Editing Battle of Crete (section)

====Italian landing at Sitia====
[[File:Sitia 1941.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|left|An Italian marines' machine gun team takes position after landing at [[Sitia]].]]
On 26 May, in the face of the stalled German advance, senior Wehrmacht officers requested Mussolini to send Italian Army units to Crete in order to help the German forces fighting there.<ref>Germany and the Second World War, Volume 3, Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, p. 549, Oxford University Press, 1995</ref>{{request quotation|date=May 2022}} On the afternoon of 27 May, an Italian convoy departed from [[Rhodes]] with the intention of landing a brigade from the [[50th Infantry Division Regina]], supported by 13 [[L3/35]] light tanks.<ref name=hunter/> Italian participation in the battle of Crete was limited and finally on 28 May, when the campaign was already decided in the Germans' favour and Allied evacuation had begun, an Italian landing force approached the east coast of the island, off Sitia.<ref>{{cite book |title=Airborne Invasion Of Crete, 1941 |date=15 August 2014 |publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing |isbn=978-1-78289-318-9 |page=55 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jAlvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT77 |access-date=20 May 2022 |language=en |archive-date=16 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230416193558/https://books.google.com/books?id=jAlvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT77 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Palazzo |first1=Albert |title=The Battle of Crete |date=1 July 2010 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-921941-24-5 |page=76 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MqbuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT131 |language=en |access-date=27 May 2022 |archive-date=16 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230416193606/https://books.google.com/books?id=MqbuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT131 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tucker |first1=Spencer C. |title=World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection [5 volumes]: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection |date=6 September 2016 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-969-6 |page=477 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wm_YDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA477 |language=en |access-date=27 May 2022 |archive-date=16 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230416193559/https://books.google.com/books?id=wm_YDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA477 |url-status=live}}</ref>

At 13:30 on 28 May, the Italians believed that three cruisers and six destroyers of the Royal Navy were steaming up towards the northern coast of Crete in support of Allied troops, but the Royal Navy was fully occupied evacuating the Crete garrison.<ref name="Forty, George 2001, P.129"/><ref name=hunter/> The Italians assumed that the Royal Navy force would be off [[Sitia]], the planned landing site, by 17:00, and the commander decided that the slowest ship of the convoy would be taken in tow by ''Lince'' to increase speed and ''Crispi'' was detached to shell the lighthouse at Cape [[Sideros]]. The 3,000 men of the division and their equipment were on shore by 17:20 and advanced west mostly unopposed, rendezvousing with the Germans at [[Ierapetra]]. The Italian troops later moved their headquarters from Sitia to [[Agios Nikolaos, Crete|Agios Nikolaos]].<ref name=hunter>Cocchia, Aldo (1980). ''The Hunters and the Hunted''. Naval Institute Press, pp. 59–69. {{ISBN|978-0-405-13030-4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dodecaneso.org/creta41.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110203210702/http://www.dodecaneso.org/creta41.htm |title=''Egeo in Guerra – Lo sbarco italiano a Creta del maggio 1941'' |archive-date=3 February 2011 |access-date=6 January 2021}}</ref>