Ill Met by Moonlight

British Special Operations officer Patrick Leigh Fermor and Cretan resistance fighters plot to abduct the German commander of occupied Crete, General Kreipe, and smuggle him off the island. The mission requires disguise, mountain treks, and cooperation with local partisans evading German patrols.

The real 1944 abduction of General Heinrich Kreipe by SOE officers and Cretan resistance fighters was a celebrated wartime intelligence operation that boosted resistance morale on occupied Crete.

Based on W. Stanley Moss's memoir of the actual operation, with Patrick Leigh Fermor himself renamed in the film; the events are closely followed.

Directed by Michael Powell / Emeric Pressburger

Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Marius Goring, David Oxley, Cyril Cusack

Positioned at 26 April – 14 May 1944 within the Occupation of Crete phase of the war, as part of the Cretan resistance. This is entry 113 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Crete
• SOE
• kidnapping
• resistance
• Kreipe

• 

  In Which We Serve

  1939–May 1941

• 

  Anzio

  22 January – 25 May 1944

• 

  Kanal

  September 1944

• 

  The Heroes of Telemark

  February 1943 – February 1944

• 

  Overlord

  1944

• 

  Theirs Is the Glory

  September 17-25, 1944