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

by Damien Lewis

  He ordered Lamonby to take four men to stop the Cretans from firing, and then to deal with the Germans. The gunfire died down and the Cretans wandered back to base, but without Lamonby or his men. Finally, as dusk fell the main force of raiders headed for the beach and their rendezvous with the Motor Launch. Inflatables were made ready and loaded with gear. Finally the four raiders returned, but still there was no sign of Lamonby.

  Apparently, Lamonby had insisted on going on alone to deal with the Germans. Desperate to bring him in, Sutherland sent Lassen and Pomford, two of his prize fighters, to investigate. As they headed up the dry river valley, a single shot rang out. It echoed back-and-forth across the enclosed space, ominously. They pressed ahead, calling out to Lamonby: ‘Ken! Ken!’ Not a word of reply came from the silent hills. Lassen and Pomford continued searching until just before the Motor Launch was due, when they were forced to make a dash for the beachside evacuation point.

  By now Paddy Leigh Fermor had arrived, so he could see the raiding force safely off ‘his’ island. Leigh Fermor offered to continue the search for Lamonby once the raiders were gone. One way or another, they would find the missing man.

  And so, as the faint hint of sunrise lightened the eastern sky, Sutherland’s raiders sailed away from Crete, their ranks swollen with a dozen Cretan partisans, but sadly minus one of their own – Lieutenant Lamonby. Lassen hoped and prayed that his friend might be injured, or perhaps have twisted an ankle in the rocks. If Leigh Fermor’s men found Lamonby, they’d be able to bring him out at a later date.

  *

  As the Motor Launch slipped into the darkness, Sutherland was able to breathe a long sigh of relief. His raiders had managed to escape from the encircling enemy, complete with their two German prisoners. They’d left behind them one German airbase and an ammunition and fuel dump in smoking ruins. Even so, the execution of the innocent Cretan villagers weighed heavily upon them all: it would not be forgotten.

  Lassen vowed to learn the name of the German commanding officer on Crete who had ordered the executions, and exact revenge.

  Much of the German weaponry captured during the raids the men would keep for themselves, for it was far superior to British kit. It also meant they could scavenge ammunition off the enemy when out on operations. In fact, a great deal of their uniform and other kit – not to mention watches, and personal gear – was taken off the enemy dead. They favoured Italian boots and water bottles, but German weaponry and ammo wherever they could find it.

  One of the prisoners had been captured with his self-loading rifle – a Walther G43, a real prize for the raiders. It was a cutting-edge piece of German engineering, and it would be handed over to British high command, yielding an intelligence bonanza. The German prisoner who’d yielded up that Walther G43 had been an English student before the war. As a result he spoke excellent English, and turned out to be a friendly-enough kind of a fellow. Before returning to Raiding Force Headquarters, in Cairo, for mission debriefings, Lassen and his men took both their German captives – Ulrich and Heinz – for ice cream sodas in Groppi’s, their favourite café and one of Cairo’s most famous eateries.

  That evening the prisoners were left in the care of Nicholson and Greaves, as Lassen and Sutherland were busy. Nicholson and Greaves didn’t exactly fancy a night in, baby-sitting two German captives. So they sneaked back to Groppi’s for an evening meal for four. They cautioned Ulrich and Heinz to keep their heads down, for Groppi’s was crawling with British and Allied officers. Dinner seeming to have gone down all right, they retired to the cinema to enjoy a movie, before rounding off the night with a few drinks in a local café.

  Ulrich and Heinz had several years as prisoners of war ahead of them. They perhaps deserved one last night of comparative liberty, courtesy of the Special Forces raiders. As with many Germans, the average foot soldier was neither markedly better nor worse than his equivalent in the Allied forces. It was the misguided architects of Nazism – the kind of men who believed the execution of fifty Cretan villagers was justified – who were the focus of the raiders’ ire.

  Perhaps inevitably, Cairo Headquarters found out about the way in which the two German prisoners had been treated. The high-ups were furious, and they attempted to take it out on Sutherland. The lean, ruggedly handsome Special Forces commander gave an easy-going laugh, and pointed out that at least the prisoners had been handed over in a positive and cooperative frame of mind.

