Natural Born Heroes

A NOTE ON SOURCES

For a man who became famous for his amazing recall, Patrick Leigh Fermor could be oddly inaccurate at the most unexpected times. Sometimes he fudged on purpose—claiming to be galloping on horseback, for instance, to spice up a story about endless trudging—and sometimes he simply flubbed, losing track of details as adventures suddenly rose up and carried him along. That makes sense; you can’t live a life like Paddy’s and still be a slave to facts and plans and daily diary entries. And that’s why, of all the accounts of Paddy’s time on Crete, his own is the most poetic and perplexing. Decades later, Paddy could tell you exactly where he and George Psychoundakis were hiding at precise moments of the Kreipe kidnapping (Day 10: “The goat-fold of Zourbobasili”), yet he occasionally couldn’t keep straight if the island’s biggest mountain was ahead of him or behind, or whether the Butcher had been hot on his heels and leading the chase or already transferred off the island. But that was Paddy’s genius, and the reason he became the only man in modern history to successfully kidnap a commanding general. Paddy created excitement by always being open to it, instantly veering the second he sniffed something a bit more enticing than whatever he was supposed to be doing. It led him to bizarre plots, like his attempts to infiltrate a Haitian voodoo cult and his fortunately derailed scheme to break into a notorious German prison camp, and it set him apart even from fellow adventurers: in the midst of a grueling mountain expedition, as Artemis Cooper notes, “everyone began to dread the familiar sight of a solitary shepherd. Paddy would invariably hail the man and engage him in a long conversation, which left everyone else hanging about, kicking stones, for a good twenty minutes.” He surged along through the years without a compass, which meant facts and his journals were occasionally lost in the tumult. Luckily, there are reliable outside resources that can reorient Paddy’s memories. First and foremost are Paddy’s biographer, Artemis Cooper, and her husband, the military historian Antony Beevor. No one was closer to Paddy during the last decades of his life, and I’d be amazed if even Paddy could tell his stories any better than they can. When I first contacted Artemis and Antony, they immediately invited me out to their country home, answering every question I had and prompting many I hadn’t thought of. They were equally generous with their address book, putting me in touch with one of the last surviving members of Paddy’s circle, Xan Fielding’s ex-wife, Magouche. They told me tales that were beyond the body of this book but helped inform its spirit, like the way Paddy in his late eighties could still down twenty-six glasses of champagne without slurring a syllable, and the time Xan ran into a German officer years after the war and informed him they’d actually met before—the pretty girl the German had danced with in a Cretan tavern during the Occupation was actually Xan in disguise.

When Artemis was working through Paddy’s long-with held account of the kidnapping, she was aided by Chris White, whose boots-on-the-ground research uncovered elements that even Paddy didn’t know. Chris and his brother, Pete, tracked down the most obscure references, like the young Cretan bride who delivered food one night to the general and his abductors. Paddy and Billy Moss didn’t mention her name, only that she’d been forced into marriage to settle a blood feud between two rival clans. Chris found her and showed her a copy of Billy Moss’s book, Ill Met By Moonlight. “She insisted that we mark the paragraph that features her and that we write her name—Despina Perros—next to it,” Chris was later able to pencil into Paddy’s account. “She was clearly very attached to her husband and mourning him as he is now deceased—so an arranged but happy marriage we assume!”

Tim Todd, Chris Paul, and Alun Davies likewise shared their discoveries from retracing Paddy’s steps, and Alun in particular opened my eyes to details of the invasion and subsequent Resistance that only a military man would understand. They steered me toward so many written references that my backyard office finally looked like Chris White’s, with faded maps pinned to the walls and rows of out-of-print books squeezed together in tight rows covering every flat surface. Some of the most useful were the following:

Chapter 1 (On the run)

Ill Met By Moonlight, by W. Stanley Moss. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1950.

The best version of Billy Moss’s epic is the limited 2010 edition published in Philadelphia by Paul Dry Books, because it contains a brief afterword by Paddy with his first print comments on the abduction.

Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 2014.

I only had access to the prepublication manuscript with embedded comments by Chris White. Since then, the book has been published with an excellent foreword by military historian and Resistance expert Roderick Bailey.

