Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (52 page)

Wildhage firmly rejected this advance and, referring to Verney's stream of letters to General Benthag on the same subject, added: 'tell Major Stephens [Verney's
nom de guerre]
that if he continues to send subversive letters, he will be arrested.'

Wildhage, presumably deciding that enough was enough, set out to trap the Mitsotakis-Verney cell with the stool-pigeon technique. A soldier pretending to be a secret Communist got in touch with Corporal Cohen and, against all rules of procedure, was brought to the house. Wildhage's men pounced on 22 October. They seized Mitsotakis, his friend Manoussos Manoussakis and Cohen.

The arrests of 22 October were the second serious blow in a week. British officers had, been embarrassed by the arrest of Lieutenant Geoffrey Barkham on 17 October. Barkham, who had always been reckless, seems to have been affected by a sort of 'end-of-termitis' as the war wound down. He had bought a car with the help of Major Papayannakis (the commander of a German-formed gendarmerie battalion, who was secretly in contact with the British) and drove into Canea to flirt and thump away at a piano. Barkham's vigorous version of 'Roll Out the Barrel' could be heard a considerable way down the street. Dennis Ciclitira had also been in Canea that day and encountering Barkham had ordered him to leave. Ciclitira, wearing a gendarmerie uniform provided by Major Papayannakis, had then himself left the city on the road to Kastelli Kissamou. He was nearly caught when the vehicle he was in broke down at Maleme just by the heavily guarded aerodrome.

Barkham had meanwhile driven off in the car with Perikles Vandoulakis (of the family of the 'British consul' in Vaphe) but the two of them were stopped at a road-block. Barkham's red hair and round face did little to help him pass as a Cretan; and his Greek was not good enough to fool an alert sentry.

Caught out, Barkham swore in English and admitted his nationality. He and Vandoulakis were taken off under guard and separated for questioning. After the war, Barkham admitted to a colleague that he had tried but failed to kill himself in his cell, fearing what the Gestapo might force out of him. But his luck was extraordinary.

The decision on his fate — to be sent to a concentration camp in Germany — was processed by a certain Captain Kurt Waldheim on the mainland. Barkham and John Lodwick, the SBS officer captured in July, were sent northwards, but the train was ambushed by Jugoslav partisans. Barkham later recounted how the partisans cut the throat of the elderly German sergeant major in charge of them. A prisoner of the British in the First World War, he had treated them with great kindness on the journey.

Verney's fears for the fate of his comrades were mercifully belied. With great psychological shrewdness, Mitsotakis berated his captors for violating the ancient traditions of the flag of truce. This was hardly an exact picture of events, since the cell had continued subversive activities for nearly a month after his peace-making approach. Mitsotakis even made great play of the fact that the German officer who had driven around Kandanos with a white flag had not been fired upon.

In Canea, his sister Kaite quickly made contact with the German authorities. And although the death penalty for captured enemy agents and members of the resistance was supposed to be mandatory, she found that German officers in Canea were reluctant to carry out executions: the war was lost, and they were beleaguered on the island. She met Dennis Ciclitira in the mountains and he addressed a strong letter to General Benthag's headquarters via the Bishop of Kydonia. Pressure was increased by Tom Dunbabin who also passed a letter to the German authorities through Bishop Xirouhakis. He threatened that if any executions were carried out, German prisoners of war would be treated in a similar fashion.

The Germans, it appeared, were willing to consider an exchange of prisoners and a meeting took place in a neutral area late in January 1945. Ciclitira, accompanied by Captain Lassen of the SBS then on the island, and with the Bishop to act as mediator, began the discussions with a German major on Benthag's staff and a lieutenant of Feldgendarmerie. After a time Lassen became exasperated with the excessive caution and suggested that a lot of time might be saved if his men played the Germans at football on the basis of winner takes all. The German interpreter at first refused to translate such a frivolous interjection, but then the Bishop started shaking with laughter and offered to be referee.

In the end, an agreement was reached. Ciclitira went to Athens by caique and persuaded the staff of General Scobie, the commander of British forces in Greece, to let him have twelve German officers and twenty-four other ranks — a lengthy process since this was contrary to regulations — and bring them back to Crete. He wanted well-nourished specimens, who had enjoyed fifty cigarettes a week, to persuade the garrison on the island that life as a prisoner of the British was better. The Germans selected were not pleased by the prospect of release on Crete. Crossing the Aegean was dangerous, and they feared the vengeance of the civilian population when the war ended.

