Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (46 page)

Very soon afterwards, a runner arrived from Bandouvas with a message so badly written that it was passed round. While Miki Akoumianakis was studying the scrawl, Dunbabin asked Leigh Fermor in English who this young man was and whether he could be trusted. When told, he could hardly believe it. There were great greetings and memories of Knossos in the days of Sir Arthur Evans. Eventually Akoumianakis returned to the note and, to their horror, deciphered the key phrase: 'When are the English landing to help us fight the Germans?'

Bandouvas had ignored his instructions to prepare to help the Italians and await further orders. He had already moved to attack the Germans in the area of Vitnnos on the south coast. The runner was sent back with the strongest possible message telling him to stop immediately and withdraw. Leigh Fermor had to leave Dunbabin to cope with the Bandouvas problem as best he could, while he and Miki Akoumianakis left to confer with Tavana in response to the momentous news of the. armistice.

But their hopes of Italian resistance to the Germans soon evaporated. -

When word of the armistice arrived, a large number of Italian soldiers had promptly drunk themselves into a stupor of celebration: they naively assumed that the war was over and they could go home. And the only two battalions of infantry who were prepared to fight, and had gone up into the mountains, came down again a couple of days later because the local population, in spite of its readiness to help, could not feed so many men.

General Bräuer ordered German troops into the province of Lasithi and the dispersal of Italian forces to new locations chosen for them. General Müller, the divisional commander, issued a 'General Order to All Italian Troops in Crete' which was in effect an ultimatum.

'The Commander of the Fortress of Crete', he began, 'has charged me with the defence of the province of Lasithi.' He then offered three choices. Italian soldiers could continue to fight under the command of the German armed forces, thereby adhering to Mussolini's new government — the puppet show which became the Republic of Salo. Or they could assist the Germans in non-combatant duties on the island after having been disarmed — a euphemism for working in labour gangs. If they refused these two alternatives then they would be interned. 'Whosoever', he finished, 'sells or destroys arms of the Italian forces, or whosoever deserts from his unit, will be considered a
franc-tireur
and as such shot.'

General Carta, resigned to the idea that resistance was impossible without a British landing, circulated Müller's order to all Italian units with his own recommendation attached. 'The above is a natural consequence of the situation resulting from 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.' Tragically, the Italians who refused to work for the Germans were embarked in a ship which was then sunk by an Allied submarine.

Paddy Leigh Fermor made plans for General Carta's escape to Egypt. The details were arranged by Miki Akoumianakis and the two brothers, Stelios and Roussos Koundouros. A signal was sent to Cairo to arrange a rendezvous for a motor launch on the beach near Treis Ekklisies. Meanwhile, to the despair of all British officers on the island, and contrary to all instructions, Bandouvas had allowed his men to attack German soldiers in the Viannos region. A group of them began on Friday, 10

September, by killing two privates who were collecting potatoes at Kato Simi. The bodies, wrapped in sacks, were dropped down a hole, but a Cretan 'Gestapite' ran off to warn the nearest garrison.

Still convinced that an Allied invasion was heading for this portion of the coast, Bandouvas, compounding his own rashness, sent runners northwards calling for a general mobilization in the whole province of Heraklion. The impetuous Colonel Beteinakis rushed to support it. Dunbabin could only issue furious countermands.

Two days after the attack at Kato Simi, a force nearly 2,000 strong reached the area. Bandouvas's men stood little chance. They killed just under twenty soldiers (according to German figures) then scattered. One account from a reliable source says that they also took prisoner thirteen Germans.

Local citizens, including an Archimandrite and the Mayor of Kalami, urged Bandouvas to release the prisoners. Added to similar advice from within his band, he agreed, but this had to be carried out secretly since others wanted them executed. The soldiers were freed on the evening of 19 September, but next morning they ran into another group of Bandouvas's men who promptly killed them.

The German military authorities, already paranoid about the defection of Italy and the possibility of Carta's troops fighting alongside the resistance, reacted with murderous resolution. General Müller gave orders for the immediate destruction of six villages in the Viannos area and about five hundred civilians were shot.*

* Although not kinsmen of the kapitan, many seem to have suffered simply because they bore the name of Bandouvas —

a name dating from the Venetian occupation which signified a native of Padua.

