War, occupation, civil war · War and occupation · Harbour and pier
Patrick Leigh Fermor arrives in the armed caique Aghia Varvara
25 April 1941 – 26 April 1941 Proven
Lieutenant Patrick Leigh Fermor, then an intelligence officer with the British Military Mission, sailed the armed caique Aghia Varvara from near Sounion to Myloi, to evacuate General Wilson and Prince Peter if other means failed. On arrival he saw mile upon mile of army vehicles, a whole army in retreat. The caique was not needed for the general, but it took on board Wilson's luggage, his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Philip Scott and Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Smith-Dorrien.
Note: Cooper says the caique arrived 'after nightfall'; Beevor says 'on the morning of 26 April'. Greek Tragedy 1941 calls the same boat Santa Barbara.
- Where
- The pier and harbour
- Threads
- War and occupation, Harbour and pier
- Certainty
- Proven confirmed by primary sources
Sources
- Artemis Cooper, Patrick Leigh Fermor: an adventure, London 2013, pp. 130–132 (after the unpublished account of Lt-Col. P. L. Smith-Dorrien) Open (opens in a new tab)
- Antony Beevor, Crete: the battle and the resistance, London 1991, p. 9 Open (opens in a new tab)
- Wes Davis, The Ariadne Objective, New York 2014 Open (opens in a new tab)
- A. Heckstall-Smith and H. T. Baillie-Grohman, Greek Tragedy 1941, London: Anthony Blond 1961, pp. 126–127, 157–159 Open (opens in a new tab)
Also in this period
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13 December 1940
A soldier from Skafidaki falls on the Albanian front
The Greek Army's roll of the dead of 1940–45 records Sokratis Papanastasopoulos, born in Skafidaki in 1916, killed at Golemi on the Albanian front on 13 December 1940.
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28 December 1940
A soldier born in Myloi dies in the military hospital of Mesolongi
Private Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, son of Epameinondas, born in Myloi in 1915, died in the military hospital of Mesolongi on 28 December 1940, during the Greek-Italian war. He is listed in the Greek Army's roll of the…
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1941–1942
A second German reconnaissance flight photographs the bay
A German strip flight of 1941–1942 (film 93) photographed Myloi again: the curve of the bay, the village along the main road at the foot of Pontinos, the station and the pier.
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1941–1943
A coastal gun near the tower of Bouboulina
Among the occupation defences of Myloi was a coastal gun next to the tower known as the tower of Bouboulina. The base of the gun emplacement could still be seen in 1994.