Ebook: Battle for Crete

"Battle for Crete is a fine account of the political and military prelude to the evacuation of British, Australian and New Zealand forces from Greece to Crete in April 1941, and of the subsequent German offensive against Crete, the first airborne assault in history on a defended island. During two year's research the author visited the battlefields, had access to previously unpublished Admiralty files, and talked to and corresponded with many of the combatants, from Admiral of the Fleet lord Cunningham and Colonel-General Student, the German commander, to scores of private soldiers in Australia and New Zealand." "John Hall Spencer has used his very varied sources to build up an exciting picture of one of the most important and bitterly contested campaigns of the Second World War. Battle for Crete shows clearly why Hitler's paratroopers were almost repulsed by an ill-equipped and tired Allied army and why a British general came close to apologising to his troops for the ordeal which they had endured."--Jacket.