Cyril Crosland, a driver in New Zealand's Army Service Corps in Crete, was finishing  breakfast on 20 May 1941 when he looked up into the sky.

They were coming over with big Dorniers, planes with gliders on behind. They let the gliders go. A lot of [paratroopers] came down in the olive groves and were killed. They were in front of us, behind us, beside us. We didn't know where they were.... [We were] busy trying to stay alive, because you didn't know where the Germans were... A lot of them were hung up on trees – killed coming down.