Cretan resistance

The Cretan resistance (Κρητική Αντίσταση) was a resistance movement against the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by the residents of the Greek island of Crete during World War II. Part of the larger Greek resistance, it lasted from 20 May 1941, when the German Wehrmacht invaded the island in the Battle of Crete, until the spring of 1945 when they surrendered to the British. For the first time during World War II, attacking German forces faced in Crete a substantial resistance from the local population. In the Battle of Crete, Cretan civilians picked off paratroopers or attacked them with knives, axes, scythes or even bare hands. As a result, many casualties were inflicted upon the invading German paratroopers during the battle. The Cretan resistance movement was formed very soon after the Battle of Crete, with an initial planning meeting on 31 May 1941. It brought together a number of different groups and leaders and was initially termed the PMK (Πατριωτικó Μέτωπο Κρήτης – Patriotic Front of Crete), but later changed the name to EAM (Εθνικó Απελευθερωτικó Μέτωπο – National Liberation Front) like the principal communist-led resistance movement on the mainland. The primary objective of the movement, on the one hand, was to support the Cretan people under occupation by boosting morale, providing information, and distributing of food at a time of great deprivation (due to confiscations by the Germans and Italians), and on the other hand to undertake certain operations against the Germans, including a number of sabotage operations. Following German atrocities, well over 100,000 Cretan civilians would take an active part in the resistance as armed insurgents, operating in both the countryside and urban areas, with tens of thousands more acting as informants and saboteurs. Resistance in Crete involved figures such as Patrick Leigh Fermor, George Psychoundakis, George Petrakogiorgis, Manolis Bandouvas, Antonis Grigorakis, Kostis Petrakis, John Lewis, Tom Dunbabin, Dudley Perkins, Sandy Rendel, John Houseman, Xan Fielding, Dennis Ciclitira, Ralph Stockbridge and Bill Stanley Moss.