It was on 24 April 1941 that the Greek army surrendered. A late order to the army had been to tell them to stay off the roads, to help the British to withdraw. The Greek King and some of the government flew to Crete in a flying boat. You wold expect the aircraft to be a Short Sunderland. This was the latest and best British flying boat.
A New Zealand Brigade was sitting at the "Molos bottleneck" Two battalions were forward, the 24th to the right, the 25th to the left, witht he 26th as the reserve. The main road, which ran to the sea, To the west of the 25th Battalion, The main road ran towards the Alamanas bridge. The road came to within three miles of the bridge.
There was a gap between the 25th Battalion and the Australians was large enough that artillery fire could coer the gap. The Australians were at the Brallos Pass. To the north, there were dried marshes that seemed to be passable to German tanks. They might come that way so as to attack the Molos defensive position.
To make preparation for such an attack, they positioned field guns to be able to fire towards a tank attack across the marsh area. supporting the foward battalions were "one medium regiment, and four field regiments". One of these was "Royal Horse Artillery and three New Zealand field regiments". In addition, there were "two anti-tank regiments and a light anti-airraft battery".
This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long.
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