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A review by gautamsing
Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete by Patrick Leigh Fermor
4.0
This is an amazing story of the abduction of a German General in occupied Crete in 1944. I have read a superb account of it in Ill Met by Moonlight by William Stanley Moss, and it also figures in The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis. It was led by a Major in the SOE, Patrick Leigh Fermor, later, a famous travel writer. I wondered why he never wrote about it himself & the introduction explains.
At the end of his first 18 month stay in Crete in September 1943, culminating in the successful spiriting away of the General in command of the Italian garrison after the surrender of Italy, Fermor returns to Egypt. That’s when he hatches the plan to abduct the German General responsible for atrocities in Crete and returns in February 1944. Though the butcher General has been replaced, he decides to kidnap the new one anyway. Plans are made swiftly, and had it not been for the late arrival of the rest of the team due to bad weather, the abduction may have happened even before April 28, 1944.
It is truly audacious. Fermor and Moss are to dress up as German traffic police and stop the General’s car. They did, and then drove through the German headquarters of Heraklion, past 22 checkposts and made it. Not having access to a working wireless, it is 16 days before they leave for Egypt on May 14. The poor infrastructure they had to survive with is demonstrated by the fact that even for a mission such as this, they couldn’t get hands on a proper wireless for days.
The German General, Kriepe, seems resigned to his fate and doesn’t give trouble. Fermor is fluent in German and they strike up a sort of friendship, even meeting again in Athens in 1970. Their other common language is Latin, and they have several witty exchanges in that tongue.
Taking General Kriepe through the Cretan resistance strongholds was, as Fermor says, like “taking the Sheriff of Nottingham through Sherwood Forest”. After many vicissitudes, they reach the beach on the night of May 14th where they are to be picked up by the Royal Navy. They almost missed the boat as neither Fermor nor Moss knew the Morse code for “B”, and were saved by the arrival of another British officer who fortunately did.
The account of the abduction is followed by extracts from Fermor’s reports to the SOE while in the field in Crete. They are replete with the tensions of the moment, and a very interesting read.
This is a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed.
At the end of his first 18 month stay in Crete in September 1943, culminating in the successful spiriting away of the General in command of the Italian garrison after the surrender of Italy, Fermor returns to Egypt. That’s when he hatches the plan to abduct the German General responsible for atrocities in Crete and returns in February 1944. Though the butcher General has been replaced, he decides to kidnap the new one anyway. Plans are made swiftly, and had it not been for the late arrival of the rest of the team due to bad weather, the abduction may have happened even before April 28, 1944.
It is truly audacious. Fermor and Moss are to dress up as German traffic police and stop the General’s car. They did, and then drove through the German headquarters of Heraklion, past 22 checkposts and made it. Not having access to a working wireless, it is 16 days before they leave for Egypt on May 14. The poor infrastructure they had to survive with is demonstrated by the fact that even for a mission such as this, they couldn’t get hands on a proper wireless for days.
The German General, Kriepe, seems resigned to his fate and doesn’t give trouble. Fermor is fluent in German and they strike up a sort of friendship, even meeting again in Athens in 1970. Their other common language is Latin, and they have several witty exchanges in that tongue.
Taking General Kriepe through the Cretan resistance strongholds was, as Fermor says, like “taking the Sheriff of Nottingham through Sherwood Forest”. After many vicissitudes, they reach the beach on the night of May 14th where they are to be picked up by the Royal Navy. They almost missed the boat as neither Fermor nor Moss knew the Morse code for “B”, and were saved by the arrival of another British officer who fortunately did.
The account of the abduction is followed by extracts from Fermor’s reports to the SOE while in the field in Crete. They are replete with the tensions of the moment, and a very interesting read.
This is a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed.