The fall of Crete was one of the greatest reverses of the Second World War, made all the more bitter for the British because, so it is contended, it was avoidable. The German paratroop losses were catastrophic, and yet the British withdrew leaving the enemy in possession, with dire consequences for the Cretan population. In this outstandingly vivid and dramatic memoir, one of the few airmen left on the island, Marcel Comeau, defending Maleme airfield with the New Zealand forces, recounts the grim and almost unbelievable story of the fierce battle for the airfield, and the steps that led through muddle and confusion to the fatal withdrawal.
Comeau, a fourth generation Englishman of Nova Scotian ancestry, and who was later awarded the Military Medal for his courage at Maleme, joined the RAF as an aircraft rigger in 1938. In 1940 he was posted to No 33 Squadron and, as he recounts, served in Wavell's desert offensive, then in the Balkan campaign. He then joined No 11 Squadron in the fight for Greece which culminated in the Battle of Athens. This left only eight Hurricanes with which to face the might of the Luftwaffe. When Greece fell, they went to the defence of Crete, where Comeau rejoined No 33 Squadron.
He remained throughout the epic events of May 1941 and recounts the courage of the airmen who fought as infantry, heroically defending the aerodrome, then finally trudging over the White Mountains to retreat to Sfakia to be taken off by sea. They were taken to Egypt where propaganda led to their being reviled rather than feted for the stand they had made. The memory of those traumatic and tragic days has never left him and, determined to discover what went wrong at Maleme, he has reconstructed the events and command decisions that led to the withdrawal, in order that the role of his fallen comrades might be vindicated.
Since its first publication in 1961, Operation Mercury has established itself as a classic first-person account of the Battle of Crete, and this new edition is greatly expanded in order to take into account facts that have emerged since then, and to re-examine in hindsight what took place. The result is both a reappraisal of the campaign, and a moving tribute to a handful of heroic airmen.
by M. G. Comeau
Published by PSL 1991 edn. (revised and expanded from William Kimber 1961 1st) 232pp illustrated, index, appendix, bibliography. 16x24 mint, including d/j.
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