The Natives' Return

The men in the 100-odd Hurricanes, Beaufighters and Baltimores were mostly Britons, with an eager edge of Greeks. For the first time the Royal Hellenic Air Force, built up in the Middle East, was taking part in a full-dress Allied attack on the Nazi-held homeland. Across the sun-flecked Mediterranean the light bombers and long-range fighters clove a path to Crete.

The Nazis had taken this island rampart of the Balkans in twelve nightmarish days of 1941. Now the Greeks and British pounded the power station at Malemi, where the Nazi padded paratroopers had dropped two years ago. They ripped the radio post at Selino Kastelli, not far from the beach where a German seaborne remnant came through British naval guns. They strafed the roads behind Candia, where exhausted Allied foot soldiers had retreated.

It was a savage, costly attack; 17 Allied planes did not return. It proved, as the July 4 Commando raid on the island had proved, that Crete is formidable. But the island will have to be reduced before any Allied thrust is made toward the Balkans. Now, perhaps, the preliminary softening-up is under way.

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