Large glass framed display a Piece of concrete from a Tavronitis Bridge pier support the famous bridge near Maleme airfield captured by German Fallschirmjager soldiers in the battle of May 1941 on the Island of Crete

This is a nice glass framed display a Piece of concrete from a Tavronitis Bridge pier support this bridge was at the center of the fighting on the first morning of the battle. The concrete section has been nicely cleaned and retains its original colour and is nice solid section the part has been mounted in to a glass fronted box frame with all the information and pictures including actual pictures of the bits being found in September 2023 the frame is 13 inches long and 13  inches wide. The part is from a Tavronitis Bridge pier support near Maleme airfield captured by German Fallschirmjager soldiers in the battle of May 1941 on the Island of Crete and is very rare to get any thing from the battlefield of Crete there is very little about now.

Tavronitis bridge is on the edge of Maleme airfield which was attacked by German Fallschirmjager soldiers on the morning of the 20th May 1941. It was the scene of heavy fighting during the first day of operation Mercury the German invasion of Crete, when they captured the island from the British and Greek forces in 13 days. 

The German Fallschirmjager soldiers landed at 8.00am when the attack began near the bridge with some of their gliders landing nearly on it. The bridge crosses a small valley and is the road to a place called Kastelli through which the German seaborne reinforcements would land so a vital target for the Germans to capture. When the Germans attacked the airfield of Maleme it was the 21st, 22nd and 23rd New Zealand battalions that held Maleme airfield and the vicinity. The Germans suffered many casualties in the first hours of the invasion, a company of III Battalion, 1st Assault Regiment lost 112 killed out of 126 men and 400 of 600 men in III Battalion were killed on the first day. Most of the parachutists were engaged by New Zealanders defending the airfield and Greek forces near Chania. After the bridge was captured by Luftwaffe Generalmajor Meindl he set up his HQ in the river bed. 

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