Battle of Crete air attacks exhaust cruiser ammunition

Force B, built around Fiji and Gloucester, patrolled west of Crete while the Royal Navy tried to prevent German reinforcement by sea. The available carrier force could not protect every surface group, strike targets, and stop the airborne assault at the same time. Repeated Luftwaffe attacks consumed shipboard ammunition even when they scored no direct hits. Near misses disabled Fiji's anti-aircraft director. The morning report put Ajax at forty percent ammunition, Orion at thirty-eight percent, Fiji at thirty percent, Dido at twenty-five percent, and Gloucester at eighteen percent. Dido was a specialist anti-aircraft cruiser whose 5.25-inch guns served as both main and anti-aircraft armament, so her depleted magazines show how widespread the problem had become. Carrier capacity, dispersed surface missions, vulnerable fire control, and finite ammunition together set the limits of fleet air defence.