The Davin Papers.

[Jaap Woortman]

Dear friends from down under,

The last two weeks, while for a nice holiday at the battlefields of Crete of 1941, I have been reading "The struggle for Crete" by I.McD.G.Stewart. In his overview of unpublished sources used by him he has mentioned the Davin Papers. Papers collected by Mr.D.M.Davin while he was working on his book "Crete" from the early fifties. A book in the series of the New Zealand War History Branch. In the Davin Papers you can find three series of documents.
- The McClymont Narrative.
- Detailed comments(Allied side)
- German documents.

In this serie of German documents are two very interesting papers.
The first one is a report of Luftflotte 4 from 28 November 1941, called The invasion of Crete.

The second one is a report from IX.Fliegerkorps from 11 June 1941 called Einsatz Kreta(Operation Crete and appendixes)

The question is, where are these Davin Papers today?
Are the two Luftwaffe documents still in the Davin Papers and are they originals or translated copies. If it are translations where are they originals?

Who knows? Who can help or has connections in the Historical Branch? My guess would be that the Davin Papers are still in the New Zealand War History Branch.

Jaap

[Andrew Arthy]

Jaap,

It appears one of the documents is held by the Australian War Memorial. Here's some information about it:

Title: [Intelligence - Captured Documents and Translations:] The invasion of Crete - A
report issued by Luftflotte 4 and dated 28th November 1941
Item barcode: 1096137
Series number: AWM54
Series accession number: AWM54
Control symbol: 423/4/103 PART 14
Contents date range: 1941 - 1941
Extent Location: Australian War Memorial
Access status: Open

I couldn't find information on the IX.Fliegerkorps document, but there is also this:

Title: [Intelligence - Captured Documents and Translations:] Axis Operations on Crete, 19 May - 3 June 1941, Extracts from situation reports issued by Luftwaffe Fuhrungsstab IC
Item barcode: 1098240
Series number: AWM54
Series accession number: AWM54
Control symbol: 423/4/103 PART 89
Contents date range: 1941 - 1941
Extent Location: Australian War Memorial
Access status: Open
Date of decision: 9 Jun 1988

I don't know whether these are translated or not. Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Andrew A.

[Jaap Woortman]

Dear Andrew,

Thanks for the answer! After having posted the question I have visited two museums in Chania, Crete last week. See for more information in the near future the "Archives in the Mediterranean region" section. In the Naval Museum of Crete in Chania I have bought "The lost battle" Crete 1941 from Callum MacDonald. Macmillan London.1995. By far the best book about Crete, May 1941 I have seen. If you are interested in the airwar anuway. For the groundwar I think "The struggle for Crete" from Stewart is the best.

In this book MacDonald gives as sources he has used from the Imperial War Museum, London: XI Fliegerkorps, 'Operation Crete'. But no date.
From the RAF Historical Branch, London he has used: Invesion of Crete - Report by Luftflotte 4, VII/24. Also without date.
So maybe the originals are in England and does the AWM in Australie has a copy.

Thanks and we will continue in our research!

Jaap