Abducting a General - Patrick Leigh Fermor

 Basically, Abducting a General is the other half, or alternate view, of the General Kreipe abduction on Crete in the first half of 1944.   Paddy Leigh Fermor and Billy Moss were the British officers in charge and it the initial proposal was Paddy's, developing a much vaguer idea mooted to him by Xan Fielding.   Paddy was a major, senior to and older than Captain Billy Moss but it was Moss who had the big success with his account, Ill Met by Moonlight (reviewed earlier on this blog).  Fermor was himself a literary man but held off writing his account until thirty years or so after Billy's death.   It was partly published in a WW2 magazine and went largely unnoticed.  This version, published by John Murray in 2014, after Paddy too had died, is a reconstruction from the papers he left behind, with helpful introductory notes and extremely useful reports from the field retrieved from the War Office.

The facts don't alter - after all, Paddy was involved with Moss's books and indeed most other accounts.   He translated The Cretan Runner into English and was a source for Antony Beevor's scholarly account which in turn has deep reciprocal links with the works of Beevor's wife, Artemis Cooper, whose biography of Fermor and study of wartime Cairo are both reviewed on this blog.   What makes Paddy's account different is persepective.   He lived a very long life and had time for the deepest reflection.   For much of the time he and Moss were on Crete in 1944 they operated separately, Moss escorting the abducted General while Fermor hurried everywhere across the island meeting contacts and other agents, all of whom he knew, whereas Moss knew none.

In terms of describing the action, Moss is probably the better read.   In terms of understanding the machinations of the Special Operations Executive and the sheer courage of the Cretan resistance, I prefer this.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, An Adventure - Artemis Cooper

 This is a superb account of a long life, well lived.  Fermor was a son of the Raj, brought up by effectively a single mother, who failed at school and, aged 18, set off to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople, an adventure which changed his life.

Fermor was great at languages and making friends.   These skills brought him out of Rumania in 1939 and into the Intelligence Corps.   From there it was the Special Operations Executive and undercover work on what the Nazis called Fortress Crete.   Medals and public recognition came with the abduction of General Heinrich Kreipe in 1944 (see my review of Ill Met by Moonlight, below).

After the war Fermor settled in Greece and became a famous travel writer.  Ultimately this led to a knighthood.  He died, aged 96, in 2011.

I have already commented on Cooper's literary DNA and skills (see my review of her Cairo, below).  By the time she wrote this, in 2012, her skills had developed even further.   Once you know about her, it's good fun to see how she underplays her famial links with Fermor in the final third of the book.   Her husband visits him in Greece, but she doesn't mention herself being there.   Her father and grandmother were close friends with Fermor and she herself has a Greek forename.   Coincidence?

But that's just an extra for those in the know.   Anyone would derive tremendous pleasure from this book.   It is a rare gift to be able to write about war, travel and the making of books with equal care and aplomb.

Cairo in the War - Artemis Cooper

 Artemis Cooper might be defined as heritage writer.  The books she writes are connected with her heritage as the granddaughter of Duff Cooper, politician, diplomat and military historian, and the aristocrat actress Lady Diana; daughter of aristocrat and writer John Julius Norwich, and wife to military historian Antony Beevor.   Her themes are perfectly encapsulated here, the scandalous story of the cultural broth that made Cairo infamous during World War II.

Cairo was then a British protectorate - not quite part of the Empire but effectively ruled from London.  The British expats, and the first wave of military commanders stationed there, were either Raj, posh or risque, sometimes all three.   This is not really the story of the ordinary infantryman, a long way from home in an alien climate, though they are mentioned.

We have the highly dubious royal family, led by the notorious King Farouk, initially in his youthful pomp, latterly at the start of his long debauched decline.  In public the royals are devout Muslims, behind closed doors they are boozing and copulating with the everyone else.

The war becomes a reality with Rommel's advance through the desert.  Cairo survives.  Then the war-story turns to the Special Operations Executive, with Cairo the base for operations supporting resistance movements in Greece, Crete and the Balkans.

It is incredibly well done.  The characters are expertly summarised and Cooper somehow makes it easy for her reader to keep track of the various cliques and conspiracies.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.