Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (44 page)

Crete's most important monarchist was Emmanuel Papadoyannis, a minister after the war. His slightly self-important manner went well with his pepper-and-salt beard and upturned moustache.

British officers, amongst whom he seems to have inspired both affection and respect, gave him the codename 'Pooh Bah' because of all the posts he had held up to acting governor-general. As a monarchist, albeit not a Metaxist, he was one of the few Cretans acceptable to the King and the Greek government-in-exile, and thus represented a vital link in such a republican stronghold.*

* King George IPs unfortunate manner with his subjects was well illustrated when Papadoyannis was presented to him as the former governor-general of Crete. He immediately said "you mean former
acting
governor-general.'

Major Tsiphakis had more of an academic than a soldierly air: one British officer remarked that he possessed 'none of that Cretan swagger'. And in spite of a certain taste for intrigue, he was an honest man with little apparent ambition for 'captaincy'.

The province of Rethymno also included the best example of resistance organization on the whole island, the council of the Amari valley. British liaison officers gave it the codename of Lotusland County Council. Alexandras Kokonas, the widely loved schoolmaster of Yerakari, was its very effective co-ordinator.

The military commander for the province of Lasithi, Colonel Nikolaos Plevres, was a former brigade commander in Albania and had many veterans of the Cretan V Division amongst his followers. But Tom Dunbabin and Sandy Rendel, who later became the British officer in the region, were suspicious when the Germans rapidly released Plevres after a round-up of the Neapolis network. Eighteen months later Plevres, a right-wing Nationalist, received weapons from the Germans who were hoping he would fight the Communists.

The province of Heraklion had appointed a unifying council — the Committee of Civil Advisers —

with prominent figures such as church dignitaries and educationalists. Some were wise, but a few were highly unpredictable. Colonel Beteinakis, the military leader for the whole province, was an officer whose bravery greatly exceeded his judgement.

The most important asset in Heraklion was the information service run by two very clever young students: first George Doundoulakis and then Miki Akoumianakis, the son of Sir Arthur Evans's overseer at Knossos — hence his codename of Minoan Mike. The responsibility for the purely intelligence side of this network was handed over to the ISLD mission which arrived on 12 May.

Ralph Stockbridge, who had been Jack Smith-Hughes's wireless operator on the first mission, was now a captain, and returned with John Stanley, an old school-friend, officially as his wireless operator.

He had recruited Stanley — a bimbashi with the Sudan Defence Force — for this mission to Crete

'rather as one would suggest coming to a day at the races'.

The submarine
Papanikolis
brought them to the north coast of Crete, a unique occurrence since every other landing took place on the other side of the island. Stockbridge described this submarine as an alarmingly ancient vessel that had to surface to charge batteries. Commanded by Captain Athanasios Spanidis, the crew of the
Papanikolis
had a reputation for mad bravery, dating from earlier in the war when they sank Italian ships in the Adriatic at point-blank range.

Dropped between Rethymno and Heraklion, but rather a long way out, Stockbridge and Stanley had to ferry themselves to shore in a round rubber dinghy which, like a coracle inexpertly propelled, spun in circles and advanced little. The experience must have been most unpleasant for the two carrier pigeons that ISLD Cairo had insisted they bring.

As they came in, they made out some figures in a small boat, so they called the password agreed in advance: 'We've come for the bees.' These Cretans, fishing illegally, disappeared in panic thinking they had been discovered by the Germans. Stockbridge and Stanley finally reached shore, but their relief was cut short on discovering that they had landed in a minefield. Eventually, they made their way out safely and a bit further down the coast discovered their contact, who turned out to be Paddy Leigh Fermor.

Leigh Fermor took them first to the tiny monastery of Vossäkou and then up to his base at that time, a stone sheepfold belonging to the Dramoundanis family on the northern slopes of the Mount Ida range above Anoyia.

A great number of people had collected there, prior to a trek to the south coast for the evacuation to Egypt of several
andartes
and intelligence agents. On 25 May, one of those tragic accidents, so common in war, took place. Seated in a circle outside the sheepfold were Ralph Stockbridge, John Stanley, Paddy Leigh Fermor and Yanni Tsangarakis, the guide of great courage and reliability whom Leigh Fermor had already recommended for a British decoration.

