Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (51 page)

One of the 'Nationals' was Kurt Schlauer, a Pole drafted into the Wehrmacht because he was Protestant. He helped Verney and his EOK associates with translations. In the hills above Canea, they had set up a printing press in a cave. It was run by a Cretan journalist, Xenophon Hadjigrigorakis, who produced two news-sheets, one in Greek and the other,
Kreta Post,
in German. More help was provided by a German sergeant major in love with a Cretan school teacher. He deserted with his motor-cycle, which proved very useful.

Kreta Post,
largely based on BBC broadcasts, offered a carrot of idealism with the idea that a new Germany would arise with the end of Hitler. Meanwhile the rest of the campaign set out to produce

'the impression that the whole system was cracking up'. Tasso Ninolakis, a brave and quick-witted young man working with the Verney-Mitsotakis network, kept passing the Germans false or grossly exaggerated information about resistance activities. He was also involved in a plan to infiltrate lumps of plastic explosive made to look like coal into the fuel stocks of the German officers' mess. Verney regularly wrote to General Benthag to remind him how hopeless his situation was and to insist that the time had come for
Kapitulation.
This single word and its initial letter became a campaign theme.

Boys in Canea were recruited for a graffiti offensive. Acid was used to engrave the letter K on the windscreens of German vehicles. The letter was painted on sentry-boxes, posts and barrack walls.

Early in October, Verney suggested another ploy to Cairo: that the BBC broadcast rumours of a British landing in the west of the island. This was done, and it must have been one of the very few times the BBC agreed to transmit false information: presumably honour was saved by the word

'rumours'. In any event the ploy worked. A German officer in a staff car was hurriedly dispatched to make contact with this Allied force. At Kandanos, evidently convinced he was close to the invaders, he drove round waving a white flag and shouting
'Nicht boom-boom! Nicht boom-boom!'
through a loudhailer.

Cairo did not always respond to requests. Just before the infamous General Müller left Crete on 26

September, Verney's cell received details of the aircraft on which he would be travelling to Athens and its time of take-off. In the middle of the night, Verney signalled Cairo requesting interception by long-range fighters. He prefixed his message with four x's to denote highest priority and immediate action so that senior officers would be woken for a decision. To his exasperation, the only acknowledgement was: 'Keep Calm. Use Less X's.' Nothing was done.

Dunbabin's conference at the monastery of Arkadi on 7 September had decided the general strategy to be followed when the Germans carried out the second and major stage of their withdrawal to the west of the island. Looking around at all the faces, Dunbabin must have marvelled at the change from the days when he first took over. There were now eight officers on the island under his command: Rendel; Barnes; Ciclitira; Terence Bruce-Mitford, who had worked with Pendlebury on the island before the invasion; Barkham; Houseman; Fräser; and Matthew White, the long-suffering radio operator, now commissioned. There were also four attached officers: Eaton; Royce (Organization of Strategic Services); Verney (Political Warfare Executive); and Lukas (Polish Army) — and fourteen NCOs, many of whom had recently arrived as part of Bruce-Mitford's training team in heavy weapons.

Five days after the conference at Arkadi, Sandy Rendel and the Anoyian band, seventy strong, met with Miki Akoumianakis in the ruins of the Palace of Knossos. There, within sight of the German general's residence at the Villa Ariadne, they made their plans to infiltrate Heraklion. It would not be long before Tom Dunbabin was able to take over the villa, which he knew so well from before the war, and make it the Military Mission's headquarters. He later reported to the British School of Archaeology that the site of Knossos had been slightly knocked about by mortar fire in May 1941; perhaps in the battle which killed Miki Akoumianakis's father. But during the occupation the German authorities had done their best to prevent damage.

The Germans knew that Miki Akoumianakis was the chief British agent in the city, but they had not arrested him. Normal rules of counter-insurgency were suspended more frequently now that their position on the island began to look increasingly isolated. Negotiation was preferable to a blood-bath for which German officers would be held responsible by the victorious Allied powers. Corruption also appears to have infected the German garrison to a much higher level than might have been expected. One senior officer promised, in return for eighty gold sovereigns, to prevent the destruction of the harbour and town. But there were so many factors and factions at work during the next few weeks, while the various
andarte
groups closed in eager for the kill or the spoils, that a peaceful outcome was far from certain.

