On 28 April 1941, only a few days after Loukia’s return, confirmation of Corporal Cotton’s opinion came when Winston Churchill signalled to General Wavell in North Africa to suggest that an airborne attack on Crete should be expected.
‘It seems clear from our information,’ he said, ‘that a heavy airborne attack by German troops and bombers will soon be made on Crete… It ought to be a fine opportunity for killing the parachute troops.’
Churchill’s view was not an unreasonable one but unfortunately the garrison was far from sufficiently equipped to meet the attack, which came on 20 May. The first parachutists and the first airborne troops in gliders were killed almost to a man, but more arrived and their final capture of Maleme airfield was the turning point of the struggle. A German attempt to follow up with caiques from Milos, however, met with disaster. Four British cruisers – one of them Caernarvon and four destroyers got among them, as Loukia had off Cape Kastamanitsa, and sank almost every one by gunfire or ramming, including the Italian destroyer which was escorting them. A second convoy was attacked on the same day and the Germans made no further attempt.
Because the attack on Crete had been expected, it cost the Germans one-third of their airborne invaders – 12,000 to 17,000 men – together with 170 troop-carrying aircraft. Never again did they risk their air division troops in so hazardous an operation. Their commanders had grown older and more cautious overnight because the cost of victory had proved too high, and in the end Hitler turned his parachute regiments into infantry. Although the British were thrown out of Crete, they had blunted one of Hitler’s most effective weapons, and it has always been believed that Crete delayed Hitler’s attack on Russia so long he was just too late to capture Moscow before the Russian winter set in. The following year the German decline began.
As for Cotton and Annoula Akoumianakis, their story perhaps supplied the happy ending that was not immediately obvious in Crete. After an exhausting journey through a variety of refugee camps in the Middle East and South Africa, Annoula finally reached London the following year, when, as Cotton had suspected, she was swept delightedly into the Cotonou home. Being Greek, she was literally held captive by Cotton’s mother until Cotton himself, wearing three stripes and a DSM for what he’d done on Aeos, returned from the Middle East to enjoy survivor’s leave after Caernarvon had been sunk by a German torpedo.
He remained in England as an instructor until the time came for the British to return to the Greek islands in 1944. Rather to his surprise he was commissioned because of his ability to speak Greek. He even managed to pick up an MC – ironically enough for leading the attack on Kalani when Aeos was reoccupied. A little startled by his unexpected success, he remained in the Marines until 1955, when – still considered to be a bit regimental – he retired as a captain. For a year or two he did various jobs. Then, in 1960 when the tourist boom got going, Bisset, whose languages had landed him a job with one of the larger British travel firms, got in touch with him and he found himself appointed as Greek representative with a base in Athens. So that, in the end, accepting his Greek origins with far less trouble than he had ever expected, he got the best of both worlds.