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CHQ

The group
that abducted
General
Kreipe.
Patrick Leigh
Fermor is in
the middle.
Η ομάδα
απαγωγής του
στρατηγού
Κράιπε. Στο
μέσον, ο
Πάτρικ Λη
Φέρμορ.
understand. Three times he answered ‘No’.
They ordered him to stand to attention and
then opened fire. He fell dead, shot through
the head and the body.
The battle raged on. Heraklion stood
firm and we had similar tidings from
the Australians and Greeks defending
Rethymnon. After the lines of
communication had been cut, we had no
glimmer of the turn things were taking at
Maleme over in the west. We thought we had
won. The news became still more bitter later
on, when we learnt that enemy casualties
had been so heavy that for a time they had
“HIS MEMORY TURNED ALL HIS OLD considered abandoning the campaign.
COMPANIONS INTO IMMEDIATE ALLIES. Much later we learnt what happened to
Book cover: Patrick Leigh Fermor, Abducting a General, Metaixmio Editions, 2015 (Greek edition)
WE WERE AMONG FRIENDS.” «Η ΜΝΗΜΗ Pendlebury. At first his body was buried near
ΤΟΥ ΜΕΤΕΤΡΕΨΕ ΑΜΕΣΩΣ ΣΕ ΣΥΜΜΑΧΟΥΣ the spot where he fell. Later, the Germans
moved him to half a mile outside the Canea
ΟΛΟΥΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΠΑΛΙΟΥΣ ΣΥΝΤΡΟΦΟΥΣ ΤΟΥ. Gate [...]. I remember bicycling past his
ΒΡΙΣΚΟΜΑΣΤΑΝ ΜΕΤΑΞΥ ΦΙΛΩΝ». grave the following year dressed as a cattle-
dealer. It was marked with a wooden cross
with his name on it, followed by ‘Britischer
After leaving the cave, Pendlebury and Satanas headed for the Kapetan’s high Hauptmann’. There was a bunch of flowers,
village of Krousonas by different routes. They hoped to launch flank attacks and new ones were put there every day until
on the steadily growing throng of dropped parachutists west of Heraklion. He the enemy shifted the grave to somewhere
got out of the car with a Cretan comrade and climbed a spur to look down less central. (He now lies in the British war
on the German position. They were closer than he thought and opened fire. cemetery at Souda Bay.) Meanwhile legends
Pendlebury and his friend fired back. Here the fog of battle begins to cloud were springing up. For the Cretans, it was the
things. Pendlebury and a Greek platoon were still exchanging fire with the loss of an ally and a friend with a status close
Germans when a new wave of Stukas came over and Pendlebury was wounded to that of Ares or Apollo. For the enemy, he
in the chest. He was carried into a cottage, which belonged to one of his was a baleful and sinister figure, a darker T.E.
followers, George Drossoulakis, who was fighting elsewhere and was killed Lawrence, and perhaps he was still lurking in
The Estate of William Stanley Moss cleaned and bandaged the wound. Another came in later and gave him an dug up and sent to Berlin – or so they said.
that same day. But his wife Aristeia took him in and he was laid on a bed. The
the dreaded mountains. Many bodies were
place was overrun with Germans; nevertheless, one of them, who was a doctor,
exhumed until a skull with a glass eye was
According to island gossip, Hitler had been
injection. He was chivalrously treated. The next morning he told the women
of the house to leave him. They refused and were later led away as prisoners.
unable to sleep at night for fear of this terrible
incubus, and kept the trophy on his desk. To
A field gun was set up just outside and a fresh party of parachutists was soon
the SOE officers who were sent to Crete to
in the house. Here was an English soldier dressed in a Greek shirt and with
help the Resistance, he was an inspiration. His
no identification. A neighbour’s wife saw them take him out and prop him
against the wall. Three times they shouted a question at him, which she couldn’t
memory turned all his old companions into
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