[PDF] The Cretan Runner eBook

Author : George Psychoundakis
Publisher : New York Review of Books
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 49,21 MB
Release : 2015-11-03
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1590179056

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A witty, thrilling, and “effortlessly poetic” account of the Cretan resistance during World War II—with a map and 32 black-and-white photographs (The Guardian) George Psychoundakis was a 21-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor.

Author : George Psychoundakis
Publisher : Penguin World War II Collection
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 46,91 MB
Release : 2009
Category : World War, 1939-1945
ISBN : 9780141043340

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George Psychoundakis was a young shepherd boy who knew the island of Crete intimately when the Nazis invaded by air in 1941. He immediately joined the resistance and took on the crucial job of war-time runner. This book presents an account of George's activities across mountainous terrain, come blazing summer or freezing winter.

Author : George Psychoundakis
Publisher : New York Review of Books
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 10,32 MB
Release : 2015-11-03
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1590179048

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George Psychoundakis was a twenty-one-year-old shepherd from the village of Asi Gonia when the battle of Crete began: “It was in May 1941 that, all of a sudden, high in the sky, we heard the drone of many aeroplanes growing steadily closer.” The German parachutists soon outnumbered the British troops who were forced first to retreat, then to evacuate, before Crete fell to the Germans. So began the Cretan Resistance and the young shepherd’s career as a wartime runner. In this unique account of the Resistance, Psychoundakis records the daily life of his fellow Cretans, his treacherous journeys on foot from the eastern White Mountains to the western slopes of Mount Ida to transmit messages and transport goods, and his enduring friendships with British officers (like his eventual translator Patrick Leigh Fermor) whose missions he helped to carry out with unflagging courage, energy, and good humor. Includes thirty-two black-and-white photographs and a map.

Author : Xan Fielding
Publisher : Paul Dry Books
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 22,1 MB
Release : 2013
Category : Travel
ISBN : 1589880854

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"During the Second World War, Xan Fielding served for two years as an officer in the British Special Operations Executive on German-occupied Crete, where he ran an intelligence network in co-operation with the Cretan resistance movement. Seven years later, Fielding returned to Crete to spend a year travelling in the island's White Mountains (the "stronghold" of the title), revisiting sites of his wartime exploits and seeking out former comrades who had returned to their peacetime lives. His sojourn resulted in this remarkable memoir, a documentary-like record of days spent among Cretan peasants blended with history and literature -- a travelogue like no other. The Stronghold is a blending of "history and culture with experience, but one wedded to fidelity. Fielding never arrives; there is no great journey of self. There is just a question answered about the war and youth ... he can't shake Crete, as no man can shake the formative experience of his youth." -- from the new foreword by Robert Messenger

Author : Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher : New York Review of Books
Page : 249 pages
File Size : 17,78 MB
Release : 2015-11-03
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1590179390

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One of the most daring feats in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s daring life was the kidnapping of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on April 26, 1944. Abducting a General, now published for the first time in the United States, is Leigh Fermor’s own account of the kidnapping. Written in his inimitable prose, and introduced by the acclaimed Special Operations Executive historian Roderick Bailey, it is a glorious firsthand account of one of the great adventures of the Second World War. Also included in this book are Leigh Fermor’s intelligence reports sent from caves deep within Crete, which bring the immediacy of SOE operations vividly alive, as well as the peril under which the SOE and Resistance were operating, and a guide to the journey that Kreipe took, from the abandonment of his car to the embarkation site, so that the modern visitor to Crete can relive this extraordinary trip.

Author : Antony Beevor
Publisher : John Murray
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 21,10 MB
Release : 2011-10-13
Category : History
ISBN : 1848546351

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Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Antony Beevor vividly brings to life the epic struggles that took place in Second World War Crete - reissued with a new introduction. 'The best book we have got on Crete' Observer The Germans expected their airborne attack on Crete in 1941 - a unique event in the history of warfare - to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. They had no idea that the British, using Ultra intercepts, knew their plans and had laid a carefully-planned trap. It should have been the first German defeat of the war, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle round. Nor did the conflict end there. Ferocious Cretan freedom fighters mounted a heroic resistance, aided by a dramatic cast of British officers from Special Operations Executive.