Operation Mercury Read online

  From the beginning admission into the ranks of the parachutists conferred special status. These young recruits were subject to a gruelling training regime and frequently came through the Hitler Youth, the very ideal of the Aryan warrior, fit descendants of Teutonic Knights and torch bearers of the Nazi ideology.

  These young lions were marked by their distinctive uniforms, originally a blue-grey coverall over which they wore a rush green smock with zip breast pockets. This reached to just below the knee but could be fastened up around the upper thighs so as to prevent the parachute harness from fouling. With their trousers tucked into black calf length jump boots and their equally unique round padded helmets, every facet of their appearance marked them as an elite.

  Specialist troops required specialist weapons and whilst many Fallschirmjäger went into battle carrying the standard infantry rifle, the KAR-98K, 7.9 mm and with a five round box magazine, others carried the MP-40 machine pistol, a 9 mm weapon with a 32 round magazine. This, developed from the earlier MP-38, was primarily designed as a paratroopers’ weapon; light and with a high rate of fire it was ideal for airborne operations.

  Additional and heavier fire support was provided by the 7.92 mm MG 34. Defined as a light machine gun, but extremely well designed, robust and versatile, it could be used by one man as a section support or by a crew of three as a medium machine gun. It could fire 800 - 900 rounds per minute.

  All small arms and machine guns were packed in containers for the jump and it was vital the troops accessed these as soon after landing as possible. When they left the plane the individual paratroops carried only a fighting knife and a 9 mm Walther P-38 semiautomatic pistol.

  Their British adversaries, encountering these elite warriors for the first time on Crete, were impressed:

  Superbly equipped, on the whole elite troops, they were young, they were fit, they had brains, military brains, which is not as dismissive as it may sound, and their morale was terrific, they were very good soldiers … They had some sort of outer garment like a kind of mackintosh which they got rid of as quickly as possible and they were in an all purpose uniform with pockets and fasteners – a very advanced looking battle-dress. They had pockets for carrying their magazines, for instance. Someone had obviously thought out the function of a paratrooper, how they should be dressed in every conceivable detail had clearly been gone into.6

  Student would have been gratified, his men were imbued with the ethos of Teutonic mastery, expected to adhere to a fierce ‘moral’ code whose strident tone smacks of the days of chivalry when their mailed ancestors had stamped their presence on the East Prussian landscape:

  You are the chosen ones of the German army. You will seek combat and train yourself to endure any manner of test. To you the battle shall be fulfilment. Cultivate true comradeship, for by the aid of your comrades you will conquer or die … 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.7

  The lightening victory over Poland in the autumn of 1939 moved with such dazzling rapidity that no opportunity for the Flieger division to demonstrate its mettle arose. It was only with the subsequent campaigns in the west, beginning with the invasions of Norway and Denmark, that Student finally found his chance.

  Operation Weserubung was to involve the 1st Battalion, 1 Parachute Regiment under Captain Erich Walter. The Fallschirmjäger were tasked to support the seaborne invasions of both countries by the seizure of certain key objectives; in Norway, Oslo and Stavanger airfields, two further airstrips at Aalborg in Denmark and the capture of a vital bridge at Copenhagen.

  Despite adverse weather over Oslo the paratroops, though dispersed, managed to win their objective; the other three were attained without serious opposition. As the campaign in Norway progressed a successful and daring landing on packed ice contributed greatly to operations around Narvik. This was vindication indeed.

  It was, however, during the larger campaigns in the west that Student’s paratroopers were to achieve their most stunning successes, victories that would put Student into personal contact with Hitler himself, a vast increase in prestige and the continuing spite of his less favoured contemporaries.

  The operational tasks assigned to parachutists comprised the seizure by a coup de main of the apparently impregnable Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael, together with three vital bridges over the Albert Canal. Even more ambitiously, the 22nd Division was to air-land around the Hague in a dramatic bid to capture the Dutch Royal family and seize a number of airfields. The 7th Flieger division was to take and hold the crossing points necessary for the relief by the advancing Wehrmacht of 22nd Division.

  Captain Walter Koch was given the command of Sturmabteilung Koch, responsible for the extremely difficult job of assaulting the fortress and bridges. This was to be a glider borne operation and eleven aircraft under Lieutenant Witzig were to land directly on the roof of the fort.

  The mission was a dazzling success, two out of the three bridges were taken intact and the fort’s defences sabotaged by Witzig’s group, even though his glider failed to make the drop, landing inside Germany after the tow parted too soon. The demoralised Belgians surrendered Eben-Emael when the ground forces arrived; the strongest garrison in the west had been reduced by a mere handful of paratroops.

  The larger scale landings in Holland, however, were less convincing and revealed the weaknesses of Student’s theories. Paramount amongst these was the fact that it was nigh on impossible for Student himself acting as divisional commander of the 7th Flieger division also to successfully coordinate the actions of the 22nd (under Lieutenant General Hans Graf von Sponeck) which was landed some distance away.

