Kidnap in Crete Read online

  A day’s hard labour was rewarded with 700 drachma, enough to buy two eggs. The price offered for a requisitioned cow, 120 drachma, was not enough to buy three cigarettes. A British officer in Cairo wrote that the Germans, ‘know the Cretans hate them and are living for the moment to dig up their rifles and say it with bullets’; the invaders were, ‘hurt and puzzled at not being loved, and are constantly asking why’.

  By the summer of 1943 the war had turned in favour of the Allies. America had joined the struggle and Hitler’s armies in the east were defeated at Stalingrad. Huge amounts of equipment began to pour across the Atlantic and a joint Commonwealth–American force invaded French North Africa in Operation Torch. In May, nearly a quarter of a million German and Italian troops surrendered in North Africa. By June, Operation Husky, the plan to invade Sicily, was well under way. Valuable intelligence for Torch and Husky had been painstakingly gathered on Crete and transmitted to the Allies via ISLD radios under the command of Ralph Stockbridge. But the anticipated liberation of Crete did not come. Britain, meanwhile, was keeping a close eye on how the post-war order might look in the Mediterranean.

  In July, Leigh Fermor wrote an overview for SOE Cairo, describing the situation on the island from the British point of view. In his ‘Report No. 3’, typed on thin blue airmail paper, he described living ‘in the remote mountains . . . hiding like a lizard among the rocks. This area, though useless for [Communist] party ends, is of great military importance; [here] they are still talking in bated breath of the mass executions [last year] . . . the bulk of the villagers live in a state of terror and abject unresisting peonage to the handfuls of Huns scattered along the coast.’

  He described the nature of the resistance organisation on Crete. It was in central and western Crete that the British held most influence and many of these areas had been renamed by SOE agents, their codenames reflecting literary and fantasy schoolboyish imaginings: the guerrilla centre at Anogia was called ‘Camelot’, while the White Mountains were ‘Lost Horizon’; the Amari province retained the name ‘Lotus Land’; Heraklion was ‘Babylon’ and the Mesara Plain near the secret landing places was ‘Badlands’. Similar codenames were given to the main Cretan guerrilla leaders: one, Periklis Vandoulakis, who had tried to save Polentas from the Geheime Feldpolizei, was ‘Orestes’. The left-wing General Mandakas was called ‘Trotsky’ and the communists in general became ‘Lollards’.

  Leigh Fermor believed that when the Allies arrived, the Cretans ‘will follow those officers who showed courage and initiative during the invasion two years ago and won’t give a damn for the rest . . . If it’s a choice between a mediocre officer and a BO-PEEP, the villagers will follow BO-PEEP every time.’ Bo-Peep, the hot-headed – others described him as ‘thug-like’ – Manolis Bandouvas, was a kapitan Leigh Fermor admired to the point of hero worship, describing him as a ‘brave and patriotic man and a born leader. Of his many faults the only one I would mention here was his sacrifice of truth to his own purposes. We were always on excellent terms.’

  There were concerns that Bandouvas, the other kapitans and the guerrillas who followed them were being wooed by the communists, who had called a pan-Cretan conference, to which the SOE was not invited. One of the two resolutions that the conference passed said: ‘That Greece denounces the King and Tsouderos Government and refuses to admit the intervention of Britain after the liberation to restore the monarchy and a Fascist regime.’

  Leigh Fermor always claimed to the Cretans that his stance was strictly non-political, writing: ‘Russia is our ally, Stalin and Churchill work together in complete harmony. If the communists wish, we can go for the same here in miniature. Meanwhile, internal Greek politics are no concern of mine, my mission is strictly military.’ This was not altogether true. The SOE went to some lengths to undermine the communists. Leigh Fermor was worried that Tom Dunbabin wanted to recruit well-educated men, including doctors, lawyers and other professional men, while the communists on the other hand were targeting ‘vital and fighting elements’.