Colonel Andreas Nathenas, the new military representative of the government-in-exile, was officially governor of the prefecture of Heraklion, but his authority was recognized only by the Allied Military Mission and two EOK bands: Xylouris's Anoyians infiltrated in the city and Petrakageorgis's men on the western side. South of the town, Bodias had taken up position with his ELAS group. And the other two major bands in the region, those of Bandouvas and Plevres, were on the east side near the aerodrome. They had rearmed their men with German weapons after the British refused to supply them. Bandouvas, by now back from Egypt, proved even more unpredictable than before. The Germans had obtained his quiescence from time to time with various favours and his relationship with Bodias was hard to define. In spite of Bodias's betrayal — leaving him after the Viannos episode the year before — the two men clearly maintained some sort of understanding, as an unpleasant event soon showed.

For ten days from 1 October, German troops and
andartes
uncertainly sized each other up, each waiting for the other to make the first move. With German artillery positioned to shell the city in the event of attack, and several battalions of well-armed infantry in position, it would have been madness for the
andartes
to start a battle. The EOK groups of Petrakageorgis and Xylouris were however prepared to fight if the Germans attempted to destroy the port. Meanwhile, Plevres's men had begun to enter the city, apparently with the consent of the Germans, who had even given them some weapons because they were Nationalists, not Communists.

Eventually, the Germans became a little more reassured that hordes of Cretan civilians, knives clenched in teeth, would not throw themselves upon their retreating troops, and Heraklion's day of liberation came on 11 October. It was a curious carnival. Bill Royce, the American officer, and Sandy Rendel stood wearing uniform within sight of Germans at the New Gate. Soon the ELAS detachment appeared, led incongruously by Bodias mounted on a pony with a daisy chain round its neck. Rendel then saw Petrakageorgis 'seated in a captured German vehicle, with a broad and confident smile, and looking like some nineteenth century South American general about to lead a revolution. After three years in the mountains he was clearly going to have his day and enjoy it.'

There were several tense moments as the Germans, barracked with catcalls, nervously fingered the triggers of their rifles. But the bloodless departure of German troops was finally accomplished when Royce escorted their rearguard out of the Canea Gate — the route Pendlebury had taken on the second day of the battle three years before. As the last vehicle disappeared, the crowds erupted in joy with singing and cheers. In a mood only slightly more solemn, Evgenios, the Metropolitan of Heraklion and All Crete, held a service of thanksgiving in the Cathedral.

But it was not long before ugly scenes developed as crowds demanded vengeance on collaborators, especially on the hated police chief Polioudakis. Polioudakis, who had been abandoned by the Germans, was brought up from the cells to the balcony where Petrakageorgis, a large man, pretended to agree to throw him to the crowd. But he only dangled Polioudakis by the feet then pulled him in again. Most people believed that Polioudakis was executed shortly afterwards, but other, more reliable sources say that he somehow escaped to Athens where he worked as a scribe for illiterates outside government offices.

Before Colonel Nathenas imposed martial law, a number of women's heads were shaved and homes of collaborators looted. Most feared was a clash between the rival
andarte
groups. In an attempt to calm the situation and foster goodwill amongst the rival factions, General Nikolaos Papadakis, the newly appointed military governor of Crete, ordered a gathering of all the bands who had taken part in the liberation of the city to acknowledge him and their own kapitans together. Papadakis, a cousin of the difficult colonel, had arrived on 6 October with Major Jack Smith-Hughes as his liaison officer.

The military governor and the kapitans, EOK and Communist alike, assembled on the balcony of the Prefecture to wave to the
andarte
bands below. Suddenly a muffled shot was heard and Yanni Bodias, the ELAS leader, staggered shot through his arm. Athanasios Bourdzalis, the old-fashioned- kapitan called in to help with the Kreipe abduction, had shot Bodias on the balcony from behind. He claimed that Bodias, with his degenerate reputation, had insulted his daughter.

