CRETE• 121Egypt, to the secluded beaches scattered along Crete’s southern
coastline.Xan Fieldingattempted to use this method late in Decem-
ber when he was infiltrated into western Crete with a seven-man team
consisting of a wireless operator, Reg Everson; an Australian ser-
geant, Guy Delaney; a World War I veteran named Guy Turrell; and
four Cretan graduates of the Haifa Special Training School, but bad
weather had dictated the employment of a submarine, HMSTorbay.
By the middle of 1942 Crete had been divided into three sectors,
each commanded by an SOE officer.Patrick Leigh Fermorand an
Australian, Tom Dunbabin, the former assistant director of the British
School of Archeology in Athens, would join Fielding, together with
another wireless operator, Sergeant Alec Starves. Later, Fielding was
replaced by Smith-Hughes’s staff officer, Dennis Ciclitira, and a New
Zealander, Sergeant Dudley (‘‘Kiwi’’) Perkins, who was killed in a
German ambush in February 1944.
The kinds of political problems that were to hamper SIS and SOE
perpetually in Crete were manifested at an early stage when a three-
man, all-Greek SIS team led by Stelio Papaderos abandoned its mis-
sion to set up a radio in the White Mountains because of what were
politely termed ‘‘irreconcilable differences.’’ Papaderos was evacu-
ated to Cairo, leaving in the field his two Inter-Services Liaison De-
partment colleagues, who had insisted on limiting their local recruits
to only EAM/ELASsupporters. The island’s ELAS commanders
were determined to thwart SIS and SOE, partly because of the repri-
sals inflicted upon the local civilians, which made the British-spon-
sored resistance groups unpopular, but also because of the declared
official British policy of supporting the eventual establishment of a
democratic form of government, headed by a constitutional monarch.
The Communists not only opposed the king’s return but also capital-
ized off other, more moderate republicans. Nor was opposition to the
king’s return limited to the Communists. The rival EAM (National
Liberation Front) was equally unenthusiastic about the prospect of
the king’s return, although this was practically the only matter on
which the two resistance organizations were agreed. Fielding admits
to having been ‘‘naive enough to imagine that the two parties would
cooperate in perfect amity,’’ but was to be disappointed. He recalls
going ‘‘out of my way to meet and hold discussions with the rival
leaders whenever I could. But every conference ended in the same