Kidnap in Crete Read Online Free PDF Page A

which dangled a steel hook. To stop it snagging on the steps into the aircraft steps he looped the cord and gripped the end between his teeth, leaving his hands free to haul himself up into the fuselage.
    The assault gliders carried nine men, plus the pilot, to be towed then dropped in a simultaneous glider-borne assault. The glider men sat in a line down the centre of the aircraft, with the last four men facing the rear ready to open the only door. Along the sides were breakaway panels that could be kicked clear to allow escape. The glider’s wheels were jettisoned after takeoff. The troops sat and waited; the temperature inside the planes started to rise. The pilots began to check the magnetos, running up the engines in a deafening roar, making communication possible only by sign language. At last, each great, yellow-nosed Ju 52 shuddered, the engines revving hard in one unified sound. The planes moved forward, rumbling towards the end of the runway. As the aircraft accelerated, nothing could be seen through the portholes, only swirling dust which soon rose 3,000 feet into the air. One by one they lifted, the sweating paratroopers silent, listening to the heavy clunk of the undercarriage retracting. Feldwebel Wilhelm Plieschen took out his camera and photographed his friends as they removed their heavy, rimless parachute helmets and settled back against the plane’s uncomfortable fuselage.
    The aircraft banked, turning south. Suddenly, they broke out of the dust clouds into a dazzlingly clear sky: below was the Acropolis, topped by the beautiful structure of the Parthenon, and ahead, vivid blue sea. Aircraft and gliders stretched to the horizon, protected by fighters and fighter bombers: Stukas, Junkers 88s, Dorniers, Heinkels, Messerschmitt 109s and Messerschmitt 110s. In a leading glider sat Generalleutnant Wilhelm Süssmann, commander of 7 Flieger Division; with him were his divisional staff. The pilot of the tug, Sergeant Hausser, saw an aircraft flying across his path which he recognised as a He 111 bomber. The Heinkel’s take-off from southern Greece had been delayed by engine trouble, and its pilot Oberfeldwebel Paul Gerfehr was racing to catch up, unaware that he was flying into the flight pattern of the glider-borne troops. Hausser did the only thing he could – he pushed his joystick forward and put his huge Ju 52 ‘Iron Annie’ and the glider it was towing into a dive. At the same time Gerfehr pulled his stick back and began to climb. The two planes missed each other, Hausser’s plane and its glider returned to level flight, but turbulence from the slipstream of the bomber made the tow-rope vibrate like a violin string, putting it under great strain. It snapped. The glider containing Süssmann and his divisional staff lurched and soared up, banking left, heading for the island of Aegina. Hausser watched in horror as the glider’s starboard wing broke off, and the fusel­age fell, tumbling over and over towards the ground, hitting the island in a puff of smoke. Süssmann and his staff were the first casualties of Operation Mercury.
     
    Although Crete is not much more than a hundred miles from the Greek mainland, the flying time for the invaders was more than two hours, and many of the paratroopers fell asleep. They were woken by the shrill sounds of klaxons and the pilot’s voice giving the ‘Prepare to Jump’ order. From the Plexiglas cockpits the aviators could see the mountains looming up from the sea. The soldiers leapt to their feet and hooked their static lines to the steel cables running the length of each aircraft. The planes descended to 200 feet, the load of paratroopers shuffled forward. At the door each man grabbed the bars on either side of the hatch and pulled himself forward and out of the aircraft, diving into space, spread-eagled and battered by the slipstream. Each plane emptied in just under ten seconds. The paratroopers tumbled in space, the roar of the Junkers’ engines replaced by