Bandouvas and his band had to run from the nest of hornets they had provoked. The German retaliatory drive in the region forced them westwards. Bandouvas again demanded help from the kapitans around the Mount Ida range, and sent a peremptory request to Tom Dunbabin that he urgently organize their evacuation. Dunbabin's temper was sorely tried.

Paddy Leigh Fermor, meanwhile, had smuggled General Carta and a few members of his staff out of their headquarters at Neapolis on 16 September, and across the Lasithi mountains. Fieseier Storch spotter planes flew overhead searching for them and dropped hurriedly printed leaflets offering a reward of thirty thousand drachma for General Carta's capture. One of them fell virtually at Carta's feet. He bent down, picked it up and waved it at Leigh Fermor.
'Ah, ah, mon capitaine!'
he exclaimed.

'Trente pieces d 'argent! Un contrat de Judas!'

The small party managed to evade the German patrols and they reached the beach near Treis Ekklisies on 23 September. There Leigh Fermor found Dunbabin and the other British officers, all of whom had been dragged into the Viannos debacle, and also Bandouvas who, with impermeable self-assurance, tried to shift the blame demanding that he and his men should be evacuated first. Despite everything, Leigh Fermor could not help feeling a certain pity at the almost total destruction of his band.

The Royal Navy motor launch which was coming to take off General Carta brought Sandy Rendel, his wireless operator and Father Skoulas, 'the parachute priest'. They arrived to a scene of chaos on the beach that night. To make matters worse, the sea was choppy. Rendel's attache case and the charging engine for his wireless went over the side as the rubber dinghy was loaded.

Rendel only had time to catch a glimpse of an elderly man in a felt hat — General Carta — and Paddy Leigh Fermor, who had come aboard to hand over important German documents provided by Tavana to Bob Young, the commander of the launch, without Carta's knowledge. But Young became concerned at the deterioration in the weather and turned his craft out to sea. Leigh Fermor with Manoli

Paterakis thus made an unplanned exit from Crete. The next time he returned would not be by sea but by parachute.

On the beach, Tom Dunbabin had to exert all his authority to deal with Bandouvas's demands that another boat be sent from Egypt immediately. The newly arrived Rendel was also deeply impressed by Dunbabin's stream of Cretan curses when a young Greek officer — a nephew of the Prime Minister — chucked away an empty sardine tin with British markings.

The German troops still searching for Bandouvas and his band forced them and the British further westward. A week later the fugitives were on the flank of a hill called Tsilivdika'near the Rodakino beach which was used for clandestine landings.

There, in a bowl in the hills with a network of caves, the company, by now almost a hundred strong, settled to rest and wait. Sheep were taken from nearby flocks, slaughtered and roasted on blazing fires in the caves.

Sentries from Bandouvas's band posted on surrounding hills kept watch, and Sandy Rendel later remembered gazing out over the Libyan Sea while bees hummed in the thyme all around them. But the British officers and their Cretan associates — Tom Dunbabin, Xan Fielding, Sandy Rendel, Ralph Stockbridge, John Stanley, George Psychoundakis, Niko Souris and various detachments from bands in the central region — felt ill at ease in the unnatural calm. Events seemed to have overtaken them.

Bewildered and exasperated, they wondered whether a motor launch would ever arrive to solve the impasse.

Dunbabin's runner returned from the wireless set on Mount Ida to relay the message from Cairo that no craft was available. In case Bandouvas might react unpleasantly to this news — it was hard to forget that he had threatened to seize parachute stores by force of arms the autumn before — Tom Dunbabin warned his officers to keep their revolvers to hand. But by then Bandouvas was preoccupied with another matter.

One of the local
andartes
happened to mention to him that a man from his region had recently turned up in their area. Bandouvas asked his name and, when told, declared that he was in league with the Germans. Men were sent off to seize him, and Bandouvas conducted a trial which lasted most of the night. British officers kept dropping off to sleep, then waking up again to this strange scene. The accused, one Georgiou Ergazakis, finally confessed. Polioudakis, the collaborationist police chief in Heraklion, had recruited him. He went on to give the names of other agents working for the Germans, but this did not save him.

