Royal Navy intervention. The tiny Italian naval escorts, however, managed to save most of the vessels. Eventually, the Italians landed a force of their own near Sitia on 28 May, when the Allied withdrawal was already ongoing. During the evacuation, Cunningham was determined that the "Navy must not let the Army down." When army generals stated their fears that he would lose too many ships, Cunningham said that "It takes three years to build a ship, it takes three centuries to build a tradition." Despite advance warning through Ultra intercepts, the Battle of Crete resulted in a decisive defeat for the Allies. The invasion took a fearful toll of the German paratroops, who were dropped without their major weapons, which were delivered separately in containers. So heavy were the losses that General Kurt Student, who commanded the German invasion, would later say, referring to the German decision not to use parachutists in any future invasion attempts: "Crete was the grave of the German parachutists." Following actions After the battle of Crete in the summer of 1941, the Royal Navy regained its ascendancy in the central Mediterranean in a series of successful convoy attacks, (including the Duisburg convoy and Cap Bon), until the events surrounding the First Battle of Sirte and the Raid on Alexandria in December swung the balance of power towards the Axis. The Regia Marinas most successful attack on the British Fleet was when divers attached limpet mines on the hulls of British battleships during the Raid on Alexandria on 19 December 1941. The battleships and were sunk at their berths, but they were both raised and returned to active service by mid 1943. Malta Malta's position between Sicily and North Africa was perfect to interdict Axis supply convoys destined for North Africa. It could thus influence the campaign in North Africa and support Allied actions against Italy. The Axis recognised this and made great efforts to neutralise the island as a British base, either by air attacks or by starving it of its own supplies. After a series of hard-fought convoy battles, all of them Axis victories (such as the Second Battle of Sirte in March and operations Harpoon and Vigorous in June), it looked as if the island would be starved into submission by the use of Axis aircraft and warships based in Sicily, Sardinia, Crete and North Africa. A number of Allied convoys were decimated.