Churchill's Secret Warriors_The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII

by Damien Lewis

  *

  At Kastelli Airbase all was fiery chaos and confusion too. Lassen and Jones were still very much alive, but only just. As their comrades headed for the hills, they had made a mad dash back through the hole in the fence. But even as they’d squirmed through they could see that the way ahead was blocked. A phalanx of German troops was pouring onto the runway to hunt for whoever was blowing their airbase to smithereens.

  Lassen made a snap decision. Signalling Jones to wait he ripped off his hat, so exposing his white hair, pulled out his Luger, and stepped into the open.

  ‘Over there! Over there! Intruders!’ Lassen yelled in German, shooting into the darkness.

  The German soldiers followed his lead, firing into the night, after which Lassen dashed off after the imaginary intruders, drawing the German soldiers with him. Jones took the cue and dropped into the cover of a drainage ditch from where he could see how Lassen was faring, and how he might be able to help.

  A fire truck came tearing across the runway. Men wielding hoses began pouring water onto a stricken Ju-88. But just as Lassen and Jones had hoped, the blistering heat from the burning aircraft proved too intense for the German fire crew. In an instant the next sleek fighter-bomber in line burst into flames, the force of the blast throwing the fire engine half across the runway.

  As further Schnellbombers were caught in the seething firestorm, Lassen seized his chance and slipped away from the phalanx of German soldiers that he had been ‘commanding’. He strode towards the main gate to try to bluff his way through, but the gate guards were immediately suspicious. Guns were raised.

  ‘I’m with you, fools!’ Lassen barked. ‘Partisans all over the place! We need more men! They’re hitting the barracks!’

  Several of the guards leapt into action, and Jones watched in disbelief as, for a second time, Lassen led a group of German soldiers into the thick of things. And then came the big one: to the eastern side of the airstrip the ammunition dump went up like a mini-nuke, and in an instant the entire base was lit up by a series of long, searing blasts.

  Ammunition cooked off – powerful, juddering explosions ripping the night apart, and rendering the sky above the airbase one huge firework display. In the searing light the guard nearest Lassen must have finally got a proper look at his face and uniform. Lassen noticed the immediate change in his demeanour. As the German barked a yell of alarm, Lassen decided there were too many for him to take on. He made a break for it, dashing into the shadows.

  Bullets whined and snarled after him as the Germans gave chase. Lassen found himself running for his life, and he and Jones sprinted back towards the fence and safety. After the months of Athlit training they were fitter than the enemy, but they were also exhausted from the rigours of the long trek into the target. It was the Benzedrine as much as anything that gave them the edge, but neither man was able to outrun a well-aimed German bullet.

  Lassen and Jones must have got disoriented in all the confusion, for when they made the wire they couldn’t find their entry point. In a mad scramble and with hands cut to pieces, they fought their way across the Dannert fence and dropped onto the far side.

  But it was then that a guttural cry split the darkness: ‘Halt! Hände hoch!’

  Lassen froze as a torch pinned him in its beam. An anti-aircraft battery had been positioned in a bunker lying outside the base perimeter, to better deter Allied warplanes. The German gunners manning it had spotted Lassen and Jones and had them covered. They ordered Lassen to drop his weapon.

  ‘Hände hoch! Hände hoch!’

  ‘Dummkopfs!’ Lassen roared, his German ringing with officer-like authority. ‘Idiots! There are Tommies inside the aerodrome, plus the partisans. Turn your gun and engage them!’

  ‘Sir!’

  As the Germans gunners spun around their weapon to open fire on the imaginary enemy, Lassen and Jones managed to slip away into the shadows of the night. It was yet another narrow escape, but the Dane still didn’t appear satisfied.

  Kastelli Airbase was crawling with enemy, but Lassen figured there was one part of the target area that remained quiet. If they could sneak through the wire once more and sow some final chaos there, their work would be well and truly complete. Buoyed by his commander’s apparent fearlessness, Jones figured what the hell – they may as well give it a try.

