The Ariadne Objective
Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
In the bleakest years of the Second World War when it appeared that nothing could slow the advance of the German army, Hitler set his sights on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the ideal staging ground for domination of the Middle East. But German command had not counted on the strength of the Cretan resistance or the eccentric band of British intelligence officers who would stand in their way, conducting audacious sabotage operations in the very shadow of the Nazi occupation force.
The Ariadne Objective tells the remarkable story of the secret war on Crete from the perspective of these amateur soldiers who found themselves serving because, as one of them put it, they had made 'the obsolete choice of Greek at school'. John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick; Xan Fielding, a writer who would later produce the English translations of books like Bridge on the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; Sandy Rendel, a future Times reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the Cretans he fought alongside; and Patrick Leigh Fermor, the future travel-writing luminary who, as a teenager in the early 1930s, walked across Europe, a continent already beginning to feel the effects of Hitler's rise to power.
Having infiltrated occupied Crete, these British gentleman spies teamed with Cretan partisans to carry out a cunning plan to disrupt Nazi manoeuvres, culminating in a daring, high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. In this thrilling and little known episode of Second World War history, Wes Davis paints a brilliant portrait of some extraordinary characters and tells a story of triumph against all the odds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British officers, Cretan guerrilla fighters, a Polish baronesses, and both good and bad Germans are among the diverse cast of characters that fill this exciting historical account of when WWII came to the island of Crete. The narrative focuses on an eccentric group of British amateur Special Forces officers lead by Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, who perpetrate the Cretan guerrilla bands against the Germans in a full throttle, fierce attempt to block Nazi domination in the Middle East. Over several years Fermor and his companions gather intelligence, raid and harass the German occupation from caves and huts deep in the foreboding Cretan mountains. Constantly on the move to avoid searching German forces, the guerrillas gain steady strength until ultimately they take on their most daring mission in the summer of 1944 when they attempt to kidnap the German general commanding the island. Already thrilling in premise, Davis's execution of this previously untold war story is spot on especially when he colors in history with intricate descriptions of the exotic locale.