Crete 1941

The Battle and the Resistance

By: Antony Beevor

Narrated by: James Langton

The best-selling author of Stalingrad and D-Day vividly reconstructs the epic WWII struggle for Crete - reissued with a new introduction.

Nazi Germany expected its airborne attack on Crete in 1941 to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. Little did they know that the British, using Ultra intercepts, had already laid a careful trap. It should have been the first German defeat of the war, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle around.

Prize-winning historian and best-selling author Antony Beevor lends his gift for storytelling to this important conflict, showing not only how the situation turned bad for Allied forces but also how ferocious Cretan freedom fighters mounted a heroic resistance. Originally published in 1991, Crete 1941 is a breathtaking account of a momentous battle of World War II.

©1991 Antony Beevor; 2014 Introduction by Ocito Ltd. (P)2015 Recorded Books

A modern classic of military history

Beevor's account is the definitive story of the Battle, the Occupation and the immediate aftermath. His account of the Resistance is, of necessity, sporadic and unfocused. The simple fact is that we don't know substance of many of the most famous incidents. People were unsure of what happened a half hour after the fact. Very few participants had any reason to tell the truth and there were always, every single time, fundamentally conflicting narratives. These conflicting stories came into existence immediately after the events and only became more entrenched and more contradictory as time passed. There was heroic resistance and there was accommodation and there was collaboration. The details are lost forever.

Great information, great narration, too many names

Antony Beevor tends to write an incredible number of people into his books. I think it can be excellent but, due to a lack of reminding phrases, it can be hard to follow exactly whom it is doing a given thing. That said, the book is otherwise excellent and I would recommend it. The narrator isn't annoying and the information is good.

Engrossing

Anthony Beevor has a distinct writing style of blending the operational aspects with human interest stories. Beevor was a regular in the 11th Hussars of the British Army. His book on Stalingrad won many prizes including the Wolfson History Prize.

This book about Crete is divided into three parts. The first part is Operation Marita, the invasion of Greece by German and Italian forces and the subsequent evacuation of the Allied forces to Crete. The second part is the largest taking up half of the book; it covers the invasion of Crete by the Germans and the evacuation of the Allied forces to Egypt. The third and last part is the organized resistance movement on Crete after the Allied defeat.
The British should have won; they had the Ultra intercepts and knew the German’s plans, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle to a lost. Beevor as a former soldier writes with a soldier’s eye and a historian’s insight. The author dissects the leadership of both sides illuminating their achievements and follies. In particular he found fault with the New Zealand, General Freyberg, in command of Crete.

The book does not cover new information but the writing is excellent. He shows the confusion of the high command and the bravery of soldiers of both sides. James Langton does a good job narrating the book.

Very good treatment of an overlooked campaign

Crete was a campaign, though not in the conventional sense. But the outcome - a German withdrawal from the island - was the end result. Beevor tracks the timeline well, with great detail, from the Germans’ near-disastrous airborne invasion, to British serial blunders, to the sustained and determined resistance that siphoned German forces from other theaters. Excellent performance by the narrator, whose Greek pronunciations seemed exceedingly proficient.

Don't Read This One as an Audiobook

I want to preface this by saying that James Langton did a flawless job reading this title, and I find no fault with his performance, but I really think this book should not be read in audiobook format. This book deals with what feels like hundreds of names of people and many geographic references. When you're reading a physical book it's no problem to just flip back a few pages to remind yourself who X person was or where Y village was. I found myself frequently realizing I had totally misunderstood the geography of Crete or forgotten who someone was who was now important at this stage of the narrative. The whole experience was a headache. I feel bad saying this because the book itself is very well written and expertly narrated, but I do think listening as an audiobook just doesn't work well for this kind of book.

gg

if your going to have a job reading books, it would be nice if you could pronounce place names right

Cluster fucks are hard to write about.

Unenjoyable mess of an operation on both German and British sides. Stupid civil war type communications. Showed me both sides stretched too far.