The German force tasked with taking Rethymnon's airfield, already smaller than the other task forces, was further divided into three groups for the landings. That assigned to land inland of the coastal village of Perivolia (not the same town as that in the Canea region) arrived hours late, when the defenders had already been alerted. No Australian troops had been posted here, but the local Greek Gendarmerie (the militarized national police) and armed Cretan civilians stood more than ready to offer battle.

Almost all of the Gendarmes had been cadets at Crete's Gendarmerie Academy before the war, and had been enraged when they were not allowed to travel to the mainland to fight the hated Italian invaders. They had been formed into a battalion shortly before the German airborne invasion, and in their first action they turned back the German paratroopers who retreated to Perivolia.