Every man at Crete awarded EK II?

[jmark]

Hi,

Is it true that every participant in the Crete operation received an EK II (and if he already had one, he received the EK I)? If so, are the requirements known (ie, had to set foot on Cretan soil during a certain time period)?

Thanks
Jason

[Ypenburg]

Jason, i.m.o. not true.

It has been mentionned before that the same applied for the FJ's in Holland, which turned out to be incorrect. It is however mentionned too that jumping while under enemy-fire ("hot LZ") was worth an EKII, but I heaven't seen any prove of that untill now. As for f.e. Korinth there is a small paper you should have on which is written who should be awarded with an EK II or EK I and most FJ there also jumped "under fire". The list only mentions about 15 names if I remember correctly.

I do have copies of papers from the FJ-Sanitätsabteilung in which an officer mentionned people who should be rewarded an EK and why. So every man an EK II ?? I think not.

[hucks216]

I don't know about everyone but there does seem to be a very large amount of Crete based EK's for not just FJ's but also Gebirgsjäger. I have seen quite a few Crete related citation sets and Soldbucher/Wehrpasse for the paras and they usually include at least one EK award dated for Crete. And I myself have a Wehrpass to a member of Luftlande Sturm Rgt 1 and a Soldbuch to a member of Fallschirm-Panzerjäger-Abt 7 who were both at Crete and both awarded EK's, as was a member of GJR 100 who I have a Soldbuch to.
I'd be interested if anyone knows the percentage of those involved who won at least one of the EK grades for Crete.