  No sooner had they sneaked through the wire for a third time, than the two raiders were challenged. Striding up to the nearby sentry and calling out an order in German, Lassen raised his Luger and fired. Amid all the ammo cooking off, he hoped no one would notice the lone pistol shot that had felled that sentry. But as he and Jones stole further onto the airbase, a fierce barrage of fire was unleashed in their direction.

  Lassen estimated they had at least twenty enemy soldiers converging on their position. He replied in the only way he saw fit, by hurling grenades. As the powerful Mills bombs exploded and fragmented, sending shards of jagged steel tearing through the fiery darkness, Lassen spotted a final target. Without a word to Jones he darted forward, diving into the cover of the vehicle.

  Coming to his knees beside the massive caterpillar tractor, he grabbed his backpack, placed his last Lewes bombs against the fuel tank, and broke the timing fuses. That done Lassen went to ground, dropping behind some fuel drums piled at the edge of the runway. By now Kastelli Airbase had been transformed into a sea of fire, and the Dane couldn’t help but thrill to the spectacle. Trouble was, he was caught in the midst of the chaos and practically surrounded.

  The only side of the airbase that seemed quiet was the far southwestern end, and it was towards there that he moved. He jinked between patches of cover staying out of the light, but as he ran for the safety of the dark exterior he realized that he could no longer see Jones. He reached the fence, but still there was no sign of his fellow raider. In the confusion of the battle Lassen had lost him.

  For the fourth time that night the Dane turned away from the beckoning darkness, and stole back into the fiery maw of Kastelli Airbase. He had one aim now: to find Jones and get him out of there. The nightmare scenario was that Jones had been captured, for there was little doubt what would befall him then.

  Tiptoeing ahead, Lassen crept to within a few yards of the nearest German sentries. Keeping to the shadows he listened to voices thick with shock, fear and anger, but only for long enough to be certain that no prisoners had been taken.

  It looked as if Jones must have escaped. If so, it was high time he made his own getaway.

  Slipping through the wire, Lassen headed for the vineyard that he knew lay somewhere close at hand. To his rear the last Lewes bombs went up, punching through the heavy caterpillar tractor’s fuel tank. The vehicle lifted with the impact and slammed down onto the scorched and blackened ground in a seething mass of flames.

  On either side of the runway lay the skeletal remains of German aircraft, many with wings blown off, their carcasses burning fiercely. The fuel and ammunition dumps had been destroyed, as had several vehicles. Any number of the airbase garrison were dead, and many more were injured. To say that Lassen’s mission had crippled the Luftwaffe operation on Kastelli was something of an understatement. But the Dane’s euphoria was to be short-lived. Come sunrise, things weren’t looking too good.

  Lassen had been forced to go to ground in the only patch of cover he could find – laid flat on his stomach in a farmer’s cabbage field.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Kastelli Airbase burned, and the fuel dump at Heraklion consumed itself in a searing firestorm, so two of the raiding forces – Nicholson’s and Lamonby’s – had melted away into the night. Convinced that Lassen and Jones were either killed or captured, Nicholson and Greaves headed first for a mountainside rendezvou with a Cretan partisan – one who’d volunteered to play a very special part in the operation.

  After a two-hour trek into the highlands, Nicholson and Greaves linked up with the man who’d volunteered to be their runner, and take the ‘SUCCESS’ message back to the waitin
g radio operators at Apoini – from where the signal would be sent on to Cairo and London, triggering the wider information operation.

  That done, the two raiders disguised themselves as local shepherds; cover for the trek back to the coast. At least dressed thus they could risk making some of the long journey by daylight. Time was of the essence. Word was out that the Germans had set a price on the saboteurs’ heads, and that they would take brutal reprisals against any villagers who sheltered them.

  Trouble wasn’t long in coming. A patrol of German infantry came thundering into the village where Nicholson and Greaves were hiding for the night. The two raiders hurried into the thickly forested hills rising above the village, only to sense other, shadowy figures flitting through the darkness.

  The entire population of the village also seemed to be fleeing for the safety of the highlands. Once they were a good distance away from the enemy, Nicholson and Greaves paused to catch their breath. They asked why the villagers had also run for the cover of the forest. The Cretans explained that the Germans would very likely take hostages, and threaten to execute them unless they revealed the whereabouts of the British raiders.