The Abduction of General Kreipe, by George Harokopos. Heraklion, Crete: V. Kouvidis–V. Manouros, 1973.

George Harokopos was one of the Cretan Resistance fighters who joined Paddy in spiriting General Kreipe toward the coast after descending the southern flank of Mt. Ida.

Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, by Artemis Cooper. London: John Murray, 2012.

Artemis’s account of Paddy’s life is a remarkable mixture of both painstakingly accurate detail and personal affection.

Chapter 2 (Occupied Crete)

The Fortress Crete, 1941–1944, by George Harokopos. Athens: B. Giannikos & Co., 1971.

Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–1944, by Mark Mazower. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.

Mazower’s study of archived German military orders offer a unique look at the Occupation from the perspective of the occupiers, especially the command that German soldiers were to view any Greek resistance as the work of “subhuman criminals who refused to recognize the legitimate authority in their country.”

Crete: The Battle and the Resistance, by Antony Beevor. London: John Murray, 1991.

On the Run: Anzac Escape and Evasion in Enemy-occupied Crete, by Seán Damer and Ian Frazer. New Zealand: Penguin Group (NZ), 2006.

Dare to be Free: One of greatest true stories of World War II, by W. B. “Sandy” Thomas. London: Allen Wingate, 1951.

Chapter 3 (Art of the hero)

Justice at Nuremberg, by Robert E. Conot. New York: HarperCollins, 1983.

The Nuremberg Trial, by Ann Tusa and John Tusa. New York: Scribner, 1984.

The Cretan Runner, by George Psychoundakis. Translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1955.

Escape to Live, by Wing Commander Edward Howell, OBE, DFC. London: Grosvenor Books, 1947.

Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from Myths, by Mary Lefkowitz. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

The World of Odysseus, by M. I. Finley. New York: Viking Press, 1954.

Chapter 4 (Churchill’s scheme)

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, by Jon Meacham. New York: Random House, 2003.

Churchill: A Life, by Martin Gilbert. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1991.

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874–1932, by William Manchester. New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1983.

Inferno: The World at War, 1939–1945, by Max Hastings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.

Adolf Hitler, by John Toland. New York: Anchor Books, 1976.

Undercover: The Men and Women of the S.O.E., by Patrick Howarth. London: Arrow Books, 1980.

SOE: The Special Operations Executive 1940–46, by M. R. D. Foot. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1984.

A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence, by John E. Mack. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Chapter 5 (Norina Bentzel and the mystery of the hero)

Apart from news reports of the attack and subsequent trial, I conducted personal interviews with Norina Bentzel, as well as with responding officers and Norina’s school colleagues.

Chapters 6–9 (Invasion and resistance)

Hide and Seek: The Story of a Wartime Agent, by Xan Fielding. London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1954.

Ten Days to Destiny: The Battle for Crete, 1941, by G. C. Kiriakopoulos. New York: Avon Books, 1985.

Greece and Crete, 1941, by Christopher Buckley. Athens: Efstathiadis Group S.A., 1977.

Hunters from the Sky: The German Parachute Corps 1940–1945, by Charles Whiting. New York: Stein and Day, 1974.

Greek Women in Resistance: Journals, Oral Histories, by Eleni Fourtoni. New Haven: Thelphini Press, 1978.

Fourtoni’s collection of first-person accounts by Greek women who fought in the Resistance is a rare glimpse into the lives of some of the most courageous and determined opponents the German army ever faced.

Crete, 1941: Eyewitnesses, by Costas N. Hadjipateras and Maria S. Fafalios (with a foreword by the British special agent, C. M. Wood-house). Athens: Efstathiadis Group S.A., 1989.

Chapters 10–12 (Wobble power)

Forgotten Voices of the Secret War: An Inside History of Special Operations During the Second World War, by Roderick Bailey. London: Ebury Press, 2008.

S.O.E. Assignment: The Story of the Special Operations Executive by Its Second-in-Command, by Donald Hamilton-Hill. London: William Kimbler and Co. Ltd, 1973.

Secret War Heroes: Men of the Special Operations Executive, by Marcus Binney. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006.

How to Be a Spy: The World War II SOE Training Manual. Toronto: Dundurn Group, 2001.