A sentry appeared to warn them that a German patrol had moved into Anoyia below. There was no panic at such a relatively common event, but Leigh Fermor, like the others, reached for his rifle. He pulled back the bolt to check the working parts were well oiled. The chamber was clear, but he did not spot a live round which had been left in the magazine. After closing the bolt, an action which automatically forced the round into the chamber, he pulled the trigger to ease the spring. There was a shot, and Tsangarakis squatting opposite received a wound in the thigh.

At first this wound did not look serious. They bandaged him carefully, while a runner dashed off to fetch a doctor in spite of the Germans below. But Tsangarakis died not long afterwards. They buried him under two ilex trees and camouflaged the grave with brambles and rocks in case another German patrol came that way.

Leigh Fermor was grief-stricken. He had been devoted to Yanni Tsangarakis, and Tsangarakis's few words to absolve him before he died only made the sense of guilt more excruciating. But worse was to follow.

Ill-disposed people, hearing of the accident, promptly spread the story that Yanni Tsangarakis's death had been planned and tried to convince the family of it. This led to years of bitter estrangement on one side and lasting regret and distress on the other. Many years were to pass before all were convinced of the true story by common friends, especially George Psychoundakis.

Although the story could not end happily, the bitterness was finally effaced over thirty years later when Paddy Leigh Fermor and his wife, Joan were invited to be godparents to Yanni's great-niece, a bond of considerable significance in Crete. She was named Joanna after Joan Leigh Fermor.

Petrakageorgis returned from Cairo on 7 June. During his stay in the Egyptian capital he had been contacted by the Organization of Strategic Services, the American equivalent of SOE. They offered a better service in weapons, equipment and cash. Petrakageorgis came back full of importance — visits to Cairo often seemed to produce that effect — but the promises of support from OSS were not fulfilled (perhaps SOE put a stop to this behind the scenes) and he had to continue, a little out of spirits, in the rather less glamorous British routine.

As soon as the Germans heard of his return — the news was over two months old — they mounted an attack on his band above Vorizia. The Germans, for some reason, seem to have harboured an especially personal enmity for Petrakageorgis, more than for any other kapitan. Heavily outnumbered, he escaped with only seven of his men after a fierce battle lasting all day in which the attackers lost thirteen men killed. In revenge, the Germans drove out the villagers, then destroyed Vorizia with Stukas on practice dive-bomb attacks.

In Xan Fielding's area of Western Crete, meanwhile, the final evacuation of stragglers from 1941 had been taking place. The boat on which Tom Dunbabin and George Psychoundakis left for a break in Cairo in February had brought in a New Zealander, Sergeant Tom Moir of 'A Force'. This was a cover name for MI9, the organization responsible for bringing escaped prisoners or evaders out of enemy-occupied territory.

Moir, a member of the 'infantillery' at Galatas and an escapee after the battle, had been trained and sent back to bring off the remainder still on the island. He made contact with many groups, prior to organizing a motor launch shuttle back to Egypt. One difficulty lay in moving a paralysed Australian, who was hidden in a cave nursed devotedly by the inhabitants of Kyriakosellia. Xan Fielding was particularly keen to relieve them of this burden and danger, but to his dismay, Sergeant Moir was captured on 6 May. Although in civilian clothes, Moir managed to convince the Germans that he had never left the island. He thus escaped execution and was flown to Greece to an ordinary prisoner-of-war camp.

Fielding immediately took over the work. He luckily encountered the three resourceful Australian soldiers who had saved his equipment from the sea the previous November and was able to delegate much of the task to them. In a remarkably short space of time they brought outlying groups to a hide in the woods abovg Koustoyerako, a spot which soon began to look like a brigand's lair.

Fielding used the nearby ISLD wireless station for his communications with Cairo to organize the evacuation by Royal Navy motor launch for the night of 7 May. Everything was prepared to transport the paralysed Australian from the cave at Kyriakosellia: disguised as a sick old woman, he would be moved on the back of a donkey. But at the last moment, certain that he would not survive the journey, and not wanting to put others at risk, he refused to go. He died soon afterwards.

At the beginning of June, Schubert, the counter-espionage chief who took over from Hartmann, decided to play the role of free-roving stool pigeon himself. He went to Koumara, above Asi Gonia, with four of his renegade Cretans, and pretended to be an English officer newly arrived from Cairo.