  In another of his reports Leigh Fermor described a very personal tragedy. On 5 May 1943 he had accidentally shot and killed his closest Cretan friend, Yanni Tzangarakis, codenamed ‘Sancho’. According to Leigh Fermor’s account:

  We were sitting round the fire in Siff’s sheepfold at Camelot [Anogia] about ten people in all when news came that 300 Germans had arrived and were on their way to where we were. I told everyone to get packed up and take as many rifles as could go round most of the company, including three shepherd lads, cousins of Siff’s had been amusing themselves by doing Greek and British arms drill with my rifle and practising loading and unloading . . . all the rifles were lying on their sides newly oiled with their bolts open except mine, and I drew the bolt backwards and forwards easing the springs to see if it was working smoothly after being oiled. Without realising it I had put a round in the chamber. I pressed the trigger and hit Sancho who was sitting by the fire . . . through the left hip . . . I am sorry at letting the firm down like this. It’s all a very unhappy business . . .

  Any trained soldier given a weapon which has been handled by someone else will normally check to see what state it is in. He will especially want to know if it is loaded. An eye witness says that Leigh Fermor picked up a loaded, cocked weapon, with the safety catch off, and accidently fired it. This is called an ‘accidental discharge’ and is one of the worst sins a soldier can commit. Had Leigh Fermor done what he claimed, ‘eased the springs’ to check that the rifle was working, he would have pulled open the bolt, revealing the round in the breech and ejecting it, sending it spinning into space and clattering to the ground. This would have caused him to look down into the magazine to check if there were any other bullets in it before closing the bolt, an action which chambers another round and cocks the weapon. Leigh Fermor’s rifle was a 7.92 Mauser; the rounds are over three inches long and made of a brass or steel cartridge holding a copper or lead bullet. The bright yellow or silver of the metal casing is in strong contrast to the deep black ‘bluing’ of the oiled breech and impossible to miss.

  However, none of this happened. Leigh Fermor changed the facts and did so for a good reason: he wanted to protect the person who had really loaded the gun, a child whose kapitan father had recently been executed by the Germans.

  Among the ten or so people at the hut were Andreas Papadakis’s nephew Lefteris Kalitsounakis, who worked for ISLD, and Manolis Paterakis’s cousin, Giorgios Tzitzikas. Earlier in the day, which was very wet and cold, some shepherds, who helped guard the SOE radio, had approached the British asking to be paid for the work. To their fury they were refused, and they went away into the rain. A short while later Yanni appeared escorting a criminal cousin, who had murdered his young nephew and become a liability. If he was sent to trial there was a danger that the Germans would offer him a pardon in return for betraying the guerrillas. The resistance had two options: execute the cousin or send him to the authorities in Egypt, where he would be out of harm’s way. It was decided to get him off the island. He had brought great shame on his family. Some thought that Yanni should have executed him on the way to the sheepfold.

  The two men sat down next to the warmth of the fire in the hut, trying to dry off. There were some boys from nearby Anogia at the sheepfold and one of them, the boy whose father had been executed, began playing with the rifles, which included Leigh Fermor’s captured German Mauser. The gun could be loaded by hand or with a five-round clip and the youngster tried both methods. After a while he got bored and left the rifle loaded, with the safety catch off.

  Several of the disgruntled shepherds appeared with the urgent news that 300 German soldiers had appeared and were searching all the houses in the area. They warned that it was only a matter of minutes before they arrived. Leigh Fermor, who was very excitable, ordered everyone in the hideout to pack up and leave. He grasped the Mauser, swinging it round with his finger on the trigger, and the weapon fired. The bullet left the barrel travelling at 2,700 f
eet per second, it could smash through thirty three inches of dry pine at 100 yards. It hit Yanni in his left hip at point-blank range and his body absorbed the round’s colossal force. The deafening noise of the gun firing was followed by a stunned silence. The stench of burnt cordite hung in the air. Everyone stared at Yanni, who was lying on his side by the fire, moaning. Leigh Fermor went slowly over to him, pulled back his friend’s soaking wet cloak to reveal that the round had entered his left hip, making a clean wound with hardly any blood. Then, as somebody fetched a field dressing, they cut open his britches and discovered that the bullet had caused terrible damage on its route round Yanni’s frame. The Cretan was deep in shock and seemed to be feeling little pain. He murmured, although no one but Leigh Fermor could hear what he was saying. There was no doctor near and no hospital. Within a few minutes Yanni Tzangarakis was dead. His murdering cousin slept through the whole incident. Yanni’s body lay in the open until dawn, when they carried him to a nearby ilex grove and buried him.

