In the five days since the Germans had dropped west of Heraklion, little progress had been made toward securing the town. On the 21st they broke into the city, but the Greeks drove them back out. On the 22nd they hadn’t even managed that much. For two days afterwards they rested, gathering more stragglers and allowing Col. Bruno Bräuer to gain control of his scattered paratroopers. Meanwhile the Allies had re-shuffled their deployments, giving the British the responsibility for defending the Cretan capital.

The attack lacked enough men to seriously threaten Heraklion and soon ran out of steam. Bräuer, disappointed at yet another failure, cancelled all further offensive actions until reinforcements arrived. To strengthen his position against expected British counterattacks, the survivors of Schulz’s depleted force would swing to the south before heading eastward to join the rest of the 1st Parachute Regiment east of Heraklion.