A Fallschirmjaeger and a 10-man DFS-230 transport glider in Crete. The British Navy based at Alexandria, Egypt, retained control of the waters around Crete, so Hitler was forced into an airborne invasion if he wanted to snatch Crete from the British. The Luftwaffe lost heavily in the fight for Crete: 220 aircraft were destroyed outright and another 64 were written off due to damage, for a total of 284 aircraft lost, with several hundred more damaged to varying degrees. These losses were later to impact negatively on German attempts to defend Stalingrad.
