An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 29 the car, and waved it through. In the early hours of the morning they cleared the suburbs of Heraklion and headed into the foothills. Abandoning the car, they left a note saying that the general had been taken by British commandos and that no reprisals should be initiated against the civilian population. When the hue-and-cry was raised, every one of the 75,000 German troops on Crete was tasked with finding their commanding officer. The escaping group now embarked on a physically and mentally demanding trek in the dark over the precipitous, snow-covered, 2,400m Mount Ida in sub-zero temperatures. Finally, on 14th May, after many adventures and near misses, they arrived at a re- mote beach where a launch picked them up and raced them to Egypt. Kreipe was subse- quently flown to London for interrogation, and later transferred to a POW camp in Canada, where he remained until 1947, when he was freed. Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE, was a char- ismatic, prolific writer, widely published pre-, and post-WWII, and sometimes described as a 'Renaissance man'. He was a frequent visitor to these shores, and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Seán Ó Faoláin, Paddy Kavanagh, and JP Donleavy; fellow regulars of Davy Byrne's hostelry in Dublin. His fa- vourite place in Ireland was, however, Lismore Castle in Co Waterford, Irish home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who gave him the time and space to pursue his writings in the peaceful surroundings of the beautiful Blackwater Valley. Fermor, who in spite of reportedly smoking up to 100 cigarettes a day remained physically fit all his life, passed away in 2011 at the age of 96; his wife, Joan, having prede- ceased him in 2003. Ivan William ('Billy') Moss MC married the flamboyant and beauti- ful Countess Sofia Tarnowska, a descendent of Catherine the Great of Russia, whom he met in Cairo where she headed up the Red Cross. After the war, the couple moved to Riverstown House in Glanmire, Co Cork. Built in the 1700s for Bishop Jemmett Browne, the dining room walls and ceiling are the work of the noted Italian stuccodores, the Francini brothers. On 7th January 1952 Moss gave a presentation to Cork Rotary Club in which he outlined the circumstances surrounding the abduction of General Kreipe, less than eight years' before. He was then promot- ing his book on the escapade, Ill Met By Moonlight, later made into a major film starring Dirk Bogarde as Fermor, David Oxley as Moss, and Marius Goring as Kreipe. The general, by then a free man living in the Federal Republic of Germany, took exception at the way he was portrayed, and sued Moss, successfully, for defamation. The writ, however, applied only in West Germany, where both book and film were banned. Moss died at only 44 in 1965. Was the kidnapping of General Kreipe worth it? To this day, Cretans are divided on the issue. Many regard it as having boosted morale dur- ing their darkest days and provided a glimmer of hope for final victory. Plaques have been erected on the island commemorating the event. However, it is an old truism that 'the survivors rejoice while the dead remain silent', and some senior British officers, mindful of the slaughter in Czechoslovakia following the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, opposed it from the start. The official historian of the SOE argued that the kidnapping had 'no strategic or tactical value'. Kreipe was, ultimately, a fairly minor figure with no significant intel- ligence harvested from his abduction. One Andarte later wrote that Leigh Fermor served 'only the interests of Britain…causing terrible suffering'. General Kreipe himself described it as a 'Hussar stunt', meaning it was swashbuckling, daring, and full of bravado; but what did it achieve? One thing that it did achieve was the return to the island of General Muller, who immediately re-established his vicious reign of terror. Whole villages were razed and many hundreds of civilians killed. Typical was the village of Anogia, which had a tradition of resistance to the occupiers. Between 13th August and 5th September 1944, 940 houses, a school, churches, mills, and vineyards were wiped off the map and 117 villagers were massacred. In 1945, Muller was captured by the Red Army and returned to Greece where he was tried for ordering atrocities against civilians. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on 20th May 1947 – the sixth anniversary of the German invasion of Crete. Moss (left) and Leigh Fermor (centre) in German uniform, with a member of the Andarte. Leigh Fermor (left) and General Kreipe at a reunion in Greece in 1972. Riverstown House, Co Cork. Lismore Castle, Co Waterford. General Kreipe's staff car, now preserved on Crete.

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