Hi 63,
Yes Operation Mercury was the last great German air-drop of the war. The loss of 170 Ju52 transport aircraft particularly enraged Hitler, especially because he considered it a side-show to his all important invasion of Russia a month later. The loss of so many transport aircraft (Germany never had enough as it was) was a serious impediment to German forces in the east for the next two years. Mercury went ahead because the German high command realized the strategic importance of Crete. With control of Crete, not only would the Germans have an unsinkable aircraft carrier to control the Aegean and Eastern Med. from, it was half-way between Greece and their Afrika Corps forces fighting in Libya and Egypt and should have made resupply much easier.
The Germans hit Crete because it is far larger than Malta (thus giving them more drop zones), because they thought it was more lightly defended than it was, and because they thought (wrongly) that the could hit the island with seaborne forces from Greece at the same time the paratroopers landed. As it was, the British navy sank the naval component.
The German high command pressed for an invasion of Malta as well, but after the losses taken in Mercury, and the beginning of Barbarossa, Hitler was content to simply let the Luftwaffe and Italians try to bomb and starve the island into submission. This was a blunder the Germans would pay for dearly in 1943.
Hitler's incredibly poor grasp of strategy was perhaps the greatest blessing the allies were ever granted.
- SEAGOON