  The tragedy was that the panic-stricken flight from the sheepfold had been in vain. There were no German soldiers: it had been a false alarm raised by the shepherds to get SOE out of the hut and out of the area. The tale that Leigh Fermor later concocted was to protect the youth who had played with his gun. If the true story came out the boy would be punished and the feeling was that he had suffered enough with the death of his father. Yanni was not only a close friend, said Leigh Fermor later, but also ‘the best and hardest worker we have ever had’.

  See Notes to Chapter 10

  11

  The Italians Change Sides

  By the summer of 1943 the importance of Crete to both sides in the conflict had shifted again: the war had turned decidedly in the Allies’ favour. The second battle of Alamein brought defeat to Rommel and the ejection of the Italo-German army from North Africa. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad in May brought defeats to the Wehrmacht on two fronts – shattering Hitler’s strategic visions for the war and forcing the Axis on to the defensive in the East and in the Mediterranean.

  The Allies landed on Sicily on 9 July, the start of Operation Husky – the invasion of Italy by land and air. On 24 July the Grand Fascist Council of Italy, meeting for the first time, passed a vote of no-confidence in Mussolini, and invited the exiled King Victor Emmanuel III to reclaim his constitutional powers. Il Duce was arrested by the Carabinieri and whisked out of the public eye. He was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who started armistice negotiations with the Allies. The alliance between the Italians and the Germans was on the verge of collapse.

  The Italian forces occupying Crete, led by General Angelo Carta, were in a difficult position. If there was an armistice they would have to support it. If the Allies invaded Crete General Carta and his men would be caught between the Germans and the Cretan resistance. Carta decided that he needed to get in touch with the guerrillas and SOE as soon as possible and ordered his head of counter-espionage, Captain Franco Tavana, chief of the Deuxième Bureau Siena Division, to contact the British through Mihalis Akoumianakis (codename ‘Minoan Micky’), the head of counter-intelligence for the local elements of Force 133. The first meeting took place at the clinic of a doctor who was a member of the National Organisation of Crete (EOK) which, with the encouragement of the SOE, had evolved from the Supreme Committee of Cretan Struggle (AEAK) founded just after the invasion by Colonel Papadakis and other patriots. Captain Tavana and Micky talked for five hours. General Carta’s message was simple: he wanted the Greeks to consider the Italians as allies against the Germans. He proposed that, should the Germans enter Lasithi in the east, his Italian troops would fight them and hold them up for at least two days to establish a bridgehead for the Allies at the Straits of Selinari, between Heraklion and Lasithi. Carta wanted a quick answer. A message about the proposed landing site was sent via Akoumianakis’s radio to SOE Cairo, who responded: ‘Proposal for the creation of a bridgehead to support a landing is under consideration.’

  Micky asked Leigh Fermor to come to Heraklion for a conference with Tavana. He and Micky cycled into Heraklion to the surgery of a dentist Dr Stavrianidis, a member of the resistance. Leigh Fermor had been living rough and had not had a bath for six months; his clothes were filthy. Stavrianidis told his housekeeper to run the agent a bath and to take his clothes and wash them. Franco Tavana arrived, a slim young man wearing a polo shirt and corduroy shorts; Leigh Fermor was dressed in his host’s scarlet silk pyjamas. The Italian and the Englishman spoke in French. Tavana ‘struck me and all our friends in Heraklion as an admirable man’, recalled Leigh Fermor: ‘highly strung, courageous, hated Germans, polished, well educated, a lawyer, unhappily married with an eye for the girls . . .’ The Italian was in an agitated state and at one point seemed close to tears, declaring: ‘Mon cher ami, permettez moi de vous appeler ami – My dear friend, allow me to call you friend.’ He went on to explain that he was ‘bound by honour to remain faithful to the alliance with Germany until they make an unfriendly movement’.