  Determined Dutch resistance foiled the paratroops’ attempts to seize and hold the airfields which would facilitate the air landing of the remainder of the division. Sponeck’s forces were thus scattered and, at the same time, contained. Kesselring, commanding Luftflotte 2, correctly assessed the situation and ordered Sponeck to simply consolidate his forces and then break out toward Rotterdam and Student. Though abortive, the landing did disrupt and tie down Dutch forces in considerable numbers.

  The 7th Flieger division was to take three bridges at Moerdijk, Dordrecht and Rotterdam. In the first and third instance the attacks were completely successful but, in the centre, the paratroops succeeded in gaining only a foothold and this was lost to spirited counter-attacks, the German commander being amongst the casualties. Despite substantial local counter-attacks Student’s men clung to their gains until relieved on 12 May by 7th Panzer.

  One of the German casualties was Student himself whose bravery in the field nearly proved his undoing. He suffered a very serious head wound which kept him out of the action for months. Although he seemed to recover there were those who felt his capacity to command had been impaired.8

  While Student was incapacitated his temporary replacement, General Putzier, was involved in the planning of Operation Seelöwe (Sealion) the projected invasion of Britain but the paratroop regiments were not destined for further action until Marita and an attempt to prevent the retreating Allies from gaining the ports on the Peloponnese.

  Colonel Albert Sturm’s 2 Parachute Regiment was tasked, on 26 April, to seize the bridge over the Corinth Canal. In the event this came too late to hamstring Wilson’s army as hoped but the bridge was wired for demolition. A dawn descent by three DFS 230 gliders landed assault engineers who succeeded in seizing the bridge and set about defusing the explosives. The 1st and 2nd Battalions dropped north and south to hold off the defenders.

  To the north the relatively few British were quickly overrun, though resistance to the south proved more formidable. In the heat of the fight a Bofors, firing on the engineers swarming over the bridge, set off an explosion which caused the main span to collapse dramatically into the Canal below. In one sense the operation was successful but German casualties at around 240, sixty-three of whom had been killed, had been high. No
netheless Operation Hannibal as this was named, captured twenty-one officers and 900 other ranks of the British and Dominion forces and 1,450 Greeks.

  Student, substantively recovered from his wounds, was furious – the operation had revealed the existence of paratroopers in Greece, something he had been at great pains to conceal. Surprise, the vital element, was therefore sacrificed and the General had now set his sights on Crete.

  Here was the perfect opportunity for a definitive campaign of vertical envelopment, one which would guarantee Student’s place in the Pantheon of strategic genius, silence his critics with a single blow and cement his relationships with both Goering and Hitler. It was a dazzling prospect.

  He jumps through the air with the greatest of ease,

  His feet are together and so are his knees.

  If his ‘chute doesn’t open, he’ll fall like a stone,

  And we’ll cart him away on a spoon.9

  The parachutist is taken on a short flight directly from his base camp, and without any middle act is plunged straight into close combat with his adversary. Without reconnaissance, without close contact with other forces or formations, he jumps into absolutely unknown territory. The only support he can expect is from his own bombers which drop according to a rigid plan which may even endanger his own life … he does not fight on a single front but on all sides. Fundamentally he starts fighting in a situation which most infantrymen would regard as hopeless, for he ventures voluntarily, without tanks or artillery, into a total encirclement.10

  For Student the casual ease with which von List’s panzers had brushed aside the Greeks and their British allies was a source of considerable frustration. Early in the planning stage for Marita, Crete had been identified as a potential target for airborne assault. As such, it was the perfect opportunity for the Fallschirmjäger to consolidate their reputation and silence any critics for good. For Student it was the gift he had been seeking, the chance to overcome a conventional defence in a campaign of vertical envelopment.

  Unlike some of his more flamboyant colleagues Student was not hungry for the adulation of the masses through the popular press; he lacked the genius for self publicity that characterised generals such as Guderian or Rommel. His was a professional conceit, his own particular genius rebuked by the petty mutterings and scepticism of lesser intellects. He now sought to create his masterpiece and Crete was to be his canvas.

  The call, however, did not come and Student, increasingly frustrated, remained on the sidelines while the battle for Greece unfolded. It is uncertain if he was, at this point, privy to the plans for Barbarossa. If so, then this would only serve to exacerbate his concern, for the airborne forces had not been allotted any specific role. If what promised to be the climactic campaign of the war offered nothing, then time was indeed short.

  On 20 April Student took the bull by the horns and, trading heavily on his stock with Goering, flew to Semmering in Austria, the operational HQ for Marita. His request for an audience was granted and his proposal listened to. General Jeschonnek, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, was present and it was he who had raised the possibility of an airborne assault on Crete and possibly Malta in February. Goering had also been cautioned by General Lohr of Luftflotte 4 that to leave the British in possession of Crete would be to expose Axis operations in the Eastern Mediterranean to continuing interference at a time when this flank need to be nailed secure.

  The Reichsmarschall listened attentively and managed to secure an interview with Hitler at short notice, normally an impossibility. Student and Jeschonnek therefore attended the Führer aboard his headquarters train, Amerika. Before they saw the supreme commander they had to convince Jodl and Keitel of OKW; conventional generals who dismissed the scheme as fanciful. They preferred Malta as a target for Student’s paratroopers.

