Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (45 page)

25

The Italian Armistice

The invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and the ensuing downfall of the Fascist regime in Italy brought a marked increase in the scale and tempo of resistance in Crete. Until that summer there had been little more than isolated skirmishes and attacks on lone soldiers. From then on, actions resulting in the death of up to twenty Germans were not uncommon, and on a couple of occasions in the following year, up to forty were killed in battles involving a hundred or more
andartes.

Preparations for the Sicilian landings, Operation Husky, had begun several months in advance with a major deception campaign to convince the Germans that the Allied invasion of southern Europe would come via Crete and Greece. A series of raids across Greece, including the destruction of another railway bridge, was launched under the code-name Animals.

A dummy fleet was assembled at Tobruk but a storm smashed it back into its constituent pieces of canvas and plywood. Perhaps the best-known ingredient of the campaign was that brilliant confidence trick Operation Mincemeat.

A Royal Navy submarine dropped a body dressed and identified as a British staff officer off the Spanish coast. Documents with him 'revealed' that Sardinia and Greece were the real objectives, and that the attack on Sicily (the first landings took place on 10 July) was simply a diversion. Berlin, largely thanks to Hitler's obsession with the Balkan flank, swallowed the deception whole.* Two fighter groups, a bomber wing and the 1st Panzer Division were immediately ordered to Greece.

* Sir William Deakin wrote that Hitler developed a 'Chiromantie belief that the ultimate Allied assault would come from the south-east — the personal revenge of Churchill for the Dardanelles failure in 1915'

Four weeks before the Sicilian landings, another round of Special Boat Squadron raids took place against German airfields on Crete. They had a dual purpose: to destroy German aircraft in the region which might be used against the invasion fleet, and to keep up the impression that Crete and Greece were the main targets for invasion. At their training base in Palestine, Athlit Castle, the SBS teams had become bored with constant practice, so this new operation was eagerly accepted. David Sutherland, who had commanded one of the raiding parties the summer before, controlled three groups led by Lieutenants Lassen, Lamonby and Rowe.

Rowe, who arrived on 27 June, four days after the others, had the closest objective, Tymbaki airfield, but once again it was found to be out of use. Lamonby set off towards Heraklion, but the guide provided by Dunbabin warned him that the airfield there was hardly used any more. A much better target would be the fuel dump at Peza. This Lamonby destroyed with spectacular success.

The third group under Andy Lassen found Kastelli Pediados heavily guarded after the attack of the year before. The only solution was a diversionary attack to allow the bomb-placers the chance to flit from one group of aircraft to another under cover of the confusion. Lassen, a legendary Dane who won the Military Cross and two bars and later received a posthumous Victoria Cross, was known for his cry 'Vork before Vomen!' when weapons and kit needed cleaning on return to base.

They all reached Sutherland's hideout in the coastal hills above Treis Ekklisies by 11 July, but so did a number of Cretans who also wanted to be taken off to avoid retribution. A small German patrol discovered the gorge in which they had hidden to wait until night had fallen before going down to the beach. Two of the Germans were captured without a shot, but the other two retreated rapidly when fired upon by the Cretans. Lamonby went after them alone, a brave but foolhardy course. The motor launch which picked up the rest of the party pulled in close to the shore near where he had last been sighted, but there was no sign of him. He had underestimated the two soldiers he tried to stalk. His body was discovered much later.

To coincide with the other attacks, Paddy Leigh Fermor had entered Heraklion with Manoli Paterakis.

A donkey brought their load of limpet mines into the centre of the city, where they were hidden by Yanni Androulakis. They planned to attack shipping in the harbour, but having managed to get through the wire they were spotted and had to escape before the general alarm was raised.

At the end of July, staying in Yerakari with Alexandros Kokonas, Leigh Fermor received a message from Miki Akoumianakis which brought him back to Heraklion at speed. Mussolini had been overthrown, following the invasion of Sicily, and the Italian commander of the division occupying the east of the island, General Angelo Carta, wanted to speak to a British officer.

A very indirect approach had been made via Bandouvas at the beginning of the year to suggest that if the British invaded Crete, the Italians would surrender immediately, but nothing more had been heard.