A trusting boy told them all about the English in the area but at the last moment, when they asked to be led to the English base, he became suspicious. They seized him as he tried to run away and shot him on the spot. Neighbours heard the report and began to appear. Schubert and his accomplices, although armed, fled to fetch reinforcements, such was their fear of the villagers' anger.

At the end of July, George Psychoundakis returned to the island from his stay in the Middle East. He was accompanied by one of the several remarkable figures of those years: Sergeant Dudley Perkins, a New Zealander known to the British as 'Kiwi' and to the Cretans as 'Vasili'.

Perkins, another member of the 'infantillery' at Galatas, had escaped from the prison camp with Moir.

He proved a natural guerrilla leader with a great flair for tactics. His outstanding bravery led Xan Fielding to recommend him for the Victoria Cross, but the award was refused because no officer had been present to witness his deeds. The caution of the British authorities did not deter the Cretans who entered him in their own heroic folklore.

Perkins, like Moir, had picked up some Greek during his time as a straggler. In spite of his university education, he had been rejected during an officer training course which seemed to expect mindless discipline, but he appeared perfectly content as an NCO. Impressions of him vary. Sandy Rendel who was on the same course at 'Narkover' remembered him as 'a fox-terrier quivering with eagerness'. This gives an impression of a humourless, almost over-dedicated fighter. Yet George Psychoundakis, who had spent nearly a month improving Kiwi's Greek in Egypt, found him an engaging companion.

One evening in Vaphe, during his introductory tour, the two of them visited a woman teacher 'devoted to the resistance'. In the ill-lit room, she accepted a cigarette, and joked in Greek out of the side of her mouth to George Psychoundakis: 'I'm only lighting a cigarette to see how good looking he is'. Perkins, having concealed his knowledge of the language, had to grab a cigarette for himself to conceal his laughter.

After this round of key villages with Psychoundakis, Xan Fielding sent Perkins back to the Selino area to work with Alec Tarves — known as 'the Tinker' — the radio operator in the area, and to train the Selino band based on the Paterakis family. Fielding had quickly recognized Perkins's qualities, and had no qualms about leaving him to operate independently. Less than twenty strong, the Seliniots, with his guidance, soon proved themselves one of the most effective fighting groups on the island.

A month after Perkins's arrival, Fielding organized a parachute drop. The Paterakis band and another in the area were armed with Sten guns, Bren guns and Thompson sub-machine guns. And as the resistance on Crete was moving into a different phase, Fielding had requested a sort of uniform for them: Australian slouch hats and British Army riding breeches which were the nearest thing to Cretan crap-catchers. The breeches were a bonus from the mechanization of the Cavalry Division in Palestine.

Xan Fielding's attention was rather diverted that summer by another concern. General Mandakas had begun to demand weapons because GHQ Middle East had recently recognized EAM and its military wing, ELAS. Colonel Kondekas, Mandakas's chief of staff (a rather grandiose description considering their shortage of followers) issued an ultimatum that if Fielding did not accept Mandakas as the leader of the Cretan resistance, EAM would declare that he was not an official Allied representative.

Fielding also found to his dismay that the Greeks left to run the ISLD wireless station in the Selino area were all EAM—ELAS supporters. They had put their set at General Mandakas's disposal, thus enabling him to claim that he was in regular touch with Cairo. Even more provokingly, he had sent a signal to Cairo protesting that Fielding's refusal to supply arms was a scandalous interference in the internal affairs of his country, now that GHQ Middle East had recognized EAM—ELAS. (Monty Woodhouse on the mainland had arranged the signing of the 'National Bands Agreement' on 5 July in an attempt to bind the Communists to a command structure and prevent their attacks on the non-Communist group EDES led by General Napoleon Zervas.)

Fielding, who knew nothing of this new arrangement, refused to give in to Mandakas's blackmail. He said that he would provide weapons only when Mandakas fully accepted the Allied — and thus British — chain of command in the Eastern Mediterranean. This fortunately turned out to be one of the provisions of the National Bands Agreement, so Mandakas could only huff and puff. But Fielding found it galling in the extreme to hear of this new arrangement from the Communists.