Editing Battle of Crete (section)

===Analysis===
[[File:Triple Occupation of Greece.png|thumb|Map of occupied Greece showing the {{legend-inline|#eb1414|'''German'''}} and {{legend-inline|#d49300|'''Italian'''}} occupation zones on Crete]]
The German Air Ministry was shocked by the number of transport aircraft lost in the battle, and Student, reflecting on the casualties suffered by the paratroopers, concluded after the war that Crete was the death of the airborne force. Hitler, believing airborne forces to be a weapon of surprise which had now lost that advantage, concluded that the days of the airborne corps were over and directed that paratroopers should be employed as ground-based troops in subsequent operations in the Soviet Union.<ref name="Beevor_p229-230"/>

The battle for Crete delayed Operation Barbarossa but not directly.{{sfn|Willmott|2008|pp=128–129}} The start date for ''Barbarossa'' (22 June 1941) had been set several weeks before the Crete operation was considered and the directive by Hitler for Operation Mercury made it plain that preparations for ''Merkur'' must not interfere with ''Barbarossa''.<ref name="Schreiber 1995 530–531"/> Units assigned to ''Merkur'' were intended for ''Barbarossa'' and were forced to redeploy to Poland and Romania by the end of May. Movement of surviving units from Greece was not delayed. The transfer of [[8th Air Corps (Germany)|''Fliegerkorps'' VIII]] north, ready for ''Barbarossa'', eased the Royal Navy evacuation of the defenders. The delay of Operation Barbarossa was exacerbated also by the late spring and floods in Poland.<ref>''Germany and the Second World War, Volume IV, The Attack on the Soviet Union'', Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt ed, (1995), see especially p.376; McDonald, C. (1995) ''The Lost Battle: Crete 1941'', pp. 63–84.</ref>

The Air operation impact of the Battle of Crete to Operation Barbarossa was direct.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=PART FIVE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CAMPAIGNS IN THE BALKANS AND |url=https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/balkan/20_260_5.htm |access-date=6 June 2021 |website=history.army.mil |archive-date=24 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624060431/https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/balkan/20_260_5.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref> The considerable losses of the Luftwaffe during the operation Mercury, specifically regarding troop carrier planes, affected the capacity of air power operations at the start of the Russian campaign. Additionally, with German parachute troops being decimated in Crete, there was an insufficient number of men that were qualified to carry out the huge-scale airborne operations that were necessary at the beginning of the invasion. Furthermore, the delay of the whole Balkan campaign, including the Battle of Crete, did not allow for exploiting the strategic advantages that German forces had gained in the Eastern Mediterranean. With the VIII Air Corps ordered to Germany for refitting before Crete was secured, significant command and communication issues hampered redeployment of the whole formation as the ground personnel was directly redeployed to their new bases in Poland.<ref name=":0" />

The [[last battle of the battleship Bismarck|sinking of the German battleship ''Bismarck'']] on 27 May distracted British public opinion but the loss of Crete, particularly as a result of the failure of the Allied land forces to recognise the strategic importance of the airfields, led [[Churchill war ministry|the British government]] to make changes.<ref>{{harvnb|Pack|1973|p=57}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Vick|1995|p=21}}</ref> Only six days before the initial assault, the Vice Chief of Air Staff presciently wrote: "If the Army attach any importance to air superiority at the time of an invasion then they must take steps to protect our aerodromes with something more than men in their first or second childhood". Shocked and disappointed with the Army's inexplicable failure to recognise the importance of airfields in modern warfare, Churchill made the RAF responsible for the defence of its bases and the [[RAF Regiment]] was formed on 1 February 1942.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Brief History of the RAF Regiment |publisher=Ministry of Defence |year=2012 |url=http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafregiment/history/ |access-date=29 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120406170752/http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafregiment/history/ |archive-date=6 April 2012 }}</ref> Allied commanders at first worried the Germans might use Crete as a springboard for further operations in the Mediterranean East Basin, possibly for an airborne attack on [[Cyprus]] or a seaborne invasion of Egypt, in support of [[Western Desert campaign|Axis forces operating from Libya]]. Operation Barbarossa made it apparent that the occupation of Crete was a defensive measure to secure the [[Axis powers|Axis]] southern flank.{{sfn|Playfair|Flynn|Molony|Toomer|1956|pp=148–149}}