  ‘Then why don’t you give us up to the Germans?’ Nicholson asked. It was a genuine question. The last thing he wanted was to be the excuse for a massacre.

  The villagers had looked at him as if he were insane. Give the British up? It was unthinkable.

  *

  In spite of such dangers, at least Nicholson and Greaves were on the move and heading south. Lassen meanwhile had been forced to lie low for hours on end, his body pressed into a ploughed field and covered in dirt, as German patrols charged about. He was still dangerously close to the airfield, he had no water, and all he had to live off was raw cabbage and onion.

  The Germans who were hunting Lassen and his fellow raiders could have few doubts now who had attacked their airfields. Already the information war had broken out. On receipt of the ‘SUCCESS’ signal, a brief communiqué was issued to the British press: ‘Small British land forces carried out raids on airfields in Crete last night. The operations were successful, a number of enemy aircraft being destroyed on the ground. All our patrols withdrew successfully.’

  To Lassen lying trapped in that cabbage field, his withdrawal doubtless didn’t feel that successful, but the British media pounced on the story anyway. ‘SMASH AND GRAB LAND RAID ON CRETE AIRFIELD’, ran one headline. ‘British troops landed on the Axis-held island of Crete last night. They destroyed large quantities of petrol and many enemy planes before successfully withdrawing …’

  The BBC was also broadcasting its message of hope to the Greek people – one penned by the Political Warfare Executive and specifically designed to counter the German reprisals.

  Special message to the people of Crete. You have heard the communiqué that announces raids in Crete by British forces. You know those forces neither asked for nor received any assistance from local inhabitants. The Germans know this too … The Germans know that you have no responsibility for these raids. If they take any action against you they are committing a breach of International Law. They know well that they will be punished for any outrages they commit. The day is coming when they will pay for all their crimes.

  The German media countered by downplaying the raids: ‘Exploits by British saboteurs are insignificant from a military points of view.’ It also claimed that the British raiders enjoyed little if any local Cretan support: ‘Collaboration on behalf of the local population was completely lacking … If this action signifies the skill of the offensive in the Mediterranean announced by Mr Churchill, the German side wants to … withstand attacks on a much larger scale.’

  *

  Fortunately for Lassen, local Cretan support would continue to prove spirited and outstanding. Towards the evening of the second day the farmer came to tend his cabbage fields. Lassen decided to take the risk of making contact. The Cretan immediately offered help. Once dusk was upon the fields he returned and led Lassen to the nearest village. There he was reunited with both Jones and Georgios, their guide. Jones had been sheltered by the villagers pretty much from the off. As for Georgios, having pointed Nicholson and Greaves towards safety, he’d doubled back to Kastelli to come to the aid of his brother warriors.

  ‘Any maya?’ Lassen kept gasping, ‘maya’ being an Arabic word for water, one that Lassen had picked up in Athlit.

  One after the other Georgios fetched him eight bottles of water, before the Dane’s raging thirst – resulting from forty-eight hours under a burning Cretan sun, surviving on a diet of cabbage and onion salad – was quenched.

  *

  By now, the enemy had begun to wreak their first bloody revenge. The German commander, based in nearby Heraklion town, had taken dozens of villagers hostage. He threatened to shoot them unless the ‘foreign saboteurs’ – their blond, German-speaking leader first and foremost – were handed over. One by one they began to execute the villagers, but still none of the Cretans would talk.

  The executions left Lassen incandescent with rage.

  He and Jones were passed from village to village, as they made their way back towards their coastal base, and the promise of extraction and safety – but at every step of the way they were dogged by rumours of continuing German atrocities.

  It was 8 July – four days after the raids – when they finally rendezvoused with Lamonby’s patrol, plus their radio operators and kit, in the hills above Apoini. The first thing Lassen set about doing was making contact with Cairo headquarters. The message sent, marked ‘Most Immediate – Most Secret – Officer Only’, reveals much about his tortured state of mind, as the local Cretans suffered at the hands of the enemy.

