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For the first time in history, an invading force used the air as its medium to invade an island fortress. The german called it Operation Mercury, but to the rest of the world it would be known as the Battle of Crete. Thousands of elite German paratroopers descended upon the island on the morning of May 20. Locals referred to the descending soldiers as “umbrellas falling from the sky.”
Elderly villagers were only armed with pitchforks, kitchen utensils and muskets that hadn’t been used since Crete’s last revolution against the Turks a few decades earlier. Thousands of Germans lost their lives in the early days of the battle — many even before they hit the ground as locals shot them out of the sky or killed them as they dangled from olive trees in their parachutes.
Numerous Nazi officials would later admit that they weren’t expecting this kind of resistance, nor had they encountered such a ferocious backlash from a local population anywhere else in Europe. The battle lasted for 13 days and the german eventually won.
Elderly villagers were only armed with pitchforks, kitchen utensils and muskets that hadn’t been used since Crete’s last revolution against the Turks a few decades earlier. Thousands of Germans lost their lives in the early days of the battle — many even before they hit the ground as locals shot them out of the sky or killed them as they dangled from olive trees in their parachutes.
Numerous Nazi officials would later admit that they weren’t expecting this kind of resistance, nor had they encountered such a ferocious backlash from a local population anywhere else in Europe. The battle lasted for 13 days and the german eventually won.