Word: crete
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...island of Cyprus, which the Germans might have taken after their conquest of Crete-but did not-an advanced offensive base has been built, with a strong air force and a garrison of ground troops, reportedly including U.S. soldiers...
...Allied offensive from the Middle East has two possible routes. By sea, it could skirt the south coast of Tur key, push up into the Dodecanese Islands until the Greek coast is reached. Biggest stumbling block to such an advance: the strong Axis fortress of Crete, where the Germans have two big air bases and other bases for E-boats and submarines. The Dodecanese are lightly manned; last week there were reports that the Italians were evacuating some of the southernmost islands and that Germans were moving in. The strongest of the group, the Italian-held island of Rhodes...
There was a stiff breeze, and the blue Mediterranean waves wore little white hats. A seaman on the deck of a destroyer looked at those waves and at the shore of Tunisia beyond, and said: "I've been in three evacuations-Norway, France and Crete. I'm glad...
From then on things went from bad to worse for the Navy. The Luftwaffe's dive-bombers went to work on Malta; A.B.C. ordered: "These pests must be swept from the sky." Greece fell, then Crete, and when A.B.C. was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, he said: "I would rather they had given me three squadrons of Hurricanes." His losses off Crete were terrible: at the end of May 1941 there was not a single undamaged British cruiser or battleship in the whole...
Some of the reports of activity in the Mediterranean may have been mere puffs of smoke. But there was much kindling on the islands-on Sardinia, Crete, Corsica, Lampedusa, Pantelleria, Sicily-and there was fire near the kindling...