  *

  Sutherland’s report on Operation Albumen – marked ‘MOST SECRET – OFFICER ONLY’, and written in the immediate aftermath of the mission – emphasizes what an incredible feat the raiders had pulled off: ‘This operation I consider to be one of the most physically exacting ever undertaken by Special Services troops in the Middle East, since distances of well over 100 miles of mountain country were covered by night over a period of three weeks in enemy occupied territory … The results achieved are a tribute to the leadership, keenness and determination of the patrol commanders and all ranks concerned.’

  In his contribution to that report Lassen writes in glowing terms of his wingman, Ray Jones. ‘Throughout the operation and especially during the attacks, the coolness under fire, determination and keenness of 1469628 Gnr. Jones was of the highest order … by attracting attention to ourselves, we permitted Sgt Nicholson and Cpl Greaves to carry out a successful attack from the Eastern side.’

  But for Lassen, the Kastelli raid and those that had gone before – Sark first and foremost – would also weigh heavily upon him. As he explained to a new recruit: ‘Never use your knife if you can avoid it. If you have to kill – then shoot. I have at times been forced to use my knife – it’s terrible.’

  *

  The very night that they had hit Kastelli and Heraklion, Operation Husky and the Allied invasion of Sicily had begun – its success at least partly due to the number of German warplanes destroyed at Kastelli.

  In his top secret after-action report, Jellicoe outlined the key role the raids played in safeguarding the Operation Husky convoys from air attack: ‘As enemy aircraft known to be in the Athens area could have been transferred to Cretan airfields … the patrols, apart from the destruction they wrought, provided a good insurance against such a danger. No air attack was made on the slow HUSKY convoys.’

  Italian resistance on Sicily crumbled, and the Allies thrust rapidly northwards onto the Italian mainland. By the start of September the Italians had sued for peace, signing an armistice with the Allies on 3 September 1943.

  But the Germans were having none of it. They moved swiftly to reinforce Italian-held territory with their own troops, in effect forcing the Italians to fight on against the Allies, or to turn against their erstwhile German comrades. Either way, Operation Husky had drawn blood: it had pulled huge numbers of German troops away from northern Europe to the defence of Italy. The battle for Europe’s ‘underbelly’ was well and truly joined.

  Immediately after the success of Operation Albumen, Sutherland recommended several of his men for decorations. There were Military Medals for Dick Holmes, Jack Nicholson, Ray Jones and Sydney Greaves, plus a bar to his Military Cross for Lassen.

  Lassen’s citation read: ‘Pretending to be a German officer he bluffed his way past three sentries … Throughout this attack, and during the very arduous approach march, the keenness, determination and personal disregard of danger of this officer was of the highest order.’

  Sutherland would also earn a bar to his own MC for the raid on Crete. But before any of the decorations could be awarded, there was dark and difficult news awaiting those who had done so well during the recent raids.

  Upon their return to Athlit, Lassen and Nicholson – the Small Scale Raiding Force veterans – learned that tragedy had struck. At around midnight on 12 July 1943 – just as they had made it safely off Crete – Geoffrey Appleyard had been killed. Banned from combat operations due to illness and exhaustion, Appleyard had still insisted on accompanying his men on a mission over Sicily, though he
would not join the parachute drop itself.

  The Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle aircraft – a twin-engined British troop transport – had dropped her parachutists at 2330 hours on the 12th, but never made it back to base. There had been intense anti-aircraft fire over the drop zone and the Albermarle had most likely disappeared somewhere over Sicily. Appleyard and all others aboard her were lost in action, presumed dead.

  In a chilling coincidence, just a few hours after Appleyard’s death Graham Hayes – the other Maid Honour founding original – was executed by the Gestapo. He was shot by firing squad in Paris on 13 July, after spending approaching a year in captivity.