  On 1 August a signal arrived at SOE in London. It was an ‘unparaphrased version of a most secret cypher telegram’ which had originated from Leigh Fermor. Its importance was indicated by the people who were to read it: the Chiefs of Staff, General Eisenhower and General Alexander.

  1) We have received information from Crete that Tavana . . . has contacted British officers and reported that Germans propose disarm Italians. Many large Italian Units have been ordered by Germans to move to Chania and Retimo and senior Italian officers have been ordered to report to Archanes but have not complied as they fear a trap. Carta will refuse to hand over arms and is prepared actively to assist British landing. British officer has requested supplies of demolition materials to destroy bridges and impede German troop movements and considers that Cretans are sympathetic towards Italians.

  2) In view of present situation we consider that only direct support we can give is from the air.

  3) We have accordingly instructed agents to act as follows:–

  (a) Urge Italians to resist disarmament at all costs.

  (b) Inform them to expect support from the air.

  (c) Tell Italians to give targets and bomb lines at once.

  4) We have also instructed Political Warfare Executive to conduct propaganda action as follows.

  (a) By broadcasting to Cretans in name Commander in Chief instructing them not to rise prematurely but to avoid impeding Italians in any action they may take against Germans.

  (b) By leaflets to Italian troops in Crete urging them to resist German attempts to disarmament and informing them that if Germans succeed they will be transported to Germany to work for Germans.

  (c) By leaflets to Italians in Rhodes on lines of (b) above and in addition informing them of German actions in Crete and inciting them to make active efforts themselves to disarm Germans.

  Leigh Fermor’s signal ended with the words ‘I am moving to Heraklion perhaps Lasithi August first in Italian car and uniform sent by Italian staff to Gerakari – RPT Gerakari – on own responsibility.’

  Leigh Fermor did not know that General Carta had also opened negotiations with the formidable Kapitan Bandouvas, Bo-Peep, now leader of the lar­gest guerrilla force on the island. Bandouvas’s headquarters were on a mountain plateau overlooking the province of Viannos. Men were arriving every day from all over the island including shepherds, mountain villagers, priests, students, army officers, two heavily armed monks, escaped British soldiers and a handful of communists. The camp was self-sufficient and boasted rows of huts for accommodation, a baker, a cobbler and an armourer. Bandouvas had 120 men under his direct command and claimed that he could summon over 2,000 more if there was a call to arms.

  Carta told Bandouvas that the Italians would collaborate and had already instructed some Italian units to surrender their weapons and ammunition to him. Bandouvas thought that the hour of liberation was at hand. His view was confirmed when Leigh Fermor too promised to supply him with arms and ammunition. On 20 Augu
st, a huge drop of arms, ammunition, clothing and other equipment floated from the sky in silver containers. It took a whole day to unpack and distribute the drop. As well as rifles, Bren guns, Sten guns, grenades and quantities of .303 ammunition, some of the containers were packed with British uniforms, enough for Bandouvas to dress his men up as regular British soldiers.

  On 8 September the Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies. Bräuer sent German troops into the Lasithi province and redeployed some Italian troops to new locations, trying to break up the Italians’ military cohesion. General Bräuer’s number two, the brutal General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, sent out a ‘General Order to all Italian Troops in Crete’. It began ‘The Commander of Fortress Crete has charged me with the defence of the province of Lasithi’. He went on to describe what that meant. The Italians could do one of two things: they could remain loyal to ‘Mussolini’s new government’ and carry on fighting under the command of the German military authorities; or they could hand over their weapons and work on alongside the Germans in non-combatant roles.

  The Italians were left in no doubt as to what would happen if they stopped collaborating with their former allies: ‘Whosoever . . . sells or destroys arms of the Italian forces, or whosoever deserts from his unit, will be considered a franc-tireur and as such shot.’

  When General Carta forwarded this order to his men he wrote: ‘The above is a natural consequence of the situation resulting in the armistice. We are in a besieged fortress. It is therefore essential to follow the orders of the German Command with a sense of realism.’