Page "Battle of Crete" Paragraph 9

By May, the Greek forces consisted of approximately 9, 000 troops: three battalions of the 5th Division of the Hellenic Army, which had been left behind when the rest of the unit had been transferred to the mainland to oppose the German invasion ; the Cretan Gendarmerie ( a battalion-sized force ); the Heraklion Garrison Battalion, a defence battalion made up mostly of transport and logistics personnel ; and remnants of the 12th and 20th Hellenic Army divisions, which had escaped to Crete and were organised under British command.

There were also cadets from the Gendarmerie academy and recruits from the Greek training centres in the Peloponnese, who had been transferred to Crete to replace the trained soldiers sent to fight on the mainland.

These troops were already organised into numbered recruit training regiments, and it was decided to use this existing configuration to organise the Greek troops, supplementing them with experienced men arriving from the mainland.