  Hitler, however, was prepared to listen. Bombers from Crete could strike at the Romanian oilfields, more vital than ever once Russian supplies were terminated. The deciding factor was undoubtedly the notion that the operation against Crete could form part of an overall deception, masking the real reason for German build up in the Balkans. The attack could not only secure the southern flank but also assist in maintaining the element of surprise upon which the success of Barbarossa was dependent. Student’s wider vision for a continuing series of airborne attacks on Cyprus and ultimately Suez, was of little interest to Hitler but the potential to facilitate Barbarossa won the day for the Luftwaffe.

  A few days later, on 25 April, Hitler confirmed his intentions to proceed against Crete; Directive Number 28 – Operation Merkur (Mercury) was born. This was to be primarily a Luftwaffe operation with additional army units thrown in; some armour would be transported by sea, the convoys guarded by Italian warships. It must not, however, in any way, interfere with the concentration of resources being undertaken for the invasion of Russia. For Student, the campaign was to be a race against time as men and matériel were progressively sucked into the web of Barbarossa. He would be in no doubt that the Wehrmacht would be resentful and uncooperative.

  A lesser commander might well have been daunted but Student, the triumph of Hitler’s directive in his pocket, was determined to prove equal to the task. The logistical difficulties were formidable in the extreme. Men and their equipment had to be moved across the difficult terrain of the Balkans without interfering with the contrary flow intended for Barbarossa. The air and flak units he would need had to be ready for re-deployment in the east by the end of the following month. Halder, in conference at OKW on 12 May complained openly of the inconvenience caused by Mercury.

  For Student, the meticulous planner, this meant a foray into the uncertain world of make do and mend. From the outset the campaign was a race against time. It was not the strength of the British opposition which concerned him but the demands of the looming campaign in Russia. He had staked everything on the success of Mercury – his own reputation, his special relationship with Goering, even the future of German airborne forces. In the modern vernacular – failure was not an option.

  Suddenly the men of the Flieger division, left kicking their heels in barracks since the heady days of 1940, were on the move. They did not yet know their destination but the heady lure of action was at last in the air, dispelling the tedium and impotence of garrison life. Student’s competent quartermaster, General Seibt, had worked out an elaborate schedule to ferry the men to assembly points in Romania from where they’d pile into trucks that would carry them to their forward bases in Greece. The gliders required for the operation were crated and sent by train to Skopje where they were assembled, rigged and then towed behind transports to the airfields.

  Security was paramount and Student went to considerable lengths to disguise the focus of the movements. His men were not permitted to advertise their presence in any way and had to disguise their appearance. The gliders and other potential giveaways were artfully concealed. All these precautions were, of course, rendered void by the operation against Corinth which blazoned the presence of airborne troops in the Greek theatre in the most dramatic manner. Student raged but there was little he could do to remedy the breach.

  Worse was to follow. He had naturally counted on being allotted 22nd Air Landing Division, the obvious choice given their role in the earlier operations. OKW proved obstinate, however, citing transport difficulties as the reason why this formation should remain in Romania where it was engaged in the undemanding role of guarding the oilfields. As an alternative he was offered the 5th Gebirge (Mountain) Division, part of List’s 12th Army and commanded by General Julius Ringel.

  An Austrian by birth Ringel, as well as being a confirmed Nazi, was a soldier of the old school who had little respect for Student’s more revolutionary ideas. His own were more pragmatic, his celebrated dictum ‘sweat saves blood’ summed up his methodical and cautious approach.11 Liked and respected by his elite alpine troops, he was not the partner Student would have wished for. Lohr, commanding Luftflotte 4, appeared to favour his fellow Austrian and it w
as Lohr whom Goering had appointed as overall commander of Mercury.

  As elements of his forces were already being moved to conform with the demands of Barbarossa, Goering may have felt that Lohr would ensure the attack on Crete was undertaken within the tight time limits the greater offensive permitted. General Korten, Lohr’s chief of staff, was an intimate of the Reichsmarschall but no ally of Student, tending to the prevailing view that Crete was, at best, a distraction.

  Even more trying, Fliegerkorps VII was commanded by an officer of equal rank to Student, Wolfram von Richthofen, a relative of the legendary Red Baron. A highly respected officer, who had pioneered and practised the aerial tactics of blitzkrieg, he was not easy to work with and Student had no direct authority over him.12

  There were immediate differences in the manner of planning the assault. Student favoured a classic vertical envelopment, landing troops on top of each key objective which had been identified as the three air strips on the western section of the north coast – at Heraklion, Rethymnon and Maleme, together with Chania and the naval anchorage at Souda Bay. By attacking all at once Student would force the defenders to disperse their forces to a degree which would frustrate any determined counter-attack.

  Lohr was sceptical; he favoured a more conventional approach, concentrating the drop around Maleme, the most westerly of the air strips which could be strongly held as a base for ferrying in reinforcements. Not only was Maleme the closest to German air bases in Greece, by concentrating the assault here, the air cover provided by von Richthofen’s planes could be maximised.