Authors: Rick Stroud
Bräuer declared that if the Allies invaded he and his men would fight to the last man and the last round. In the south he tripled the garrison at Askifou to defend the passes against a landing at the bay of Sfakia and in the north he improved the defences at Suda Bay. His men sweated across country on training exercises, working alongside tanks and artillery. They practised street-fighting, scrambling about on exercise in the ruins of villages around Heraklion. Bridges were prepared for demolition; ammunition stocks were built up and underground command bunkers constructed.
Much of the building work was done by forced labour. Leaflets were distributed describing what would be required and detailing the punishments for non-compliance. The area commander for Rethymnon issued the following orders:
1. The Provision of workers for the German Forces.
2
. In accordance with the orders of the ‘Commandant of the Fortress CRETE’, 2.6.4
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, all inhabitants are liable to compulsory service. All distribution of available labour will be made by the Area Commander and no other arrangements will be valid.
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. The Area Commander will requisition labour by the issue of a requisition form. The whole community are responsible for ensuring that the workers requested are punctually provided. In exceptional cases individuals will be requisitioned by name and the community as a whole is responsible for their appearance.
4
. Requirements of labour in individual parishes are relatively so small that sufficient workers will be left available for agricultural work. It is the duty of the parishes to work out for themselves a fair system of detailing the necessary workers. All able-bodied men between the ages of
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6 and 6
0
are liable for duty. Women and children are liable on special requisition. Workers on Labour Service may not leave their work without express permission nor may they change their occupation unless a substitute is actually available.
5. Workers who refuse to present themselves are to be reported by name to the Area Commander with details of their family and economic status. This does not however relieve the parish of the duty to provide the requested number of workers.
6. The following officials are exempt from Labour Service:–
State officials.
Mayors or village headmen and their secretaries.
Those providing work on essential public services provided this is noted on the back of the Identity card by the Area HQ or a special pass can be produced.
No other exceptions are permitted. Those who are already working on behalf of the German forces or who are in possession of a Green card may not be called upon for work in the parish authorities . . .
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. Refusal to work will be regarded as sabotage and be punished accordingly. The individuals may be punished by reduction of wages, imprisonment, imprisonment in a concentration camp or in severe cases, by court martial. In addition the parish will be subjected to a forced levy in kind of oil and grain etc., and this levy will increase with every day that the refusal of the individual to work continues . . .
A day’s hard labour was rewarded with 700 drachma, enough to buy two eggs. The price offered for a requisitioned cow, 120 drachma, was not enough to buy three cigarettes. A British officer in Cairo wrote that the Germans, ‘know the Cretans hate them and are living for the moment to dig up their rifles and say it with bullets’; the invaders were, ‘hurt and puzzled at not being loved, and are constantly asking why’.
By the summer of 1943 the war had turned in favour of the Allies. America had joined the struggle and Hitler’s armies in the east were defeated at Stalingrad. Huge amounts of equipment began to pour across the Atlantic and a joint Commonwealth–American force invaded French North Africa in Operation Torch. In May, nearly a quarter of a million German and Italian troops surrendered in North Africa. By June, Operation Husky, the plan to invade Sicily, was well under way. Valuable intelligence for Torch and Husky had been painstakingly gathered on Crete and transmitted to the Allies via ISLD radios under the command of Ralph Stockbridge. But the anticipated liberation of Crete did not come. Britain, meanwhile, was keeping a close eye on how the post-war order might look in the Mediterranean.
In July, Leigh Fermor wrote an overview for SOE Cairo, describing the situation on the island from the British point of view. In his ‘Report No.
3
’, typed on thin blue airmail paper, he described living ‘in the remote mountains . . . hiding like a lizard among the rocks. This area, though useless for [Communist] party ends, is of great military importance; [here] they are still talking in bated breath of the mass executions [last year] . . . the bulk of the villagers live in a state of terror and abject unresisting peonage to the handfuls of Huns scattered along the coast.’
He described the nature of the resistance organisation on Crete. It was in central and western Crete that the British held most influence and many of these areas had been renamed by SOE agents, their codenames reflecting literary and fantasy schoolboyish imaginings: the guerrilla centre at Anogia was called ‘Camelot’, while the White Mountains were ‘Lost Horizon’; the Amari province retained the name ‘Lotus Land’; Heraklion was ‘Babylon’ and the Mesara Plain near the secret landing places was ‘Badlands’. Similar codenames were given to the main Cretan guerrilla leaders: one, Periklis Vandoulakis, who had tried to save Polentas from the
Geheime Feldpolizei
, was ‘Orestes’. The left-wing General Mandakas was called ‘Trotsky’ and the communists in general became ‘Lollards’.
Leigh Fermor believed that when the Allies arrived, the Cretans ‘will follow those officers who showed courage and initiative during the invasion two years ago and won’t give a damn for the rest . . . If it’s a choice between a mediocre officer and a BO-PEEP, the villagers will follow BO-PEEP every time.’ Bo-Peep, the hot-headed – others described him as ‘thug-like’ – Manolis Bandouvas, was a kapitan Leigh Fermor admired to the point of hero worship, describing him as a ‘brave and patriotic man and a born leader. Of his many faults the only one I would mention here was his sacrifice of truth to his own purposes. We were always on excellent terms.’
There were concerns that Bandouvas, the other kapitans and the guerrillas who followed them were being wooed by the communists, who had called a pan-Cretan conference, to which the SOE was not invited. One of the two resolutions that the conference passed said: ‘That Greece denounces the King and Tsouderos Government and refuses to admit the intervention of Britain after the liberation to restore the monarchy and a Fascist regime.’
