(3 of 3)
The British had almost no heavy equipment in Crete, so they did not have to worry about preventing that from falling into enemy hands. The only thing to get off was men—straggling, struggling men with dried sweat and dust caked in their beards, clutching water bottles as if they were purses of gold; men who had had nothing to eat for twelve days but grimy cold food; men half-crazed with fatigue, who had fought at night and been hounded by day; soldiers of defeat who nevertheless were still sure they could beat the Jerries man to fighting man. The evacuation was a race against time and the Nazis. The hurrying enemy surrounded and captured some 10,000 of these bedraggled men before the British were able to get them off. Crete was lost. It would be hard now to hold Iraq, Trans-Jordan, Palestine and Egypt. The Mediterranean was no longer Admiral Cunningham's Pond. And yet the British were apparently not downhearted. They were confident that Crete was the last place where Germany would have undisputed air superiority. An R.A.F. spokesman in Cairo said: "There is no chance for further German operations like those in Crete." But there still was Cyprus.
Already headed for Cyprus was the first Nazi detachment. From Ankara came report of arrival of a Nazi infantry unit, with armored cars and field guns, at the Syrian port of Latakia. Reported objective: Beirut, Lebanon capital, 100 miles southward.