  By the end of the second week of July 1943, all bar one of the Maid Honour founding fathers – March-Phillipps, Appleyard, Hayes: M’s pioneering SOE agent-commandos – were dead, killed at the hands of the enemy.

  Only Lassen remained.

  Worse was to come. It was confirmed that Lamonby – one of Lassen’s closest friends in Athlit, and the man they’d been forced to leave behind on Crete – was dead. Wounded by the German enemy that he’d been hunting, Lamonby had died at a local hospital.

  *

  In exchange for the dozen or so warplanes destroyed, the fuel dumps blown up, and the death and injury caused among his own forces, the German commander on Crete had already exacted terrible revenge. One British raider – Lamonby – had been killed, and fifty-two Cretan villagers had been executed. As Sutherland wrote in his report on the Crete raids: ‘… as a result of reprisals, a state of terror exists throughout the area.’

  ‘I was appalled …’ remarked Jellicoe, of those massacres. ‘There was a very, very strong mutual bond and this was something that Andy [Lassen] was very responsive to. He understood almost instinctively the people and had a great feeling for them, especially I think “un-grand” people – he was frightfully good with Greek fishermen and Greek peasants, and with their wives and families. It meant a great deal to him, that connection.’

  But Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller – the dreaded ‘Butcher of Crete’ – was far from done yet. On 14 September 1943 he issued his now infamous directive to the men of the 22 Luftlande Infanterie-Division. By anyone’s reckoning, Müller’s orders were extreme. His men were to lay waste to the entire region of Viannos – long a hotbed of resistance, and the principal area wherein the British raiders had been sheltered – a place of simple mountainside villages, each consisting of clusters of low, white-walled houses lining labyrinthine dirt streets. They were to execute all males over the age of sixteen, plus anyone seized in the countryside regardless of their gender or age.

  In response to that order, two thousand German soldiers threw a wall of steel around the target area. They spent the first few hours rounding up locals and insisting that their intentions were ‘entirely peaceful’. Some of the Cretan males foolishly believed them, and were persuaded to come out from hiding in the forests. Mass executions followed, interspersed with dynamiting properties, torture, looting and burning down buildings.

  Some forty-eight hours later 500 or more Cretans from twenty separate hamlets had been executed, and a further 200 had been taken captive. Many of the villages – Kato Symi, Amiras, Pefkos, Agios, Loutraki, Mythoi, Christos – had been burned to the ground. The survivors were forbidden to return to the smoking ruins of their homes, or even bury their dead.

  In short, Viannos had been rendered into a ghost land.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jellicoe, Sutherland, Nicholson and Lassen all knew that the average German soldier was no more guilty in this war than the average Brit or Dane. They were conscripts, and they too were the victims of the Nazi regime. It was the senior commanders – those who blindly followed Hitler’s will; those who ordered the massacre of hundreds of Cretan civilians – who took the lion’s share of the blame.

  ‘I am so poor at hating,’ Lassen had been heard to say. ‘I believe I would even be able to shake hands with the Germans … once Denmark is free again.’

  *

  After Crete, Churchill issued orders to Jellicoe that his freelance pirates should do as had been done in coastal Europe: they should set ‘the Aegean aflame’. With fierce fighting underway in Italy – and with German forces putting up stiff resistance – Churchill knew there weren’t the conventional forces available in the Allied ranks to take the Greek Islands, so Jellicoe’s raiders would have to muddle through.

  ‘There is no time for conventional establishments,’ Churchill urged, ‘but rather for using whatever fighting elements there are …’

  Jellicoe’s raiders were to spread terror in the German ranks across the necklaces of islands strung through the waters of eastern Mediterranean. Those islands provided air and sea bases to support the German stand in Italy, and Churchill wanted those targets hit hard.

  Yet at the same time Britain’s Prime Minister decreed that aid should go to the native villagers – ground down under the Nazi jackboot; many close to starvation – to help them through the worst. And so was born the concept of ‘hearts-and-minds’ operations.