Leigh Fermor always claimed to the Cretans that his stance was strictly non-political, writing: ‘Russia is our ally, Stalin and Churchill work together in complete harmony. If the communists wish, we can go for the same here in miniature. Meanwhile, internal Greek politics are no concern of mine, my mission is strictly military.’ This was not altogether true. The SOE went to some lengths to undermine the communists. Leigh Fermor was worried that Tom Dunbabin wanted to recruit well-educated men, including doctors, lawyers and other professional men, while the communists on the other hand were targeting ‘vital and fighting elements’.
In another of his reports Leigh Fermor described a very personal tragedy. On
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May
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943 he had accidentally shot and killed his closest Cretan friend, Yanni Tzangarakis, codenamed ‘Sancho’. According to Leigh Fermor’s account:
We were sitting round the fire in Siff’s sheepfold at Camelot [Anogia] about ten people in all when news came that 300 Germans had arrived and were on their way to where we were. I told everyone to get packed up and take as many rifles as could go round most of the company, including three shepherd lads, cousins of Siff’s had been amusing themselves by doing Greek and British arms drill with my rifle and practising loading and unloading . . . all the rifles were lying on their sides newly oiled with their bolts open except mine, and I drew the bolt backwards and forwards easing the springs to see if it was working smoothly after being oiled. Without realising it I had put a round in the chamber. I pressed the trigger and hit Sancho who was sitting by the fire . . . through the left hip . . . I am sorry at letting the firm down like this. It’s all a very unhappy business . . .
Any trained soldier given a weapon which has been handled by someone else will normally check to see what state it is in. He will especially want to know if it is loaded. An eye witness says that Leigh Fermor picked up a loaded, cocked weapon, with the safety catch off, and accidently fired it. This is called an ‘accidental discharge’ and is one of the worst sins a soldier can commit. Had Leigh Fermor done what he claimed, ‘eased the springs’ to check that the rifle was working, he would have pulled open the bolt, revealing the round in the breech and ejecting it, sending it spinning into space and clattering to the ground. This would have caused him to look down into the magazine to check if there were any other bullets in it before closing the bolt, an action which chambers another round and cocks the weapon. Leigh Fermor’s rifle was a 7.92 Mauser; the rounds are over three inches long and made of a brass or steel cartridge holding a copper or lead bullet. The bright yellow or silver of the metal casing is in strong contrast to the deep black ‘bluing’ of the oiled breech and impossible to miss.
However, none of this happened. Leigh Fermor changed the facts and did so for a good reason: he wanted to protect the person who had really loaded the gun, a child whose kapitan father had recently been executed by the Germans.
Among the ten or so people at the hut were Andreas Papadakis’s nephew Lefteris Kalitsounakis, who worked for ISLD, and Manolis Paterakis’s cousin, Giorgios Tzitzikas. Earlier in the day, which was very wet and cold, some shepherds, who helped guard the SOE radio, had approached the British asking to be paid for the work. To their fury they were refused, and they went away into the rain. A short while later Yanni appeared escorting a criminal cousin, who had murdered his young nephew and become a liability. If he was sent to trial there was a danger that the Germans would offer him a pardon in return for betraying the guerrillas. The resistance had two options: execute the cousin or send him to the authorities in Egypt, where he would be out of harm’s way. It was decided to get him off the island. He had brought great shame on his family. Some thought that Yanni should have executed him on the way to the sheepfold.
The two men sat down next to the warmth of the fire in the hut, trying to dry off. There were some boys from nearby Anogia at the sheepfold and one of them, the boy whose father had been executed, began playing with the rifles, which included Leigh Fermor’s captured German Mauser. The gun could be loaded by hand or with a five-round clip and the youngster tried both methods. After a while he got bored and left the rifle loaded, with the safety catch off.
Several of the disgruntled shepherds appeared with the urgent news that
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0 German soldiers had appeared and were searching all the houses in the area. They warned that it was only a matter of minutes before they arrived. Leigh Fermor, who was very excitable, ordered everyone in the hideout to pack up and leave. He grasped the Mauser, swinging it round with his finger on the trigger, and the weapon fired. The bullet left the barrel travelling at 2,700 feet per second, it could smash through thirty three inches of dry pine at 100 yards. It hit Yanni in his left hip at point-blank range and his body absorbed the round’s colossal force. The deafening noise of the gun firing was followed by a stunned silence. The stench of burnt cordite hung in the air. Everyone stared at Yanni, who was lying on his side by the fire, moaning. Leigh Fermor went slowly over to him, pulled back his friend’s soaking wet cloak to reveal that the round had entered his left hip, making a clean wound with hardly any blood. Then, as somebody fetched a field dressing, they cut open his britches and discovered that the bullet had caused terrible damage on its route round Yanni’s frame. The Cretan was deep in shock and seemed to be feeling little pain. He murmured, although no one but Leigh Fermor could hear what he was saying. There was no doctor near and no hospital. Within a few minutes Yanni Tzangarakis was dead. His murdering cousin slept through the whole incident. Yanni’s body lay in the open until dawn, when they carried him to a nearby ilex grove and buried him.
The tragedy was that the panic-stricken flight from the sheepfold had been in vain. There were no German soldiers: it had been a false alarm raised by the shepherds to get SOE out of the hut and out of the area. The tale that Leigh Fermor later concocted was to protect the youth who had played with his gun. If the true story came out the boy would be punished and the feeling was that he had suffered enough with the death of his father. Yanni was not only a close friend, said Leigh Fermor later, but also ‘the best and hardest worker we have ever had’.
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By the summer of 1943 the importance of Crete to both sides in the conflict had shifted again: the war had turned decidedly in the Allies’ favour. The second battle of Alamein brought defeat to Rommel and the ejection of the Italo-German army from North Africa. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad in May brought defeats to the Wehrmacht on two fronts – shattering Hitler’s strategic visions for the war and forcing the Axis on to the defensive in the East and in the Mediterranean.