This is the actual training syllabus and method guidelines developed by Fairbairn and Sykes and other instructors for use by wartime SOE agents.

“The Art of Guerrilla Warfare,” a twenty-three-page training booklet by Colin Gubbins, architect of Churchill’s special operations directive.

Shooting to Live with the One-Hand Gun, by W. E. Fairbairn and E. A. Sykes. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press reprint, 2008.

Get Tough! How to Win in Hand-to-Hand Fighting, as Taught to the British Commandos, and the U.S. Armed Forces, by W. E. Fairbairn. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press, 1974.

The Close-Combat Files of Colonel Rex Applegate, by Rex Applegate and Chuck Melson. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press, 1998.

Wing Chun Kung Fu: Traditional Chinese Kung Fu for Self-Defense and Health, by Grandmaster Ip Chun, with Michael Tse. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998.

Chapter 13–17 (Xan Fielding and John Pendlebury)

Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–1944, by Mark Mazower. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.

Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years, by Norman Page. Palgrave Macmillan, 1998.

Page digs into the strange, tragic saga of Xan’s first and perhaps most important mentor: Francis Turville-Petre, “Der Fronny.”

The Stronghold: An Account of Four Seasons in the White Mountains of Crete, by Xan Fielding. London: Secker & Warburg, 1953.

Xan returned to Crete after the war to hike its breadth and width. The result is a deep, sometimes tart, reflection on himself, the island, and the war.

Something Ventured: The Autobiography of C. M. Woodhouse. London: Granada Publishing Ltd. 1982.

Monty went on to distinguish himself as a member of Parliament and secretary under two prime ministers. His perspective on the clandestine work on Crete is even more stark than Xan’s and Paddy’s; as a diplomat, he was less impressed by his own derring-do and more concerned about lasting consequences.

Classical Spies: American Archeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece, by Susan Heuck Allen. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.

The Bull of Minos, by Leonard Cottrell. London: Evans Brothers Ltd, 1953.

Cottrell provides a magnificent account of the stranger-than-fiction saga of Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann as they both began lifelong quests to solve the “Homeric Problem”: how could the Iliad and the Odyssey be so detailed and realistic if they were just make-believe?

The Will of Zeus: A History of Greece from the Origins of Hellenic Culture to the Death of Alexander, by Stringfellow Barr. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1961.

The Civilization of Ancient Crete, by R. F. Willets. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1976.

Willets provides an indispensable study of how the heroic ideal took root on Crete, rising from Minoan culture and creating the notion that each Cretan citizen is a dromeus—a runner who needs strength, skill, and compassion to care for his fellow citizens. Willets also fills in many details about John Pendlebury’s exploration of the island.

The Villa Ariadne, by Dilys Powell. London: RC&C, 1973.

Powell’s husband once mentored young Pendlebury, and her memoir is a breathtaking account of what it was like to roam the Cretan mountains with them.

The Archeology of Crete, by J. D. S. Pendlebury. London: Methuen, 1939.

There’s no better look at the imagination, scholarship, and daring of Pendlebury as archeologist.

The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury, by Imogen Grundon. With a foreword by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: Libri Publications, 2007.

Grundon created a thrilling and remarkably thorough biography (including the choice detail of the shared love Pendlebury and T. E. Lawrence had for the awful Richard Yea-and-Nay). She also provided an opportunity for Paddy Leigh Fermor, shortly before his death, to look back on the magnificent figure who dazzled him when he first arrived on Crete.

The Secret of Crete, Hans George Wunderlich. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1974.

Chapters 18–22 (Xan and Paddy)

Hide and Seek: A Story of a Wartime Agent, by Xan Fielding. London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., 1954.

The Nearest Way Home, by Daphne Fielding. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970.

Xenia: A Memoir. Greece 1919–1949, by Mary Henderson. London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1988.

Paddy makes a colorful appearance in this recollection of life in Greece before and during the German occupation.

A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1977.

Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1986.

A Time to Keep Silence, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1957.

Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1966.

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1958.

Vasili, the Lion of Crete: the Heroic Story of a New Zealand Special Agent Behind Enemy Lines During World War II, by Murray Elliott. Auckland: Century Hutchinson, 1987.

Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes, by Leda Meredith. New York: Heliotrope Books LLC, 2008.

Jump Westminster: Parkour in Schools. A documentary film by Julie Angel. May 2007.

Ciné Parkour: A Cinematic and Theoretical Contribution to the Understanding of the Practice of Parkour, by Julie Angel, Ph.D. Self-published doctoral dissertation, 2011.

The Cretan Runner, by George Psychoundakis. Translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1955.

Chapters 23–31 (Escape by natural method)

“Eagles of Mount Ida,” an unpublished manuscript by George Phrangoulitakis, aka “Scuttle George.” Translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Stored in the Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor archive in the National Library of Scotland.

The Nazi Occupation of Crete, 1941–1945, by G. C. Kiriakopoulos. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1995.

The Cretan Resistance, 1941-1945. The official British report of 1945 together with comments by British officers who took part in the Resistance, compiled by N. A. Kokonas, M.D. Forewords by Jack Smith-Hughes, Patrick Leigh Fermor, and Ralph Stockbridge. Rethymnon: 1991.

Unpublished memoir by Tom Dunbabin, 1955. Manuscript saved by his son, John Dunbabin, after his father’s death in 1955 and provided to Patrick Leigh Fermor.

The War Magician, by David Fisher. New York: Coward-McCann, 1983.

The Last Days of St. Pierre: the Volcanic Disaster that Claimed Thirty Thousand Lives, by Ernest Zebrowski, Jr. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

The Violins of Saint-Jacques: A Tale of the Antilles, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 1953.

Natural Method of Physical Culture, by Paul C. Bragg, Ph.D., and Patricia Bragg, Ph.D. Santa Barbara: Health Science, 1975.

A Natural Method of Physical Training: making muscle and reducing flesh without dieting or apparatus, by Edwin Checkley. New York: W.C. Bryant & Co., 1892.

Building Strength: Alan Calvert, the Milo Bar-Bell Company, and the Modernization of American Weight Training, by Kimberly Ayn Beck-with. Ann Arbor: Proquest, 2006.

L’éducation physique, ou l’entrainement complet par la méthode naturelle, by Georges Hébert. Paris: Librairie Vuibert, 1912.

La Culture Virile et les Devoirs Physiques de L’Officier Combattant, by Georges Hébert. Paris: Librairie Vuilbert, 1913.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979.

Ill Met By Moonlight, by W. Stanley Moss. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1950.

Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 2014.

A War of Shadows, by W. Stanley Moss. New York: MacMillan, 1952.

The Abduction of General Kreipe, by George Harokopos. Heraklion, Crete: V. Kouvidis–V. Manouros, 1973.

Chapters 32–36 (Fueling an escape on fat and fascia)

Slow Burn, by Stu Mittleman. New York: Harper Collins, 2000.

Training for Endurance, by Phil Maffetone. Stamford, New York: David Barmore Productions, 1996.

In Fitness and In Health, Phil Maffetone. Stamford, New York: David Barmore Productions, 1997.

Cheng Hsin: the Principles of Effortless Power, by Peter Ralston. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 1989.

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, by Gary Taubes. New York: Anchor Books, 2010.

The Lore of Running, by Tim Noakes, M.D. London: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Challenging Beliefs: Memoir of a Career, by Tim Noakes, M.D. Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2012.

The Real Meal Revolution, by Sally-Ann Creed, Tim Noakes, Jonno Proudfoot and David Grier. Cape Town: Quivertree Publications, 2014.

The Way They Ate: Origins of the Mediterranean Diet, by Dario Gugliano, Michael Sedge, and Joseph Sepe. Naples: Idelson-Gnocchi Publishers, 2001.

“Eagles of Mount Ida,” an unpublished manuscript by George Phrangoulitakis, aka “Scuttle George.” Translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Stored in the Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor archive in the National Library of Scotland.

Ill Met By Moonlight, by W. Stanley Moss. London: George G. Harrap & Co, 1950.

Abducting a General: The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 2014.

A War of Shadows, by W. Stanley Moss. New York: MacMillan, 1952.

The Abduction of General Kreipe, by George Harokopos. Heraklion, Crete: V. Kouvidis–V. Manouros, 1973.