Confronting the might of the Luftwaffe! New Zealand soldiers arrived in Crete during early May 1941, short of equipment after a hasty evacuation from Greece. Three weeks later Germany invaded from the air, and the fate of New Zealand's primary armed force lay in the balance on an island half a world away from home. Exactly why the island fell to German paratroop assault has prompted intense debate then and since. In this gripping account of New Zealand's part in the battle for Crete, Matthew Wright draws on a wide range of archival sources to refute criticism both of the calibre of the New Zealand forces and of decisions made by the man in charge of the defence, Major-General Bernard Freyberg.