This time Lieutenant Franco Tavana, General Carta's counterespionage officer, offered to send a staff car and Italian uniform to bring Paddy Leigh Fermor to their headquarters.

Tavana, formerly a customs official on Lake Como and now an officer in the Alpini, had already proved himself unorthodox and brave. The year before, he had arrived at the house of the Communist leader Miltiades Porphyroyennis, the unusual passenger on the
Kalanthe
and later a member of the Party's central committee on the mainland. Porphyroyennis, seeing the chief of counterespionage, assumed the worst, but as an alternative to arrest and execution he was told to move to the area controlled by the Germans and stay there.

Stories of friction between the Axis allies were not new. There had been fights between Italian and German soldiers: on one occasion an Italian threw a grenade at a group of Germans killing one and wounding two others. The Italian military authorities had to arrest him, but then released him a few days later to the fury of the Germans. Cretans sentenced to death in the provinces of Lasithi and Siteia on German insistence were smuggled away, in some cases to the Dodecanese. Meanwhile executions were faked, and graves dug and then filled in again.

Every precaution for Leigh Fermor's journey had to be taken. General Carta was very nervous.

Schubert's recruitment of informers had not slackened. But nor had Bandouvas's squads. They had recently accounted for fourteen traitors. Their tactics were simple: a couple of men dressed in gendarmerie uniforms accompanied by a fair-haired Cretan in German uniform would 'arrest' their suspect, claiming he had been denounced as a member of the resistance. The man, if really working for the Germans, would then promptly show them proof, usually a piece of paper from the German authorities.

Mussolini's fall prompted great jubilation in Italian barracks: black shirts were torn up and his portrait ripped down. But General Carta became uneasy. Leigh Fermor tried 'a lot of flattery laid on with a trowel', his letters beginning
'Mon göniral, j'ai l'honneur de communiquer ä votre Excellence . . .'
Yet Carta continued to vacillate even after General Bräuer flew in from the other end of the island to reassure him that the Germans would not attack providing the Italians behaved.

The crucial question for the Italians was whether the British would invade and effectively decide the matter for them. In the wake of the Sicily landings and the cover-plan, great confusion still surrounded Allied plans. Rumours of an offensive in the Eastern Mediterranean against islands 'so long the object of strategic desire' were not baseless.

On 2 August Churchill told General Ismay: 'Should the Italian troops in Crete and Rhodes resist the Germans and a deadlock ensue, we must help the Italians at the earliest moment, engaging thereby also the support of the populations.' But although Leigh Fermor was asked to provide Cairo with bombing targets in the event of Italian resistance — news of the request may have leaked out in resistance circles during the assembly of this information — Crete was soon dropped from contingency planning. Middle East Command then focused solely on the Dodecanese islands of Rhodes, Cos and Leros.

Churchill had a dangerously impractical vision of securing a route through the Dardanelles to Russia as an alternative to the Arctic convoys. 'This is a time', he signalled to General Wilson, 'to think of Clive and Peterborough and of Rooke's men taking Gibraltar.' But the Germans occupied Rhodes with great speed and plans had to be scaled down drastically after a decision at the Quebec conference to divert available shipping from the Eastern Mediterranean. Only one brigade, some very unsuitable craft and a handful of fighters remained for the operation. British troops landed on the islands of Cos and Leros on 14 September, but stood little chance against strong German counter-attacks, first against Cos, then Leros.

General Carta was a short, plump officer with a monocle and a mistress conveniently installed near his headquarters in Neapolis. A friend of the Italian royal family, he was 'a Palace man', not a Fascist, and his administration of the eastern part of Crete had been unusually humane. Carta's lack of boldness during the month of August stemmed mainly from a desire to avoid useless bloodshed.

Tavana, his counter-espionage officer, was a much more daring and more resolute man. He raised the prospect of Italian forces, in alliance with Cretan
andartes,
holding the eastern part of the island against the Germans.

Since Bandouvas, the only guerrilla leader with a large following, was encamped not far to the south-west at Psari Phoräda on the Viannos plateau, Leigh Fermor set off there on 12 August. He was accompanied by his wireless operator, Staff Sergeant Harry Brooke, and Niko Souris. Souris, Dunbabin's right-hand man, was an Alexandrian of great intelligence and tact, and one of the very few Greeks from outside whom the Cretans really trusted.

