A fictionalised account of a military operation during the Second World War. A valuable personal account, recording, from her own perspective, the events that took place on the Ionian Islands during the critical period just before Liberation and the outbreak of the Civil War.
In April 1944, a group of Greek officers and non-commissioned officers, led by then-Second Lieutenant Themis Marinos, was dispatched from the Allied General Headquarters for the Middle East to the Ionian Islands. The mission’s objective: to organise an intelligence and sabotage network on the German-occupied islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaca, Lefkada and the surrounding sea area, and to prepare the ground for a possible Allied landing.
It documents not only the purely military, operational work of the Mission, but also its political and diplomatic activities during those turbulent years. However, what stands out most and complements the official history is the daring, moving, patriotic involvement of ordinary people in the Resistance, who, together with the members of the Mission, wrote their own history, participating in the national cause with selflessness and self-sacrifice.
- Pages: 512
- ISBN: 978-960-9527-73-6
- Publication: 2013
- Categories: Books, Humanities & Social Sciences, Ιστορία
Themis Marinos
Born in Zakynthos in 1917. Married with three children. Economist. Reserve artillery officer, paratrooper.
In 1940 he fought on the Greek-Albanian front. In 1941 he fought in Crete. He escaped to Egypt by submarine and enlisted in the 1st Greek Brigade. At the Liaison Office under Prince Peter. At the British Special Training Centre in Palestine. In 1942, he took part in the British paratrooper unit that landed in Greece and blew up the Gorgopotamos railway bridge.
In early 1944 he returned to the Middle East and in April took command of a special operational mission (code-named ‘Dastard’) in the German-occupied Ionian Islands, which lasted until the end of November 1944. From 1945 to 1949, he served as a member of the International Control Commission for Bulgaria (Sofia) and as a liaison for the UN Balkan Observer Commission during the Civil War.
Professionally, he worked for the airline TWA, the Ministry of Coordination, the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE) as Deputy General Manager of Finance, the National Bank of Greece (NBG) as an advisor, and the Investment Bank as Chairman. Abroad, he worked at the UN (Far East), in Iran, at the World Bank (Ethiopia, Zaire) and at the K. Doxiadis company (Ghana, Libya).
