Battle on 42nd Street by Peter Monteath

Author:Peter Monteath [Monteath and Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742244686
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing

For their part, Michael Forrester and most of his Greeks moved up into Galatas itself, taking up a position near the village’s eastern exits; just fifty remained in the defensive line south of the village, under a Greek officer.19 Through a couple of days of relative quiet, soldiers and local civilians alike anxiously scanned the territory to the west and south for any sign that the strained German leash was about to snap.

On 24 May, the quietness around Galatas had turned ominous. At this time, everything to the west of Galatas, to Maleme and beyond, was German territory. Hargest’s 5th Brigade had fallen back through the lines of Inglis’s 4th Brigade. With every passing hour, transport aircraft were disgorging heavily armed men and matériel at the Maleme airfield. Ringel’s mountain troops had made contact and joined forces with the grateful paratroopers in Prison Valley. A combined force of mountain troops and paratroops was being gathered together west of Galatas. In the centre were a couple of battalions of Willibald Utz’s 100th Mountain Regiment. On their right were Heidrich’s paratroops, weary but at least no longer isolated. To the left were paratroops under the command of Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke, fresher than Heidrich’s men because they had been flown in on the second day of the invasion.20 The main challenge for the ever-mounting force of German units was to make their way across exposed, flat territory and then up into the village, knowing full well that the defenders on the high ground above them would be fully expecting them and primed for battle.

As always, the assault was heralded from the skies. A foretaste was delivered late on 24 May, as German bombers pounded the defensive positions around the village, followed by fighters sent in to strafe the streets and fields of Galatas and its surrounds. The following morning they ratcheted up the pressure. Air attacks became continuous, while from the surrounding territory mortar and machine-gun fire increased. In preparing for the assault, three companies of New Zealand 20 Battalion were marched forward from the east to form a reserve behind the defensive lines, taking up positions among olive trees north of the village.21

After another demonstration of the Luftwaffe’s mastery of the air, and with all the German ground forces at their start lines by the afternoon of 25 May, the full assault could begin. First it was 18 Battalion that took the brunt of the attack, as from the west the Germans crossed no-man’s land and advanced up the hill to the outskirts of the village. The crackle of machine-guns grew to a constant roar, supplemented by mortar bursts. Eventually the attackers wore their opponents down, leaving sixteen of their own dead on the slopes of the hill, and moved ever closer to the village.22

For 18 Battalion, the experience of being overrun was the lowest point in the unit’s short history. For a time, as its historian concedes, it did not exist as a unit:

only as a number of mixed groups scattered among

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