Maybe many people have seen the 2020 naval battle movie "Greyhound", yes, Americans are greedy again.
The Greyhound was clearly from the British Navy and died in battle near Crete.
"U-571" said that the US Navy seized the German submarine code machine, in fact, it is also the credit of the British Navy.
In the old TV series "North African Desert Operation", the American special forces killed the German army such as mowing grass, in fact, this is the credit of the British special forces.
This article talks about the battle near Crete in which the Greyhound participated.
After capturing Greece, the Germans launched an attack on the remaining Stronghold of the British and Greeks on Crete at sea on 20 May 1941, with the German plan of first dropping paratroopers to control important locations on the island, and then sending the navy to carry reinforcements to take the whole island in one fell swoop. But the British Navy was not in the awkward position of having only 6 destroyers as it is today, and they fought fiercely at sea with the German and Italian navies.
On 21 May, the Germans wounded the British light cruiser Ajax, while the Italian Air Force sank the destroyer Juno. And the German paratroopers on the island are fighting hard. So on the night of 21 May, the Italian destroyer Sagittarius led 38 smaller ships from Milos to Crete, carrying ammunition supplies and the 2nd Battalion of the German 100th Mountain Infantry Regiment.
The British Navy's Mediterranean Fleet sent E. Vice Admiral L. King (note only with the same surname as Admiral Ernesgen King of the U.S. Navy) led 1 light cruiser, 3 anti-aircraft cruisers and 4 destroyers to intercept the Axis naval fleet, and although the air defense cruiser Carlisle was equipped with a central fire control system and 8 4-inch (102 mm) aircraft, the engine was broken, but given the strong aviation strength of the German-Italian Air Force, the warship was taken with her.
From 7 a.m. on 22 May, German bombers carried out sporadic attacks on the British fleet, but did not cause much damage. At 11 o'clock, the British fleet spotted the Axis reinforcement fleet, and the two sides immediately began to exchange fire. British cruisers charged at the Germans, and the Italian destroyer Sagittarius fired torpedoes. Soon, German Junker-88 and Dornier-17 bombers also came to reinforcements. Fearing that the fleet would be sunk, Lieutenant General E.L. King ordered him to break away from the engagement and sail northwest of Crete, where Vice Admiral Rawlings's fleet should have appeared, according to the British deployment. This order was later heavily criticized by Prime Minister Churchill and Admiral Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, which undoubtedly missed the great opportunity to completely annihilate the German-Italian fleet.
The front row is on the right with Cunningham
However, perhaps the damage to E.L. King's flagship, the light cruiser HMS Naiades, left his judgment – the British had shot down two Junkers-88 bombers, but the two turrets of the Nayadés were damaged, the hull was damaged, several cabins were flooded, and the cruiser's speed dropped to 18 knots.
Soon after, the bridge of the British cruiser HMS Carlisle was hit by a bomb, Captain Capton Hampton was killed, the fire control system of the Cruiser Perth failed, and Rear Admiral E.L. King asked Lieutenant General Rawlings for help.
Dornier-17
Vice Admiral Rawlings' fleet was well-equipped, consisting of the battleships Brave and War Weary, as well as 2 cruisers and 7 destroyers. Rawlings quickly reinforced, but his fleet lacked anti-aircraft ammunition and suffered losses in German air raids: the Weary was damaged, a secondary gun and an anti-aircraft gun were hit and exploded, 43 people were killed, 69 were wounded, and the speed of the battleship was reduced to 18 knots.
At this time, the British made another wrong decision, that is, to continue to search for German and Italian reinforcement ships at sea, and did not care about the airfield on the island of Crete.
This may have been another episode of the old-fashioned mentality of the British Navy at the time, and if the British Navy's giant ships had shelled the airfields already controlled by the Germans, they would undoubtedly have prevented german aircraft from delivering reinforcements and supplies to the paratroopers on the island.
War-weary
However, after the two fleets were concentrated, not many German reinforcement ships were searched, and after sinking only one, the British destroyer Greyhound (unlike the movie, the British really had a G-class destroyer named Greyhound) was hit by three bombs, and 6 officers and 74 sailors were killed.
The real Greyhound
The British rushed to send the destroyers Kingston and Kandahar to rescue the fallen soldiers, while the other warships had problems in coordinating command, and the air defense formation was further broken, and the result was that the British army continued to suffer losses.
At 3:27 p.m., German dive bombers severely damaged the cruiser Gloucester, destroying the engine with one bomb and another blowing up a mast and the air defense control room. Then, the cruiser lost power and began to sink.
The British rescued some of the crew in the hour and a half before the sinking, but found nothing after dark. As a result, 660 people were killed after 65 people were rescued by the German camp.
The area around Crete
At 4:00 p.m., five destroyers from Mountbatten's Fifth Fleet arrived, and these warships strengthened their air defenses, and the British behaved normally, blocking German and Italian reinforcement ships while shelling German positions. This was probably the only correct deployment of the British fleet during the three-day operation.
But the German air raids did not stop, and at 4:45 p.m., the battleship War-Weary was hit by two bombs, but the damage was not large. However, at 5 o'clock, the cruiser Fiji was hit by a 250 kg bomb, a violent explosion occurred, a power capsule into the water, the hull of the ship was seriously tilted to the left, and then 3 more hits, was sunk, the British rescued 523 people, 275 people were killed.
At the same time, two destroyers took the Greek king and high-ranking officials from Crete, as well as the personnel of the British embassy and consulates in Greece. These desperate dignitaries could not retreat without retreating, and the German paratroopers were getting closer and closer to them.
But that night, the British still sent 900 reinforcements to the island of Crete, but the results of the day's operations showed that the losses of German fighters were minor, but several British warships were damaged or sunk, and they were short of ammunition to continue to block German naval reinforcements at sea.
At this time, the German army on the island of Crete received continuous air support, coupled with the frequent disconnection between infantry and tank operations by the British army, only the blind counterattack of tanks with armor-piercing shells, etc., making the situation more unfavorable to the British army.
German paratroopers
On the morning of 24 May, General Cunningham sent the remaining British warships out again, but due to bad weather, he was unable to send reinforcements and supplies to Crete.
In addition, the British at this time did not realize that naval guns were very critical to support operations on land, especially the blockade of airfields with artillery fire. As a result, General Cunningham reported that the British Navy had done nothing more and that the only thing that could be done was to cover the retreat of the Army forces on the island of Crete. Later, the British did indeed do the same.
In the Pacific War that breaks out a few months later, the actions of the US army and its results will completely reverse the british view, and the continuous and fierce artillery fire will greatly prevent the enemy from making a difference at the airfield, making it difficult for the other side to organize the take-off and landing of fighters, nor can it airlift supplies and reinforcements.
The British, in the Battle of Crete, made all their wishful thinking to stop the imaginary German-Italian large reinforcement fleet, and they did this to some extent, but they failed to stop the German air reinforcements, so that Germany still won the battle at great cost.
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