Editing History of Crete (section)

==== Liberation ====
By late 1944 German forces were withdrawing from Greece to avoid being cut off by the advancing Russian army moving west across Europe. By the end of September, German and Italian troops began withdrawing from Crete. A small force of British troops landed on Crete on October 13, and both Rethymno and Heraklion were liberated as the occupying forces were withdrawn to the Chania area.

Following [[VE Day]] British SOE officer [[Dennis Ciclitira]] arranged for ''[[Generalmajor]]'' [[Hans-Georg Benthack]] to formally surrender all German forces on the island to Major-General [[Colin Callander]].<ref name="IWM">{{cite web |url=http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30109356 |title=Head Shawl (Seraki) |work=Imperial War Museum |year=2016 |accessdate=10 February 2016}}</ref> On May 9, 1945, Benthack signed an unconditional surrender at the Villa Ariadne at [[Knossos]] to Callander, effective "10 o'clock Greenwich Mean Time on the tenth day of May 1945"<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.shealtiel.com/shealtiel/thereunions/speech_mamalakis.pdf |title=Constantin E. Mamalakis. Crete during the Second World War. Speech at the Historical Museum of Crete 25 June 2009 |access-date=14 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016061036/http://www.shealtiel.com/shealtiel/thereunions/speech_mamalakis.pdf |archive-date=16 October 2013 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>