Captain McCarty received orders to withdraw immediately in the face of the German attack. Captain McCarty had already ordered moves. There were German infantry in the process of scaling the slopes of Hill 1001. Lieutenant Copeland had seen orders from a runner. Orders were being distributed rather haphazardly, due to the poor communications and the weather. Some Australian anti-tank guns were destroyed by the crews and the men walked out with the infantry. The New Zealand machine gunners left in their vehicles following their carrying their equipment to the foot of the hill.
Some of the men had not received the orders to stay west of the main road. The retreating Australians encountered German motorcyclists and exchanged shots. A bit later, some 70 Australians walked into a German position and were made prisoners. The position at Vevi was not held until 9pm, but it was held late enough to enable the battalions on the flanks to move out in the dark. It was suggested that Vasey was "cool and calm" because he did not know how badly the fight was going.
The 2/8th Battalion withdrawal was disorganized due to the weather conditions and the poor communications. A more positive statement was that this new, untrained battalion had arrived from North Africa, without food or rest, had moved into position and had beaten back the German patrolling for two days. They were under machine gun fire and faced roaming tanks.
Mackay's units were to provide cover for Greeks to withdraw. The Australians were concerned with providing that cover, although Greeks later felt like they had not been supported. The Greeks thought "GroupW' had withdrawn without consulting the Greeks. The Greeks were thought to have been given too hard operations to conduct and coordination between the British and Greeks was poor. The Australian historian thought that the Greeks did better than the Greek staff thought that they did. This is based on the account in "Greece Crete and Syria" by Gavin Long.
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