  With Sutherland and Lassen’s help, Jellicoe cajoled and bribed local Lebanese seamen into putting a fleet of ancient caiques – traditional wooden fishing boats somewhat reminiscent of the Maid Honour of old – at their disposal, forming a fleet that they christened the Levant Schooner Flotilla. So began a series of combined raiding and hearts-and-minds operations – taking food and supplies to local islanders, while striking hard and fast against the German enemy.

  The fame of the fearless blond Viking warrior who led many of those missions, and who drew the locals to him as naturally as a river follows its course, spread like wildfire. So too did the fear he inspired in the hearts of the senior German officers, those who had become Lassen’s all-consuming target. One of them would write in a letter to his commander – a letter that was captured by the raiders: ‘The British come like cats and disappear like ghosts.’

  Jellicoe and his men could have wished for no better endorsement for the war they were waging.

  *

  With Italian resistance crumbling, no one knew for sure the status of the Italian garrisons manning many of the Greek Islands. Would they stand and fight, or would they throw their lot in with the British? The Italians feared both the Allied attacks they knew must come, and their erstwhile allies, the Germans. And they feared too the Greeks – those whose menfolk made up the resistance, and who secretly sheltered the British raiders.

  The Italian troops had been issued with a briefing document urging them to be on their highest guard regarding the Greek islanders. It summed up their commanders’ worries regarding the long-suffering but spirited locals: ‘Although apparently passive, the Greek population is very hostile to you. You are surrounded by enemies … who are ready to attack you if you take the slightest risk.’

  Jellicoe ordered his men to prioritize three targets lying to the far eastern end of the Mediterranean, just off the coast of Turkey: the island of Leros, with its seaplane base and floating submarine dock; Cos, with its three landing strips, plus the southernmost island, Symi. Symi would be the first hit, as it was seen as being the stepping stone to the others.

  All three are situated in the Dodecanese island chain, in the Aegean Sea, the stretch of water lying between Greece and Turkey. Turkey had ruled the Dodecanese until 1912, when the Italians seized the archipelago. In the autumn of 1943 the islands remained Italian territory, though populated almost entirely by native Greeks.

  At the port of Haifa, just to the north of Athlit, Jellicoe, Sutherland, Lassen and their men readied the Levant Schooner Flotilla. In using the caiques – those often ungainly-looking 10–30-tonne wooden fishing boats, powered mostly by sail – as their raiding craft, they were aiming, to sneak past the enemy, just as they had managed with the Maid Honour. They would pose as local Greek or Turkish fishermen, or when the circumstances demanded it they would fly the German or Italian flag.

  They developed a system to navigate at night,
and a near-perfect system of camouflage. Navigation had to be basic yet foolproof – a method that enabled young officers with little or no seafaring experience to travel long distances to land troops on an exact spot. It had to work with vessels showing no lights sailing in the depths of the night. The method developed, based upon easily identifiable silhouettes, was simplicity itself. Basically, a course was set by compass for a specific point, at which an unmistakable landmark would appear on the port or starboard bow – say a dog-shaped mountain. That sighted, a new course would be set to another landmark, the caique thus zigzagging her way to her intended destination.

  From the regular armed forces they managed to beg, borrow and steal some standard camouflage netting. It was re-engineered using a different scrim – the scraps of cloth tied to the netting – to suit the colouring and texture of the island shoreline. The standard scrim reflected too much light; it needed to be a dull, dark grey to blend in with the rocks. Up and down the coast they sailed between Haifa and Athlit, mooring here and there at sunset, sunrise and midday, testing out different combinations of scrim, and the best way to drape the netting so as to break up the boat’s outline.

  Next they asked a friendly RAF pilot to overfly one of the caiques they’d camouflaged, to search for it with the naked eye and photograph its position. The pilot failed to spot the craft, and on the recce photos it appeared like a continuation of the shoreline. Camouflage and navigation thus perfected, the raiders felt able to sail far into enemy territory posing either as locals or as the enemy, and remain hidden when moored along the shoreline. The further they pressed into hostile seas the safer they hoped to be, for no German or Italian would expect them, or be on the look-out for a British raiding party.