At dawn — it was now 4 October — he was taken off to be shot. His body was then dropped down a pothole. Very soon afterwards firing broke out. A reconnaissance patrol of Feldgendarmerie and Italian carabinieri was spotted by Bandouvas's lookouts who, without waiting for them to come closer, blazed away at maximum range. After a confused and scattered skirmish, most of the enemy force were either killed or captured. Amongst the prisoners was a Cretan who claimed he had been forced into German uniform.

This Cretan was put under guard with what he thought was a captured German soldier. But 'Gussie', as the British and Cretans called him, was Ralph Stockbridge's 'tame German' who had fled his Wehrmacht barracks. Gussie murmured to the Greek collaborator in German that they would both be shot.

The traitor whispered back, also in German, that he should not give up hope. He and the others had been the advance guard of a much larger force which had the whole area surrounded. He went on to boast of how long and successfully he had worked for the Germans. Once he had truly condemned himself, Gussie stood up and told the
andartes
all that he had said. A second traitor met his fate.

This successful ruse had also provided a warning of their dangerous position. But later towards evening, the weather changed. They were saved by a heavy mist covering the hills and coast. That night, splitting into small groups, the curious assembly at Mount Tsilivdika broke up. Bandouvas was directed further westwards along the coast; Dunbabin sent Niko Souris with him to provide sound advice.

Hoping for another boat, Bandouvas and his men hid near Kalo Lakko in the province of Sphakia. But the villagers in that area became worried by his presence, so he and his men were prevailed upon to return to the Mount Ida range. Eventually, he left Crete on the last day of October.

Dunbabin meanwhile had returned to the Amari having wasted nearly a month. The ISLD team of Ralph Stockbridge and John Stanley, after breaking through the German cordon round Tsilivdika, ended up completing a clockwise circuit of the western half of the island. Sandy Rendel went to the mountains of Lasithi to take over the wireless station there. Dunbabin told him to take Franco Tavana, General Carta's counter-espionage officer. But Tavana's intention to set up a resistance group of Italians and local Cretans petered out for lack of local support.

After the Viannos catastrophe the trail of misery ran to more than the six villages. Schubert's newly formed battalion of Greek-speaking Italians from the Dodecanese began to terrorize the southern coast.* Rodakino, Kallikrati and Kali-Sykia close to Mount Tsilivdika were also destroyed. In Kali-Sykia, old women are said to have been burned alive in their houses and thirty villagers were shot in Kallikrati.

* His unit in Wehrmacht uniform was designated the Jagdkommando Schubert: the Cretans nicknamed its members the Schuberaios.

The remains of Bandouvas's band split up on the departure of their leader. In his brother's absence, Yanni Bandouvas assumed a very diminished mantle of leadership. Bodias, assisted by Niko Samaritis, left with the Communist group to operate with ELAS — Bodias in the province of Heraklion and Samaritis in Lasithi. In spite of Tavana's failure to raise support, Lasithi was attractive to the Communists because of the quantities of Italian arms available there.

The Selino area in the south-west of the island also witnessed fighting and reprisals at this time. On 25

September, a German detachment surrounded the village of Koustoyerako, the home of the Paterakis family. They had presumably heard of the arms drop made only a week before to Kiwi Perkins and the Seliniot band.

Finding no men, the German patrol lined the women and children up in the square and demanded to know where they were hiding. Infuriated by the women's silence they set up a machine gun for an execution. The menfolk, notably Costi Paterakis, had in fact crept on to a bluff above the village.

Their rifles were trained on the German firing party. At a range of four hundred yards, Paterakis's shot felled the machine gunner, and a fusillade from his fellow villagers brought down several others. The surviving Germans fled.

Since the fate of the village was clear, the women and children took their most treasured possessions and tramped up into the mountains to hide, while many of the men joined the Selino bands. The German reaction was as swift as they had expected. Between 30 September and 3 October German detachments burned the villages of Koustoyerako, Moni and Leivada. But the resistance was fierce.