260: Crete Pt. 5 - Failed Counterattacks
History of the Second World War

260: Crete Pt. 5 - Failed Counterattacks

B2Upper-intermediateJune 3, 202620 min

The Royal Navy's success in turning back the German invasion convoys in the waters north of Crete on the night of May 21st removed the threat of a seaborne landing, but it could not undo the damage done by Commander Freyberg's obsession with that very threat. This episode examines how Freyberg's misreading of Ultra intelligence about the 5th Mountain Division led him to hoard troops along the coast and withhold artillery from targets plainly visible in front of them, all while the Germans steadily expanded their grip on Maleme airfield. The doomed Allied counter-attack of May 22nd — delayed until da...

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Sentence 11 of 12 · 1:30

of things that the defenders on the island needed to be concerned about.

20th, the possibility of a seaborn invasion had caused Freiberg and other British officers

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  • B21:30
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B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

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A1 7%A2 23%B1 29%B2 29%C1 12%
  • 59% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 164 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 93 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Aromatisch mit samtiger Crema. Entdecke jetzt die Cubo-Capsulmaschinen in deiner Cibo-Fiale und auf Cibo.de. access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast episodes, plus special member-only episodes

1:04

roughly once a month, head on over to historyofthesec secondworldwar.com slash members to find out more. The actions at sea on the night of May 21st and into the 22nd were an important moment for the Battle of Crete because the work done by the Royal Navy, pushing back the two

1:21

invasion flotillas, finally removed the threat of a seaborn invasion from the list of things that the defenders on the island needed to be concerned about. Since the very first moment that the Germans had started bringing in troops by air on the 20th, the possibility of a seaborn invasion had caused Freiberg and other British officers

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