Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Jackson's company withdraws

 Jackson's company moved out at 9pm. They carried one wounded man on a stretcher. Other wounded men were walking along in the group, in the middle. They managed to reach the beach without being seen. The Gerans were using a wrecked aircraft for cover for machine guns. Two machine guns started firing at the Australians. The men lay in the water behind "a slight bank". 

After fifteen minutes, the machine guns stopped firing. Jackson realized that they could not keep moving east because of the machine guns. He decided to back through the German rear. They walked to the west until they reachedv the edge of Retimo. By now, the men were very tired. The entered a substantial villa and spent the night there. Two wounded men who could not travel were left in the villa "with a medical orderly". 

The rest of the men crossed the road. They moved up into the foothills. They crossed behind the Germans. They rejoined their battalion on the middle of 29 May.About seventy men had attacked the Germans. Of those, some twelve men were wounded. 

Campbell decided they were not strong enough to make another attack. They needed to cocentrate on defendin the airfield at Retimo.

This is based on the account in "Greece, Crete, and Syria" by Gavin Long

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