Riding the Dragon - The Matrix Games version of West Front

Rethimnon, 60km W of Heraklion, Crete: [Best played as Axis] Between Greece and Turkey lies the island of Crete, guarding the entrance to the Aegean Sea like a great dragon. For the German airborne and glider troops dropped from the sky during Operation Mercury, it seemed they were riding that dragon! At Rethimnon the small airstrip and sandy beaches appeared to be of little military importance but Lt. Colonel Campbell's joint Australian/Greek garrison served as a link with the Creforce formations on the western end of the island and the 14th Infantry Brigade defending Heraklion to the east. It was also the location of some of the most desperate and resolute fighting of the Crete Campaign. Campbell had deployed his own 2nd/1 and Major Sandover's 2nd/11 Australian Battalions, along with two Greek regiments, to face a possible seaborne attack. Thus when two reinforced battalions of Colonel Sturm's 2nd/7 Parachute Regiment began landing along the sleepy shoreline on the afternoon of the 20th, the veteran airborne troopers were immediately locked in a desperate struggle for survival.