The Cretan Runner (Penguin World War II Collection)

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Psychoundakis, Georgio (1991) [1955], The Cretan Runner: His Story of the German Occupation, Fermor, PL transl, ISBN 0-7195-3475-5 [6] Psychoundakis’s effortlessly poetic account reflected a passionate love of his homeland and its people, a geologist’s and botanist’s eye, chortling bemusement at the habits of the upper-class British agents, and deep comradeship with his fellow resistance fighters.

If you were doing a thorough study of the conflict in Crete this would be a must read. If you don't know much about the conflict there this is probably too narrow of a subject and limited in scope to be the first thing to read. George must have a brilliant memory for people, names and places but I must admit they did become a little blurred, not helped by an insufficient map of the island at the start of the book , The Cretan runners performed exceptional feats and made essential contributions to the British operations in the Mediterranean. In 490 BC Pheidippides ran 42km from the battle of Marathon to tell about the victory over the Persians, and died just after delivering his message. In comparison, Psychoundakis ran from Kastelli-Kissamou on the northwestern coast of Crete to Paleochora on the southwestern coast in one night. The distance along the present main road is 45km. Through a rugged landscape with deep ravines, where he had to run to avoid the Germans, the distance may have been twice as far. Plowman, Jeffrey (2013). War in the Balkans: The Battle for Greece and Crete 1940–1941. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-78159-248-9. Moss, William Stanley (2014) [1950]. Ill Met by Moonlight. London: Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-78022-623-1.The book has at once a calm of a race which takes it for granted that life is full of death, and the excitement of a fighter who wildly enjoys his own part of the dangerous business. It is full of jokes and full of pride. Ogden, Alan (2012). Sons of Odysseus, SOE Heroes in Greece. London: Bene Factum Publishing. ISBN 978-1-903071-44-1. George was a foot-soldier who did nothing glamorous but whose, and other Cretans like him, efforts were essential in harassing the Germans and helping the Allied war effort.

When the moon rose he got up and threw a last swig of raki down his throat with the words Another drop of petrol for the engine, and loped towards the gap in the bushes with the furtiveness of a stage Mohican or Groucho Marx. He turned round when he was on all fours at the exit, rolled his eyes, raised a forefinger portentously, whispered, "the Intelligence Service", and scuttled through like a rabbit. A few minutes later we could see his small figure a mile away moving across the next moonlit fold of the foothills of the White Mountains, bound for another fifty-mile journey. [2] Likewise, reading The Cretan Runner, the volume of short tales, events, of fighting the Germans as Cretan resistance seem repetitive at times, but the reader feels guilt jumping, avoiding the narrative. The actions of these brave, resisting individuals have led to comparative freedom for much of the western world for the past seventy years – albeit high dependency and impoverishment in many developing countries, as well as within the so-called advanced economies.

Any fresh volume on the subject would need to be exceptional. The Cretan Runner not only competes but transcends; it is not exceptional, it is unique. Continuing my recent theme of reading about SOE (the Special Operations Executive), I was pleased to get round to reading The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis, a man who delivered messages for the British officers organising Cretan resistance to the German and Italian Occupation in Crete, 1941-1945.

The book did provide a good flavour of what it must have been like to a) live in a Nazi occupied country b) how ordinary folk rallied to the cause and c) how the British by and large co-ordinated much of the resistance effort.

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Kiriakopoulos, G. C. (1995). The Nazi Occupation of Crete, 1941–1945. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-95277-0. The book has at once a calm of a race which takes it for granted that life is full of death, and the excitement of a fighter who wildly enjoys his own part of the dangerous business. It is full of jokes and full of pride.”— Sunday Times This reads very much as a journal chronicling everyday events as well as an uncommon time. This means that parts are repetitive (think about your own daily life—many people get up, go to work at various but similar tasks, and then go home each day). George was a messenger who hiked through rugged country carrying notes, sometimes without incident, sometimes encountering danger. He was not the commander writing these messages and his understanding of the overarching Allied forces strategy was limited.