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

Davis, Wes

ISBN 10: 0307460134 / ISBN 13: 9780307460134

Editore: Crown, 2013

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Other than a small mark on the lower text block, this is an extremely tight and unmarked copy-" A committed band of partisans was 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." 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.".

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Ariadne Objective: The Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis
• Editore: Crown
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0307460134
• ISBN 13: 9780307460134
• Rilegatura: Brossura
• Condizione: As New

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

The incredible true story of the World War II spies, including Patrick Leigh Fermor and John Pendlebury, who fought to save Crete and block Hitler's march to the East.

In the bleakest years of World War II, when it appeared that nothing could slow the German army, Hitler set his sights on the Mediterranean island of Crete, the ideal staging ground for German domination of the Middle East. But German command had not counted on the eccentric band of British intelligence officers who would stand in their way, conducting audacious sabotage operations in the very shadow of the Nazi occupation force.

The Ariadne Objective tells the remarkable story of the secret war on Crete from the perspective of these amateur soldiers – scholars, archaeologists, writers – who found themselves serving as spies in Crete because, as one of them put it, they had made “the obsolete choice of Greek at school”: Patrick Leigh Fermor, a Byronic figure and future travel-writing luminary who as a teenager had walked across Europe in the midst of Hitler's rise to power; John Pendlebury, a swashbuckling archaeologist with a glass eye and a swordstick, who had been legendary archeologist Arthur Evans's assistant at Knossos before the war; Xan Fielding, a writer who would later produce the English translations of books likeBridge over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes; and Sandy Rendel, a futureTimes of London reporter, who prided himself on a disguise that left him looking more ragged and fierce than the Cretan mountaineers he fought alongside.

Infiltrated into occupied Crete, these British gentleman spies teamed with Cretan partisans to carry out a cunning plan to disrupt Nazi maneuvers, culminating in a daring, high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. In this thrilling untold story of World War II, Wes Davis offers a brilliant portrait of a group of legends in the making, against the backdrop of one of the war’s most exotic locales.

Informazioni sull?autore

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 PressAnthology of Modern Irish Poetry, he has written for publications that include theNew York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Nation.