A Collection of Army Gallantry Awards to the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, and the Royal Air Force


The Me-109 shot down by Comeau, pictured here crashed on the beach just off Meleme, 20 May 1941


At Maleme airfield I had joined Ken Eaton in the Lewis-pit and throughout the morning had witnessed a procession of strafing Messerschmitts falling out of the skies, raking Bofors guns, hitting the riddled wrecks now littering the perimeter...A deafening metallic explosion suddenly darkened everything. A bomb had hit the sand-bags and exploded in the pen below. The gun-pit caved in upon us and I was conscious of a searing pain across my back. I thought that I had been hit. Ken was underneath me and I struggled to shift the weight of the sand-bags pinning me down. Then I could hear McKenna's voice. He and the gang, swarming out of the trench ran to the pit and pulled it apart. They lifted the hot machine-gun muzzle from my bare back and the pain went. I was setting about rebuilding the gun-pit when a fresh formation of Heinkels drifted in over the hills. Once bitten, twice shy, this time I watched the bomb-doors open and saw the falling bombs flash silver in the afternoon sun. There was a slit trench across the road. I made a dive for it - at the same moment there was an ear-splitting explosion and once again everything went dark. I had been buried twice in the space of 15 minutes!’ (the recipient’s account in Operation Mercury refers).


The last surviving Hurricane was flown from Maleme for Alexandria on the evening of 18 May. With no serviceable aircraft remaining at Maleme, the R.A.F. ground crews could do little else but await the inevitable invasion. The following day, Comeau secured and set up a salvaged Vickers ‘K’ machine gun in a gun pit and throughout the afternoon of 19 May used it against attacking Luftwaffe aircraft. Another ground crewman from 33 Squadron, Leading Aircraftman Ronald ‘Ginger’ Stone, set up a Browning .303 machine gun salvaged from a destroyed Hurricane in a gun pit nearby.


‘By late afternoon the airfield wore the desolate appearance of an out-of-season seaside resort. Wisps of black smoke drifted from the littered beach across the sandy strip and over the road which curved eastwards towards Pirgos like a deserted promenade. The Bofors concert party had closed down and Ginger and I were the last of the side-shows. Only the Germans still arrived by the score like vulgar sightseers to poke about in the litter dumps of wrecked aircraft. Without Bofors to worry them [the Royal Marines crewed Bofors anti- aircraft guns had all been knocked out during earlier raids] the Messerschmitts cruised to and fro across the airfield. There was a German pilot banking and looking down at us and Stone and I followed him as he flew slowly past. Three rings, then two, then half a ring on the gun sights when suddenly the fighter pulled up, heading for the sea and belching smoke. A chunk of metal cowling clattered on the aerodrome. Ginger and I were shouting to each other excitedly but our jubilation was short-lived. Sailing over Kavkazia Hill came 18 Heinkels. Formatting on the leader they dropped their bombs in a long stick and we watched them most of the way. Then the earth erupted suddenly among the New Zealanders up the slope, then down the rising ground towards us. A sudden series of explosions straddled our two gun-pits; the world blacked out in a dozen showers of dust and clods of earth. Something smacked into the front gun-sight of my 'K' and knocked it loose. Instinctively reaching to screw it back again the hot muzzle seared my fingers. Ginger Stone, covered in white dust like a miller, was standing by my pit scratching his head and muttering: “Well, flake me!” as he surveyed the pattern of craters all around us. The last bomb had fallen just in front of his Browning. Sometime later Squadron Leader Howell came down the camp road and walked over to us. “Any luck?”, “Yes sir, I think we pranged a 109. There's a piece of it out there on the ‘drome somewhere”, said Stone. It was getting dark. The C.O. paced out the nearest craters and congratulated us on our escape.’ (ibid).


Squadron Leader Edward Howell, D.F.C., was badly wounded the following day and taken prisoner. Two days later ‘Ginger’ Stone was killed in action during the defence of Maleme.


On the morning of 20 May 1941 the defenders of Maleme airfield comprised 620 men of 22nd New Zealand Battalion under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Andrew, V.C., D.S.O.; 85 men of the Royal Marines; 55 men of the Fleet Air Arm; and 229 men from 30 and 33 Squadrons, Royal Air Force. Comeau recorded the morning bombing raid which preceded the invasion:


‘Messerschmitts, the sunlight flashing on their wings, approached rapidly from the sea. They swept low over the airfield strafing the Bofors and the empty aircraft pens. Then they turned their attention to the hillside defences. For 20 minutes or so they flew up and down the New Zealand lines firing their cannon at the rising ground around the hill. I looked up and saw a vast armada of aeroplanes approaching. The throbbing of their engines grew to a crescendo. Then bombs started falling and the air reverberated with sound. Above flew Ju88s, Heinkels and Dorniers, wave after wave. Bombs fell in sticks around the base of the hill, among the New Zealanders, and through the RAF camp. For half an hour or more the bombs rained down. Fresh aircraft thundered in large formations out of the afternoon sky. On all sides I could hear the screaming of the bombs and the occasional metallic clang of shrapnel fragments of bomb-casing flew in every direction. I had grabbed my rifle and dived into a one-man hole a few yards away. There was a violent eruption ahead of me and, through the haze, I thought I saw the bomb lift a man off the ground but I could not be sure. The next bombs burst behind me among “D” Company lines and I started to breathe again - but not for long.’ (ibid).


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