Abducting a General

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179390
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
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.

Abducting a General

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1444796593
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
A daring behind-enemy-lines mission from the author of A Time of Gifts and The Broken Road, who was once described by the BBC as 'a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene'. Although a story often told, this is the first time Patrick Leigh Fermor's own account of the kidnapping of General Kriepe, has been published. One of the greatest feats in Patrick Leigh Fermor's remarkable life was the kidnapping of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete, on 26 April 1944. He and Captain Billy Moss hatched a daring plan to abduct the general, while ensuring that no reprisals were taken against the Cretan population. Dressed as German military police, they stopped and took control of Kreipe's car, drove through twenty-two German checkpoints, then succeeded in hiding from the German army before finally being picked up on a beach in the south of the island and transported to safety in Egypt on 14 May. Abducting a General is Leigh Fermor's own account of the kidnap, published for the first time. Written in his inimitable prose, and introduced by acclaimed Special Operations Executive historian Roderick Bailey, it is a glorious first-hand 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 yet still retaining his remarkable prose skills, which bring the immediacy of SOE operations vividly alive, as well as the peril which the SOE and Resistance were operating under; and a guide to the journey that Kreipe was taken on, as seen in the 1957 film Ill Met by Moonlight starring Dirk Bogarde, from the abandonment of his car to the embarkation site so that the modern visitor can relive this extraordinary event.

Kidnap in Crete

Author: Rick Stroud
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632861941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
This is the story of how a small SOE unit led by Patrick Leigh Fermor kidnapped a German general on the Nazi-occupied island of Crete in 1944. For thirty-two days, they were chased across the mountains as they headed for the coast and a rendezvous with a Royal Navy launch waiting to spirit the general to Cairo. Rick Stroud, whose Phantom Army of Alamein won plaudits for its meticulous research and its lightness of touch in the telling, brings these same gifts to bear in this new project. From the adrenalin rush of the kidnapping, to the help provided by the Cretan partisans and people, he explains the overall context of Crete's role in World War II and reveals the devastating consequences of this mission for them all. There have been other accounts, but Kidnap in Crete is the first book to draw on all the sources, notably those in Crete as well as SOE files and the accounts, letters, and private papers of its operatives in London and Edinburgh.

Ill Met By Moonlight

Author: W. Stanley Moss
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1780228805
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Book Description
NOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY W. STANLEY MOSS'S DAUGHTER GABRIELLA BULLOCK AND AN AFTERWORD BY PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR Ill Met By Moonlight is the true story of one of the most hazardous missions of the Second World War. W. Stanley Moss is a young British officer who, along with Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, sets out in Nazi-occupied Crete to kidnap General Kreipe, Commander of the Sevastopool Division, and narrowly escaping the German manhunt, bring him off the island - a vital prisoner for British intelligence. As an account of derring-do and wartime adventure, made into a classic film starring Dirk Bogarde, Ill Met By Moonlight is one of the most brilliantly written, exciting and compelling stories to come out of the Second World War.

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Author: Artemis Cooper
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 184854670X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 506

Book Description
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his cloest friends as well as having complete access to his archives. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.

A Time to Keep Silence

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1848547021
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 65

Book Description
From the French Abbey of St Wandrille to the abandoned and awesome Rock Monasteries of Cappadocia in Turkey, the celebrated travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor studies the rigorous contemplative lives of the monks and the timeless beauty of their monastic surroundings. In his occasional retreats, the peaceful solitude and the calm enchantment of the monasteries was passed on as a kind of 'supernatural windfall' which A Time to Keep Silence so effortlessly records.

A Stolen Life

Author: Jaycee Dugard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857207148
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
A raw and powerful memoir of Jaycee Lee Dugard's own story of being kidnapped as an 11-year-old and held captive for over 18 years On 10 June 1991, eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in Tahoe, California. It was the last her family and friends saw of her for over eighteen years. On 26 August 2009, Dugard, her daughters, and Phillip Craig Garrido appeared in the office of her kidnapper's parole officer in California. Their unusual behaviour sparked an investigation that led to the positive identification of Jaycee Lee Dugard, living in a tent behind Garrido's home. During her time in captivity, at the age of fourteen and seventeen, she gave birth to two daughters, both fathered by Garrido. Dugard's memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.

The Cretan Runner

Author: George Psychoundakis
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179056
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
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.

A Time of Gifts

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175174
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written. At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor’s book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube. At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.

Between the Woods and the Water

Author: Patrick Leigh Fermor
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 184854524X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Book Description
The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges.