Each of the objects has its own history of travel, use, or neglect. How did they get here? Why these and not others? Some insight into the circulation of goods during the Battle of Crete comes from a slender book written by Dr. Theodore Stephanides, who experienced the long march from Khania to Khora Sphakion in the last days of May 1941.(Climax in Crete. London, 1946:Faber and Faber).His account was written soon after the evacuation of troops to Alexandria, Egypt. (For more on Stephanides see http://www.shoarns.com/TheodoreStephanides.html).

On May 23rd, before the evacuation, Stephanides was returning to camp from a Naval First-aid Post near Suda when he became lost in an olive grove and came upon signs of a recent skirmish, near the outskirts of Khania. The bodies of several German parachutists were lying on the ground.

"All the German corpses had been searched, either by Intelligence, by souvenir-hunters, or by the local inhabitants, and I did not find anything of interest on them: nor were there any tommy-guns, field-glasses, or other valuable articles anywhere near. I picked up a flat metal box, about the size of a cigarette-case, which had contained small white rectangular tablets, a number of which lay scattered around. I guessed that these were some sort of concentrated food and gathered as many as I could find, about three dozen, as I thought that they might come in useful some day. This they certainly did later on. These tablets were each stamped with the word 'Dextrosan' (or something similar) and had a sugary taste with a slight flavour of peppermint.There was also a canvas bag full of little cubes, about one inch square, of a bread-like substance with a very thick crust; but I did not take any of these as I did not know if their food value was worth their bulk. I found too a cardboard sheath containing a little glass tube of a pinkish iodine compound labelled 'Sepso-tinktur', a small tube of vaseline, and some field dressings, all of which were a welcome addition to my dwindling stock of first-aid necessities. I would have liked to do some more exploring as I particularly wanted a pair of prismatic field-glasses to replace the ones I had lost in Greece {i.e. mainland Greece}, but it was getting late , and I did not think it prudent to wander about in the dark, especially as I did not know the password." (pages 79-80).

Successful scavenging, whether for field-glasses or shoes, could mean survival, as Stephanides and companions discovered. As in any war, Odyssean opportunism counted as much as Achillean might.

The sorts of objects that later found their way to Hatzidakis' museum are mentioned by Stephanides further on in his account of the Allied retreat to the south coast of Crete on May 28th,1941 (pp.113-14):

"I knew that I was taking part in a retreat; in fact I wondered if it should not be called more correctly a rout as, on all sides, men were hurrying along in disorder. Most of them had thrown away their rifles and a number had even discarded their tunics, as it was a hot day with the sun beating down from a clear sky. Nearly every yard of the road and of the ditches on either side was strewn with abandoned arms and accoutrements, blankets, gas-masks, packs, kit-bags, sun-helmets, cases and containers of all shapes and sizes, tinned provisions and boxes of cartridges and hand-grenades; now and then one ran across officers' valises and burst-open suitcases. It is curious how deep-rooted the instinct to rummage and 'scrounge' is. It was with difficulty that I restrained myself from picking up a lot of useless articles and it was only by reminding myself that every extra ounce would tell in the long run. I was greatly tempted to annex several brand-new silk khaki shirts from a discarded suitcase, but compromised by tearing them to ribbons so that no Nazi should swank in them--a childish gesture which gave me considerable satisfaction at the time."