Why HMS Gloucester was sent back off Crete

Why was HMS Gloucester sent to rescue survivors during the Battle of Crete?

Her anti-aircraft fit made her appear suitable, but a complicated command arrangement may have concealed how little anti-aircraft ammunition Gloucester and Fiji had left.

Gloucester and Fiji were considered among the cruisers best equipped to resist air attack, helping explain their selection for the rescue. A participant who had not yet finished Cunningham's autobiography recalls this incident as an unusual instance of criticism of a subordinate. He then offers, with explicit doubt, the explanation that the complicated command arrangements left the officer ordering the return unaware of the cruisers' depleted anti-aircraft ammunition. He is also uncertain whether checking would have changed the order. Clarke distinguishes accepting an informed operational risk from issuing the same order without establishing the ammunition state.