Bandouvas's highland lair was impressive. This plateau, well above the sheepfolds and far from any other trace of habitation, had views over the whole province. Sentries of wonderfully dramatic appearance accompanied Leigh Fermor up to their camp which had rows of huts made of woven branches. A baker, a tailor's shop, a cobbler and an armourer helped to make them self-sufficient.

Most striking of all was the composition of Bandouvas's force. Apart from shepherds and mountain villagers, there were students, army officers, two heavily armed monks, a priest, some policemen, a few stranded Greeks from the mainland, a huge Cossack called Piotr who had escaped from the camp for Russian prisoners at Ay Galini, an Australian and a New Zealander, both stragglers from the battle of over two years before, a group of Royalists led by Athanasios Bourdzalis, and lastly a handful of Communists, recruited mainly by Bandouvas's secretary, Yanni Bodias. Bodias, a good-looking and intelligent young Greek from Asia Minor with a certain charm, had been in prison when the parachute invasion occurred. His crime was attempted murder: having indecently assaulted a boy, he had dropped him down a well. Now that Bodias's influence over the Chief of
Francs-Tireurs
had waned, a split between them was perhaps bound to develop.

Volatile shifts of mood amongst such a heterogeneous group were inevitable. One day, when Leigh Fermor and Bandouvas were out of the camp, one of the anti-traitor squads brought in a suspect by the name of Loukakis. He was strung up by his ankles for torture, but Niko Souris, backed by Sergeant Harry Brooke, intervened, and when Bandouvas and Leigh Fermor returned, a brigand court martial assembled and he was shot. The following day, the traitor Syngelakis who had betrayed the officers escaping by caique from the southwest was captured. He too confessed and was shot.

Bandouvas's curious but effective force was increasing every day as men arrived from near and far.

Leigh Fermor estimated its strength at around 160 men, and Bandouvas, probably without much exaggeration, reckoned he could call to arms 2,000 more. On 20 August, a week after Leigh Fermor's arrival, the eagerly anticipated arms drop took place. Everything worked perfectly. Sergeant Paddy Fortune, the pilot, flew in low, waggled his wing tips in greeting and the parachute containers came out in an impressive stream.

Everything was borne back to camp in triumphal procession with
feux de joie.
Apart from weapons and ammunition, the containers held cap comforters, bush shirts, web belts and bayonet frogs.

Bandouvas wanted his men freshly kitted out so as to be accepted as a regular unit of the British Army.

'Het although Leigh Fermor explained to Bandouvas in the clearest terms that the role of his band was to help the Italians, should they decide to resist the Germans, and take over their surplus arms to distribute to the Cretan resistance as a whole, the Chief of
Francs-Tireurs
was secretly convinced that something greater was afoot. The idea of a British invasion lingered long after a call by King George II to help Allied forces. This broadcast, which had preceded the Sicilian landings, referred to raiding rather than invading forces, but the ambiguity had been part of the overall deception plan.

With Bandouvas's men equipped, Leigh Fermor left for Neapolis, where he stayed in Lieutenant Tavana's house. Tavana supplied him with all the German defence plans for the island, confidential reports, orders and assessments of Cretan resistance organizations.

Hitler had ordered contingency plans to be drawn up two days after Mussolini's fall from power.

Measures which included the German occupation of Italy were gradually put into effect during the month of August. Hitler was correct in his suspicion that the new government of Marshal Badoglio would seek an armistice, and an operation code-named ACHSE to disarm Italian troops was prepared for the moment this happened.

On the morning of 9 September Leigh Fermor, suffering from a bad leg, was resting at a goatfold above Kastelli Pediados when Miki Akoumianakis arrived in great excitement with news of the Italian armistice announced the day before. About midday Tom Dunbabin appeared with Niko Souris, who had met him at the beach at Tsoutsouro the day before on his return from Egypt. Dunbabin finally confirmed that there was no hope of an Allied landing in Crete. 'If there had been', he joked to Leigh Fermor, 'we'd have both become brigadiers.'