122 • CRETE
way with the EAM supporters demanding that I arrange for arms to
be dropped to them while at the same time refusing to accept my
suggestions as to how those arms should be distributed and used.’’
Betrayals were frequent and ELAS often deliberately wrecked
plans by threatening to announce the whereabouts of British person-
nel to the enemy. At least one SOE wireless operator, a Cretan named
Manoli, was sold to the Germans, and the feuding probably ac-
counted for the deaths of several others, including two sergeant ma-
jors, a Coldstreamer, and a New Zealander attached to an SOE
mission led by Ciclitira. This perpetual conflict, combined with a
complete disregard for security, ‘‘where careless talk was the rule
rather than the exception,’’ and the very high proportion of air-
dropped supplies lost made Crete extremely dangerous. Many of
these losses were accounted for by the inhospitable terrain, but theft
was also a significant factor. Mission leaders, who naturally were
obliged to organize reception committees, found it difficult to per-
suade their more enthusiastic recruits to be discreet, and the majority
of parachuted containers routinely went missing after each drop.
The continuing rivalry in Cairo between Edward Dillon’s SIS sec-
tion and SOE jeopardized efficiency, although relations between the
missions on the ground were always good, chiefly because the
chronic shortage of wireless operators and sets obliged each organi-
zation to rely to some extent on cooperation from the other. In Sep-
tember 1942, communications became so desperate that Flight
Sergeant Joe Bradley, a radioman who had bailed out over Crete
from a stricken bomber during a raid on the Kastelli airfield, was co-
opted by an SOE mission and retained as its wireless operator, rather
than being passed down anMI9line for repatriation.
SOE’s first major operation, conceived in 1942, was designed to
wreck German plans to refloat HMSYork, which was lying damaged
in Suda Bay. The enemy was rumored to be about to refloat the bat-
tleship, and the Royal Navy was especially anxious to prevent this
from happening. The selection of Arthur Reade as the saboteur gives
credence to Fielding’s belief that the entire operation had been ac-
cepted by Brigadier Keble, SOE Cairo’s unpopular chief of staff,
merely to remove a troublesome staff officer from Cairo—as Reade
happened to be entirely unsuited for the task, being 40 years old, ‘‘a
poor swimmer and ignorant of the technicalities of marine sabotage.’’