Bodias was taken to hospital where he was successfully treated by the Nationalist leader and surgeon Dr Giamalakis. The incident provoked outbreaks of shooting between the bands which continued until Dunbabin and Smith-Hughes had driven round the town in a jeep to reassure both sides.

Bourdzalis, who had been seized immediately, faced a summary court martial convened by General Papadakis. Bandouvas was one of the members. Bourdzalis was condemned to death and Papadakis confirmed the sentence, even though Bodias's wound was not grave. Battle-lines had hardened to such a degree that Tom Dunbabin became convinced that he should support Papadakis in confirmation of the sentence: the risk of civil war was too great.

As one of his closest colleagues later observed, Dunbabin firmly believed that he should never shirk unpleasant decisions, nor ask others to carry out his dirty work. The year before, when two traitors from the village of Kroussonas (one of them was Monty Woodhouse's pupil from Haifa) had come to his headquarters with a false offer of help, Dunbabin not only took the decision that they had to die, but felt obliged to do the deed himself. He gave each man some wine containing one of SOE's suicide pills but, disquietingly reminiscent of Rasputin in the Yusupov palace (and unreassuring for SOE

officers), neither showed the slightest ill effect. They were then taken outside the cave and Dunbabin fired the first shot.

The tension between Nationalists and the supporters of EAM—ELAS was not restricted to Heraklion.

All of the larger towns were affected. In certain cafes, a British officer entering might be greeted by an anti-British song current at the time. Stephen Verney in Canea was taken aback when youths asked to take part in the graffiti campaign against the Germans retorted that they would do no such thing without specific orders from the Party.

After the German departure from Heraklion, Rendel motored round the eastern part of the island to celebrate with friends and helpers, only to find that EAM—ELAS had been carrying out an intimidatory campaign since September. At Neapolis, the local bishop was under house arrest for having preached an anti-Communist sermon. In Ayios Nikolaos, although he was greeted by left-wing leaders in a show of allied celebration, Rendel found that they had imprisoned political opponents including those who had supported the British. And in Hierapetra the local EAM

committee had locked up Brigadier Karandinos, a Nationalist, but had then been forced by protests to release him. Only in Siteia, where Nationalists were strongly in the majority, did the ELAS groups maintain a careful neutrality. Civil war was in the air, and both sides were certain that the British would intervene. But this was an overestimate of British power, as events in Athens would soon prove.

The last German troops left Rethymno on 13 October for the final and relatively unharrassed leg of their withdrawal to Canea. On the same day their forces on the mainland abandoned Athens.

On the ground, the only incidents occurred when an ELAS group became caught up in an inconclusive skirmish following an ambush, and Hugh Fräser could not resist trying out SOE's secret weapon: plastic explosive moulded and coloured to resemble donkey droppings. He carefully placed them on a sharp corner with a cliff beyond. The idea was to explode the tyres of a military vehicle at a dangerous spot, thus causing a fatal accident which the Germans would not attribute to sabotage. To his great horror, the first vehicle was a civilian lorry packed with Cretans. By a miracle its tyres did not touch the donkey droppings, but Fräser, determined not to put Cretan lives at risk, rushed down and removed his unusual mines. No sooner had he done this than a stream of German lorries went past.

Dunbabin had made other plans with Cairo. The columns of German vehicles moving along a single road presented a perfect target for fighter-bombers, and air strikes avoided the risk of reprisals.

Spitfires equipped with long-range fuel tanks and flown mainly by South African pilots took part in a number of sorties. The first attackers tearing into the positions round Heraklion received a nasty shock. All the flak batteries withdrawn from airfields and other outposts had been concentrated there.

A couple of aircraft were brought down, but the pilots were able to bale out. As soon as they had extricated themselves from the exuberance of Cretan hospitality, they were shipped out on one of the Royal Navy motor launches. Yet however effective the air strikes, the most permanent damage was done by the retreating Germans. They relentlessly destroyed every bridge behind them, including a Venetian masterpiece near Rethymno.

Shortly before the centre of attention in Crete moved westward from Heraklion, attempts were made in Canea to curtail the occupation. In September, Constantinos Mitsotakis had approached Captain Wildhage, the Abwehr officer on General Benthag's staff, to discuss a formula for surrender.