Authors: Rick Stroud
Kidnap in Crete
For Constantinos E. Mamalakis
Prison is for heroes
(Cretan saying)
Contents
Kidnap: Operational Route from Landing to Escape, 4 April – 14 May 1944
Route of kidnap car through Heraklion on the night of 26 April 1944
9 The Cretan Resistance is Born
25 Moss and the Battle of Damastas Bridge
I am very grateful to Dr Stavrini Ioannidou and Mr Constantinos E. Mamalakis for helping me find my way through this minefield. Dr Ioannidou sent me the United Nation’s
Romanization Systems for Geographical Names
and very generously spent time going through the manuscript to correct my versions of Greek proper nouns. Mr Mamalakis was equally helpful. He went through the manuscript three times making corrections and even convened a small, impromptu conference of philologists in Heraklion to debate the issue.
Even so it has been difficult to come to a consensus. Rather than Anglicise the names (apart from a few instances like that of
Micky Akoumianakis
whom everyone, whether Cretan or British, seemed to call Micky) or revert to the nicknames given to the Cretans by the SOE, I wanted the names used in the book to reflect the person or place to which they belong. When in doubt I have followed the advice of Mr Mamalakis, a native Cretan who probably knows more about life on wartime Crete than anyone else who helped with my research.
In most cases I have opted for the accusative form for Christian names and have almost always rendered ‘
’ as ‘F’. I hope my decisions have done justice to the people of Crete and their beautiful island.
On 1 March 1944, a German Junkers 52 transport plane flew over the bright blue Mediterranean towards Crete. Among those on board was
Generalmajor
Heinrich Kreipe, the newly appointed commander of the 22nd
Luftlande
Division, who was about to become the second in command of the island.
Forty-eight years old and unmarried, the army was Kreipe’s life. He joined up as German forces rolled across Belgium and into France at the outbreak of the First World War. By the end of hostilities, Kreipe had earned a reputation for bravery and wore an Iron Cross at his throat. At the start of the next war he was a lieutenant colonel, and in the spring of 1940 once more marched into France as a senior officer in a conquering army. By January 1942, Kreipe was in the disorientating cold outside Stalingrad, feeling the full force of a Russian armoured counterattack. Over the course of the next year he fought on the Eastern front, caught in the mincing machine that was the Red Army, the impossible supply lines and the Russian weather. Although his health was badly affected by the stress and conditions of the Eastern front, when Kreipe finally came home in late 1943 he had won the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award for bravery on the battlefield that an officer of the Wehrmacht could win. It was awarded to men of outstanding leadership. There was only one higher distinction, the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, held by one man: Hermann Göring. But it was his first Iron Cross, won in the mud of the trenches, which Kreipe wore round his neck as he headed for Fortress Crete.
The Junkers circled over the airfield at Maleme. Through the windows of the unpressurised aircraft Kreipe could see almost nothing but the mountains, which were the refuge for the resistance, known on the island as the ‘andartes’. The resistance, he was assured, was made up of bands of disorganised, poorly disciplined peasants – mainly shepherds who had been cowed by the brutality of his predecessor General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, ‘The Butcher of Crete’. The andartes were nothing to worry about; Kreipe’s command was going to be what soldiers all over the world call a ‘cushy number’, a rest-cure after the torments of the Russian Steppes.
The plane bounced to a halt, a door in the side opened and light flooded the gloomy, utilitarian military interior. The small honour guard on the tarmac crashed to attention, the soldiers rigid under their helmets, their boots gleaming in the sun. Kreipe climbed from the aircraft; a soft breeze wafted the smell of thyme across the runway. At the foot of the steps stood an escorting officer who saluted him and led the way to a shining black Opel staff car where the driver held the door open, staring straight ahead in respectful anonymity. The wings of the car already bore pennants showing the general’s rank. Kreipe sank back into the leather seats; his escorting officer climbed into the front next to the driver, the doors slammed and the car pulled away, heading first to the German headquarters in the port of Heraklion and then on south to his new home, the Villa Ariadne, built by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.
On the outskirts of the town they came to a huge guarded arch, the West Gate. The men on duty saw the flags on the car’s wings and stiffened to attention, waving it past the barriers. Through the windows Kreipe could see tidied-up evidence of the fierce battles that had been fought in
1
941, when the largest airborne force in history had invaded the island: whole streets were lined with remnants of buildings destroyed by shellfire and aerial bombardment. Local people milled about, stepping aside to let the big car pass – women wearing long black dresses that looked heavy and uncomfortable, swarthy-looking men who did not appear to have shaved for weeks.