The exchange, ten Cretans for thirty-six Germans, finally took place at Georgioupolis on 31 March 1945.* Perikles Vandoulakis, who had managed to maintain a false identity — he had assumed the name of Palakis — since his arrest with Geoffrey Barkham, waved back exultantly to Glembin, the head of the Feldgendarmerie, as they drove off and called:
'Yassou,
Herr Glembin, I'm Perikles Vandoulakis, not Palakis.'

* After the war Dr Herbert Glembin told Mitsotakis that Hitler himself had had to sign the authorization for the exchange since such a procedure was formally forbidden. Although not impossible, this seems improbable.

28

The Last Days of the Occupation

As the end of the war came in sight in the autumn of 1944, authorities from outside the island began to take precedence over those in the field. It was the inevitable triumph of the staff officer over the fighting man.

Instead of the rank inflation of Bolo Keble's day, there was rank escalation. On the Greek side, Colonel Nathenas had been superseded by General Papadakis, and Tom Dunbabin had to welcome Brigadier Barker-Benfield in his new guise as the commander of Creteforce. Barker-Benfield, an over-optimistic man whom ELAS had managed to impress, really could have come straight from the pages of Evelyn Waugh. His refusal to listen to the warnings from both Woodhouse and Hammond in Greece about Communist ruthlessness was almost as disastrous as the obstinate support of Churchill and the Foreign Office for the widely unpopular King.

Attempts to prevent a breach between ELAS and the Nationalist forces continued. On 25 October, a meeting took place between the senior Greek officer on the island, General Papadakis, and the commander of the rather optimistically designated ELAS 5th Division, Colonel Kondekas. Dunbabin also sent one of his most experienced officers, Terence Bruce-Mitford, as liaison officer to ELAS

now that his work in heavy weapon training was done. Bruce-Mitford, with his red hair and new appointment, rather predictably was nicknamed the 'red Major'. His job was not only difficult from a political point of view. On 12 November a German force attacked ELAS headquarters at Panayia, directly inland from Canea. After fierce fighting, they withdrew having lost about twenty men.

In theory, the ELAS troops were under the Allied command of General Papadakis, a fiction which the Communists hardly bothered to acknowledge. They had a wireless set in direct contact with EAM—ELAS headquarters on the mainland, where General Mandakas was now supposedly in charge. And since the Communists had managed to infiltrate National Army headquarters in Athens, Colonel Kondekas in Crete learned of decisions made by the Greek government and by General Scobie on the mainland before Dunbabin received any notification. Kondekas used this advantage without scruple.

The idea began to set in that the war was as good as over. On 19 November the RAF arrived to take over the airfield at Kastelli Pediados, and soon afterwards Hugh Fräser was sent down to Sphakia where, from 3 December, Royal Navy launches began a regular daylight service, shipping in stores and taking off prisoners — one of whom was shot dead by a Cretan quite casually in front of him. On 15 December, Allied Forces Headquarters declared Crete a 'liberated area'. But with a fully armed German division still holding the island's capital city, this was rather premature. Only a week before, as if to remind everyone that things were not quite over, the Germans had launched a dawn attack on the British headquarters.

The German pocket ran from Georgioupolis, in the east, to the end of the coastal plain at the far end of the Gulf of Canea. Its depth varied; curiously it was at its shallowest behind Canea. Six main bands of
andartes,
whose combined maximum strength was less than 3,200 men, contained 11,000 German and Italian soldiers within a perimeter some 70 kilometres in length.* With a no man's land between them about five kilometres deep, both sides had settled down to a waiting game.

* The besieging bands from east to west consisted of: Apokoronas (EOK) under Major Liodis, up to 600 men; Sphakia (EOK) under Major Voloudakis, up to 240 men; 5th ELAS Division under Colonel Kondekas, up to 1,250 strong; Lakkoi (EOK) under Colonel Antoni Papadakis, up to 300 strong; Selino under Major Marketakis, up to 500 strong; Kissamou under Colonel Kaisakis, up to 500 strong.

British headquarters at this time was most appropriately based in Vaphe at that refuge of 1941 and 1942 known as 'the British Consulate', in other words the house of Niko Vandoulakis. George Psychoundakis records arriving one day to find Dunbabin, Smith-Hughes, Ciclitira and 'the high-spirited Mr Leigh Fermor' all drinking and singing round a table. 'Mr Mikhali', Psychoundakis explained, 'was in an exceptionally happy mood for he had just returned to Crete after six months.'

During his long recovery from the paralysis brought on by rheumatic fever, Leigh Fermor spent some of his sick leave in Beirut staying at the Legation with General and Lady Spears. Billy Moss joined him there a few weeks after the Damastas episode until recalled to Cairo to be sent into Macedonia, not back to Crete as he had hoped. Leigh Fermor, frustrated by his weakness, returned to see him off.

Still convalescent, he then hung around in Cairo until the medical authorities agreed that he had recovered enough to return to Crete. He had finally reached the island on 28 October.

In Heraklion with Sandy Rendel, Paddy Leigh Fermor embarked on a lengthy round of meetings with Colonel Nathenas, the military governor of the province, and Petrakageorgis, the town commandant, and an even lengthier round with old friends who wanted to celebrate his return and his recovery.

He then went to Vaphe as Tom Dunbabin's second-in-command. Their curious existence there besieging the Germans could have led to a lack of watchfulness. Fortunately, Vaphe was exceptionally well-sited with its magnificent view across the Apokoronas plain southeast of Suda. At eight o'clock in the morning on 8 December, a German force led by several armoured vehicles smashed through the barricade across the road below the village. Perhaps most fortunately of all, Antoni Paterakis was on hand with his famous Bren gun. This gave the
andartes
in the village time to gather for a rearguard action.

Someone stuck their head round the door to yell to Paddy Leigh Fermor that the Germans had attacked, and that everyone was pulling back to the heights behind known as Vothonas. Leigh Fermor grabbed the supply of sovereigns and all the secret papers he could find, and ran as directed. But the retreat was by no means a rout, largely thanks to Antoni Paterakis and his Bren gun. The
andartes
fought back so well from the heights round the village that the Germans withdrew late in the afternoon, having lost about five men and many wounded.

Shortly afterwards, following a visit to Asi Gonia, Leigh Fermor was walking back along the hills inland from Lake Kourna when he saw a slim young man who looked familiar. Xan Fielding had returned to the island almost without warning. The resistance work in France for which he had sought a transfer at the beginning of the year had soon turned into a nightmare. He had been travelling by car with a fellow SOE officer Francis Cammaerts and a French officer when they were stopped at a road-block near Digne. They were arrested and taken to the local prison. A few hours before they were due to face a firing squad, he and his companions were rescued by a fellow agent in one of the greatest acts of nerve and courage in the war. Christine Granville, the Polish Countess Skarbeck, who had operated behind enemy lines longer than any other member of SOE, approached a Gestapo liaison officer, told him that she too was a British agent, and offered both money and a safe-conduct from the advancing Allies if he helped his prisoners to escape.

Paddy Leigh Fermor left Heraklion on 23 December aboard HMS
Catterick.
He reached Cairo just in time to join the others for a last Christmas back at Tara. Xan Fielding, who stayed on the island another month, missed an extraordinary celebration: somebody had even crumbled benzedrine tablets into the stuffing of the turkey to make the party last longer. It was the last one. Most of Tara's inhabitants went off to the jungles of South East Asia, still under the command of SOE, there known as Force 136. Fielding, after leaving Crete on 1 February, was sent first to Saigon and then to Phnom Penh. When the fighting came to an end, he set off on a journey he had longed to undertake to Kalimpong and the Tibetan border.

Leigh Fermor returned to England where he joined SAARF — Special Allied Airborne Reconnaissance Force. Mainly a group of SOE veterans rapidly recruited and based at Sunningdale golf course, they stood by to drop on Oflag IV C at Colditz Castle to rescue important prisoners —

Prominenten
— liable to be made hostages in the closing phase of the war. Fortunately, the recently repatriated Miles Reid who had commanded the Phantom Reconnaissance Group in Greece, warned SAARF command that such an operation would end in disaster. The whole plan was cancelled. So too was a project to rescue the inmates of Flossenburg concentration camp: time had run out. An idea that Mike Cumberlege, the gold-earringed commander of the
Dolphin
and the
Escampador,
might have been saved became one of many retrospective reproaches which can do little good. He and the others captured with him in 1943 in a raid on the Corinth Canal were taken out and shot two days before the German surrender.