  Sixty-two Greeks shot. Women and children imprisoned. Ten more to be shot daily until our capture. Greeks still helping at risk of lives. Population needs morale boost after misery caused by British troops. Suggest strong air attacks on barracks and daylight strafing if possible.

  By anyone’s reckoning this was a strident cri de cœur. The situation was made all the worse by the fact that the Germans had ‘definitely shot Lt Lassen’s guide’, according to another radio message, this one from Lieutenant Lamonby. All messages sent to Cairo HQ would be picked up, and relayed if necessary, from the main raider base on the Cretan coast. There, Sutherland – the overall mission commander – was growing increasingly worried.

  Sutherland had spent the last two weeks making a thorough reconnaissance of the area, and he had men out watching all the obvious routes for the raiders’ return. So far, only one had made it back. It was A Patrol. Their target, the aerodrome at Tymbaki, had – like Heraklion – proven devoid of any aircraft, and they had seen zero action.

  By ‘D plus 5’, 9 July, Sutherland was starting to feel a real sense of unease at the continued absence of B and C Patrols. They were overdue, and without radio contact he had no idea of what fate might have befallen them. It wasn’t until dawn the following day that he finally got his first positive news. Nicholson and Greaves arrived, fully disguised as Cretan shepherds, and they were able to brief Sutherland on all they had achieved.

  A short while later a Cretan SOE agent – one of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s men – turned up with more news. As feared, the Germans had executed dozens of villagers in retaliation for the raids. But on a more positive note both Lamonby’s and Lassen’s patrols were inbound to Sutherland’s position. Lassen had managed to gather some twenty Cretan men to add to his number, all of whom had helped aid their escape in one way or another. Those Cretans were intent on getting lifted off the island, so they could join the Allies in their fight against the German invaders.

  But with all his patrols having now resurfaced, Sutherland faced a potentially insurmountable problem. Even as his radio operator was making the call to arrange their extraction, his radio died. The batteries had finally given up the ghost. Without being able to send that signal to Raider Force Headquarters, in Cairo, no pick-up boat would come. Sutherland was acutely aware how v
ulnerable they were: hundreds of German soldiers were combing the southern coast, seeking to catch the raiders before they could make their getaway.

  He decided to attempt a makeshift solution. He took the batteries from two of the patrols and linked them up in series, in the hope of raising enough power to send the vital message. Having cobbled them together in that way, his radio operator was finally able to confirm that contact had been made with Raider Force Headquarters in Cairo.

  ‘Request reembarkation urgently night 11th–12th,’ read the message calling in the Motor Launch to pluck them off the coast. ‘Sigs as previously arranged. 12 extra to be taken off. Confirm times date. DUMP requests answer urgently.’

  ‘DUMP’ was the codename for Sutherland’s base. Confirmation was given that the Motor Launch would be there as requested. Now all the raiders could do was wait.

  The ‘12 extra to be taken off’ were those of the Cretan partisans that Lassen had drawn with him who wanted to join up with Allied forces. They were a colourful and lively bunch. Armed with ancient, bone-handled daggers and even older-looking guns, their traditional black Cretan hats framed their lined, weatherbeaten features. They were the proud people of a proud nation that had been crushed under the Nazi jackboot, and to a man they thirsted to fight. The main challenge was keeping them quiet and well hidden, as the raiders waited for the pick-up boat to arrive that coming night.

  Suddenly, a cry rang out from one of the sentries: ‘Jerries!’

  Two German soldiers were wandering down the dry river valley in which the raider force was secreted. Moments later they were pounced upon by a dozen commandos bristling with weapons, and they promptly surrendered. But Sutherland knew that where there were two Germans, more were bound to follow. He organized search parties, but it was now that the Cretan fighters decided to take matters into their own hands. As one they rushed up the valley to take the fight to the hated enemy.

  Shots rang out. The two German captives had been part of a larger patrol. Those enemy soldiers still at large fought a skilful retreat, falling back among the cover of the rocks and beating off the Cretan attackers. Sutherland was beside himself. This was a near-disaster. The gunshots would be audible for many miles around, and if the Germans escaped they would bring reinforcement in real numbers. The Motor Launch wasn’t due for several hours, and in the interim the raiders were pinned with their backs to the sea.