The Ariadne Objective: The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis - Hardcover

Davis, Wes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307460134 ISBN 13: 9780307460134

Publisher: Crown, 2013

Synopsis

A committed band of partisans were a thorn in the side of the German occupiers of Crete from May 1941, with an unlikely group of British spies organizing, orchestrating and supplying them. This book tells the story of the operatives, including future travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, John Pendlebury and Xan Fielding, who lived in the Cretan mountains for years conducting sabotage operations culminating in the abduction of the German commanding officer. American-cut pages.

About this title

About the Author

WES DAVIS served for two years as an assistant to the director of excavations at Kavousi in Eastern Crete, not far from the plateau where Patrick Leigh Fermor parachuted onto the island during WWII. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University and is a former assistant professor of English at Yale University.  Editor of the Harvard University Press Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, he has written for publications that include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Nation.

Reviews

The Nazi invasion of Crete in 1941, spearheaded by an innovative airborne assault, was rapid, efficient, and brutal; the subsequent Cretan resistance was prolonged, vicious, and successful in that it tied down large numbers of German troops. The brunt of the resistance fighting fell upon Cretan partisans and civilians, many of whom were massacred in Nazi reprisal raids. Also playing an important role was a group of amateur British adventurers, including classical scholars, archaeologists, and writers motivated by streaks of romanticism. They were led by Patrick Leigh Fermor, who had wandered extensively across the eastern Mediterranean as a teenager. Aided by their ability to speak Greek, they holed up in the mountains, gathered intelligence for the partisans, and joined them in guerilla raids. Eventually, they engineered an audacious and successful plot to kidnap a German general. Davis, a writer and professor who took part in excavations on Crete, recounts the activities of these men in an exciting, tense narrative that unfolds like an espionage novel. --Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307460134
• ISBN 13: 9780307460134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352