20/05/2026
On 20 May 1941 the Mediterranean island of Crete was the stage for the world’s first ever large-scale airborne invasion. In successive waves, thousands of German paratroopers and glider borne troops dropped from the skies onto the island’s airfields and ports. It was a daring and audacious attack mounted for a range of political reasons but ostensibly to provide a strategic buffer against the air threat to the Ploesti oilfields in Rumania.
British, Australian, New Zealand and Greek troops fiercely defended the island. A major component of the defence were the survivors of the 6th Australian Division that had been badly mauled during their gallant but doomed fighting retreat through Greece the previous month. Yet Crete was to be doomed too because the Allies were forced to surrender on 30 May.
In ten days, there had been over 3500 Allied deaths, almost 2000 had been wounded and more than 12,200 were taken prisoners of war. For the Cretan civilians left behind, a fierce resistance movement sprang up, although the invaders would occupy the island for the rest of the war.
Isidore Bloomfield of Mosman was captured on Crete in May 1941. He had joined the Second Australian Imperial Force in July 1940 and served in the medical corps, later in a salvage unit.
Shortly before he sailed for the Middle East, he was granted special leave to attend the birth of his daughter. He cannot have imagined that she would be almost five years old before he saw her and his wife Florence again.
After his capture, Bloomfield spent the next four years working in German factories and on farms in Austria. Liberated by American troops in May 1945, he spent a month in Britain before being repatriated to Sydney. Bloomfield kept a diary between August 1942 and July 1945 in which he recorded his experiences as a POW during the Second World War. It was kindly donated to the Anzac Memorial by his daughters in 2020.
You can read more about the Greek and Crete campaigns here 👉 https://www.anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/our-stories/our-stories/mercury-crete-may-1941
📷1: Isidore Bloomfield, Anzac Memorial Collection
📷2: Bloomfield’s Diary, Anzac Memorial Collection
📷3: German paratroopers jump from their aircraft over Crete, May 1941, AWM 106485.
