Free Kidnap in Crete by Rick Stroud

gathering information. It became clear that the number of Allied soldiers requiring rescue was greater than anyone had thought. In the forests near St Apostoli Amariou, Pool and Lagouvardos established temporary headquarters. The two men set about meeting influential Cretans, including the kapitans who had been working with archaeologist John Pendlebury, and a key figure in the andartes, Colonel Andreas Papadakis. Papadakis had appointed himself head of AEAK, ‘the Supreme Committee of Cretan Struggle’, which he and six other patriots had formed in the ruins of Chania two weeks after the German invasion. AEAK’s aims were to organise an intelligence network and carry out acts of sabotage against the occupying forces. They counted among their number the chief of police in Rethymnon.
    Colonel Papadakis was one of the many Cretans who offered sanctuary to stranded Allied soldiers. Among those sheltering in the colonel’s grand house, above the village of Kali Sykia, was an escapee from Galatas POW camp named Jack Smith-Hughes. Smith-Hughes a rotund, Greek-speaking British Army subaltern, had been a barrister before the war and was in charge of the Royal Army Service Corps field bakery in Chania. After making his way across the White Mountains in May, he became one of the thousands left behind on the beaches at Sfakia.
    Smith-Hughes suggested that Papadakis accompany them to Egypt, to liaise with SOE Cairo about how the resistance on Crete should be organised and encouraged. On 9 August, Smith-Hughes, Pool, Abbot Lagouvardos and Colonel Papadakis met to discuss the possibilities. A translator, Manolis Vassilakis, minuted the meeting.
    Papadakis asked Commander Pool if he had come to do more than rescue marooned British soldiers. Pool said that the main purpose of his expedition was to look at organising the Cretan resistance; he hoped Papadakis would accompany him to Cairo. Papadakis, who could be difficult, said he was not sure and would have to talk to his comrades. Then Pool asked if Papadakis had ever met Kapitan Satanas and if the kapitan could supply a radio to communicate with Cairo. Finally Pool asked who was going to be in overall charge of the resistance; he wondered about Nikolaos Plastiras, the much-admired war hero and republican who was living in exile in France.
    The men talked on in the shade of an oak tree. When they finished, Commander Pool and Colonel Papadakis signed and approved the minutes. The men split up, having agreed to meet again on 1 9 August when the next British vessel was due to arrive and take Pool back to Alexandria. The link between Crete and the free world, broken on 2 0 May, had been restored, although weak and uncertain.
     
    News of the Allied submarine rescues spread amongst the people of Crete and the work of gathering up the remaining stragglers began, fuelled by the rumour that the British might be back in a few months to liberate the island. The Cretan guerrilla leaders set about devising techniques for leading bands of soldiers across the mountains and the use of wireless sets to coordinate operations.
    Soon runners became an important link in the chain, both for the resistance cells and future SOE operations. One of these, a young man called Giorgios Psychoundakis, became a part of the escape network, leading soldiers along routes from his village of Asi Gonia, handing them on in relays to other guerrillas who protected them and saw them safely on their way. Psychoundakis had a lively sense of humour and a winning personality. A former shepherd boy, he had an intimate knowledge of the west part of the island and of travelling across mountains and open ground by night. Patrick Leigh Fermor, who came to know him well, recalled: ‘When the moon rose he got up and threw a last swig of raki, a fierce and addictive clear spirit tasting of aniseed down his throat with the words, “Another drop of petrol for the engine,” and loped towards the gap in the bushes with the furtiveness of