the work of Bletchley interpreters, not the transcript of the German intercepts themselves, leaves it unspecified how the Assault regiment and the nine battalions of the Parachute Regiments, 1, 2 and 3 are to be allotted between targets.
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Notes