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.
