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The Weekend Neos Kosmos : 24 March 2018
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6 THE WEEKEND NEOS KOSMOS | SATURDAY 24 MARCH 2018 DIGITAL.NEOSKOSMOS.COM Presenter Chris White, Shane Maloney, and Bruce Mildenhall at the Greek Centre presentation. PHOTO: JIM CLAVEN Cover of the recent book with Chris’ guide to the Kreipe kidnap trail. Following Patrick Leigh Fermor and the WWII Greek Resistance trail on Crete As April approaches, Jim Claven takes us back to the famous abduction of German General Kreipe in April 1944 and more heroic stories from the Hellenes It was a privilege to be in the audience at Melbourne's Greek Centre last week to hear UK-based author Chris White's presentation on the Cretan Resistance and Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WWII. The presentation was the inaugural event of this year's commemorative program of Melbourne's Battle of Crete and Greece Commemorative Council. Chris has been researching Crete's WWII story for many years. Along with his brother Peter, he has walked the routes taken by the Cretan Resistance and Allied special forces, the SOE, and especially the famous abduction of the German General Kreipe in April 1944. With the help of local Cretans, Chris has been able to research, find and identify many of the exact locations used by SOE and the Resistance. Drawing on his amazing archival and field research, Chris' presentation took the audience on a journey across Crete in the dark days of the German occupation. He spoke of the arrival of SOE agents on the island and their work with the local Resistance, carrying out acts of sabotage on the German forces. Chris spoke of some of the most famous SOE agents to operate across Greece and Crete in WWII: Monty Woodhouse, Arthur Reade, Xan Fielding, Steve Gillespie, Sandy Rendel, and Australian Tom Dunbabin. Another agent was Patrick Leigh Fermor, one of the SOE leaders of the Kreipe action along with William Stanley Moss. Fermour had served in the Greek campaign in April 1941 and after the war lived at Kardamyli in the Peloponnese. Chris' indepth knowledge of Crete, its mountain trails and isolated villages and shepherds huts, was clear; from the southern coastal landing spots at Maridaki, Tris Ekklisies, Tripiti, Sougia and Dermati, across the valley of Gournes, of Koustayerako and Kastamonitsa, Tapais, and Vilandredo, of Fasses Limeri above Asi Gonia, Genna and Photeinou, of Horda- ki, the Peristeres cave and the ‘Eagles Nest’ above Fourfouras and the Amari valley, 1,400 metres above sea level – all photographed by SOE agents during the war. He spoke of the agents and their Resistance comrades on the run, evading Germans in the Kyrakosellia hills of Crete in January 1943. He told of them being hidden in the cellars of the Monastery of the Holy Apostles at Kastellani in March 1943 by the Archimandrite Theoflax of Sina, Abbot of the Monastry the Holy Apostles as he was forced to feed the Germans above. The archival photographs Chris showed were taken by SOE agents as they hid at Hordaki in April 1943, at Kasamonitsa, and the Nidha Plateau in April 1944, and at the mountain village of Nidha as they hid with the kidnapped General Kreipe. One of Chris' amazing dis- coveries was known as ‘The Beehive.’ So named for its conical shape, this stone shepherds’ hut was used as an SOE and Resistance hideout in the mountains of Crete
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