Sabotage In Greece

Following the Italian invasion of Albania, the British government was worried that Greece would be next. Their Intelligence Service in Athens prepared to sabotage their plans, stored explosives and trained saboteurs. When Germany came to Italy's aid, they took control of Greece, despite attempts to sabotage the road and rail links. This book investigates the success and failures of British, American and Greek sabotage missions, the attacks on the Gorgopotamos and Asopos viaducts, on roads, railways, shipping and mining operations. Using contemporary documents from the CIA and National Archives, biographies and autobiographies, it provides first-hand accounts from those involved, those who masterminded the operations and the reports of the agents infiltrated by boat, submarine or plane. It has also used historians' accounts found on websites to provide a detailed history of sabotage in Greece between 1940 and liberation in 1944.

Between 1941 and 1944, the Germans and the Italians imposed a brutal occupation of Greece. This, as well as the outbreak of famine, drove many Greeks to join a variety of resistance movements in the mountains. The British government anticipated the German occupation of Europe and created the Special Operations Executive (SOE). One directorate of the SOE was responsible for partisan activity in the mountains and another directorate focused on encouraging espionage and sabotage in Greek cities. Over 3000 Greeks and British operated espionage networks that made a significant contribution to the war effort in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the work of the spy and saboteur working in the shadows remained classified until the end of the twentieth century. The release of SOE documents in the twenty-first century provides an amazing insight into how intelligence operations were a critical part of the Allied victory of the Second World War. The aim of the book is to bring to life the stories of the ghosts of the shadow war.

Based on the wartime diaries of Allied soldier and saboteur Tom Barnes, this account of thrilling WWII wartime deeds deep behind enemy lines in Greece is based on fact but reads like fiction. A thrilling read of wartime exploits, daring, intrigue and resourcefulness, The Sabotage Diaries is the astonishing true story of Allied engineer Tom Barnes, who was parachuted behind enemy lines in Greece in October 1942 with a small team of sappers and special operations officers. Their brief was to work with the Greek resistance in sabotage operations against the German and Italian occupation forces. Under - equipped and under - prepared but with courage to spare, their initial mission was to blow up a key railway bridge, cutting Rommel's supply lines to North Africa, where the battle of El Alamein was about to begin. But Operation Harling - as it was known - was only the start of a lengthy and perilous clandestine mission. Written by Tom Barnes' daughter - in - law, award - winning author Katherine Barnes, and drawn from Tom's wartime diaries, reports and letters, plus many other historical sources and first - hand accounts, this is a vivid and gripping tale of the often desperate and dangerous reality behind sabotage operations. 'A thrilling tale that could be straight out of the pages of an action adventure novel ...a remarkable and highly readable tale of a little known World War II operation.' Daily Telegraph.

During the 1940s Greece was torn apart twice, first by World War II and second by Civil War.Beginning in 1941, the occupation of Greece by Germany was intensely brutal. Children starved on the streets of Athens. The Jewish population was decimated in the Holocaust. Heroic acts of resistance - performed in concert with the SOE - were met with vicious reprisals. When Greece was finally freed from Nazi rule in 1944, the fractured and embittered nation became engulfed in civil war, as conflict flared between the British and American-sponsored government and communist-led rebels. Acclaimed historian of Greece David Brewer here investigates this tumultuous decade in Greece's modern history, providing a compelling military and political history.

A True Story of Heroism in Nazi-Occupied Greece [Some of] the most dramatic use of secret intelligence in the Western Theater resulted from covert operations against the Nazis in the cities of occupied Europe, which were implemented, to a great extent, by young men and women. For the most part, their stories remained shrouded in secrecy. Readers were carried away reading the brave feats of the partisans in the mountains, deserts, and jungles, while the strategic role of the spies and saboteurs in the cities remained almost anonymous. Rigas Rigopoulos offers a rare insight into the world of espionage and sabotage and the daily terror that characterized covert operations in Athens and Piraeus. Rigopoulos was one of many young Greeks appalled by the Axis occupation, but one of the few who was prepared to undertake the hazardous role of spy and saboteur.""

Made in Greece: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Greek popular music. Each essay covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Greece, first presenting a general description of the history and background of popular music in Greece, followed by essays, written by leading scholars of Greek music, that are organized into thematic sections: Hugely Popular, Art-song Trajectories, Greekness beyond Greekness, Counter Stories, and Present Musical Pasts.

Axis forces (Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria) occupied Greece from 1941 to 1944. The unimaginable hardships caused by foreign occupation were compounded by the flight of the government days before enemy forces reached Athens. This national crisis forced the Church of Greece, an institution accustomed to playing a central political and social role during times of crisis, to fill the political vacuum. Led by Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens, the clergy sought to maintain the cultural, spiritual, and territorial integrity of the nation during this harrowing period. Circumstances forced the clergy to create a working relationship with the major political actors, including the Axis authorities, their Greek allies, and the growing armed resistance movements, especially the communist-led National Liberation Front. In so doing the church straddled a fine line between collaboration and resistance—individual clerics, for instance, negotiated with Axis authorities to gain small concessions, while simultaneously resisting policies deemed detrimental to the nation. Drawing on official archives—of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the British Foreign Office, the U.S. State Department, and the Greek Holy Synod—alongside an impressive breadth of published literature, this book provides a refreshingly nuanced account of the Greek clergy’s complex response to the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II. The author’s comprehensive portrait of the reaction of Damaskinos and his colleagues, including tensions and divisions within the clergy, provides a uniquely balanced exploration of the critical role they played during the occupation. It helps readers understand how and why traditional institutions such as the Church played a central social and political role in moments of social upheaval and distress. Indeed, as this book convincingly shows, the Church was the only institution capable of holding Greek society together during World War II. While The Church of Greece under Axis Occupation elucidates the significant differences between the Greek case and those of other territories in Axis-occupied Europe, it also offers fresh insight into the similarities. Greek clerics dealt with many of the same challenges clerics faced in other parts of Hitler’s empire, including exceptionally brutal reprisal policies, deprivation and hunger, and the complete collapse of the social and political order caused by years of enemy occupation. By examining these challenges, this illuminating new book is an important contribution not only to Greek historiography but also to the broader literatures on the Holocaust, collaboration and resistance during World War II, and church–state relations during times of crisis.