The story of the abduction, in 1944 from Crete, of General Kreipe, and of "In the footsteps of heroes", two expeditions in Crete remembering and honouring both the Greek and British heroes involved in the original         operation -a project inspired by a reading of the account, Ill Met by Moonlight,  written By William Stanley Moss. Please bear in mind, for reasons that will become clear, that the website is a 'work in progress'

Operation Moonstruck

A visit to the National Archives at Kew over the last few days (9 & 10 Nov 2007)  has led to the discovery of papers relating to  Naval Operation Moonstruck, an operation to deliver a British Officer and a number of Greeks to Crete in ML 842 captained by Brian Coleman. The officer is named as Lt Houseman and one of the Greeks was a Katsias. Papers refer to the group being delivered to Dermarti beach Southern Crete on 4th April 1944. We know from a report by Houseman that he was on the same ML that delivered William Stanley Moss. It seems entirely reasonable to presume that Moss and party, though not named in the papers, were in fact on the same boat. A Katsias is mentioned in ILL Met By Moonlight as being on the launch that delivered them on 4th April.

Further details will be entered on this site shortly, including images of relevant passages and NA file references.

The obvious question that follows a preliminary examination of the papers is "Why is there mention of Lt Houseman in the operation orders but not Moss". At the moment I am inclined to think that Operation Moonstruck was primarily designed to deliver Lt Houseman and a number of Greeks as a stand alone operation. We know that Moss and his party had made many attempts to join Paddy Leigh Fermor by parachute but all had failed for one reason or another. It seems reasonable to suggest that, given the problems experienced delivering Moss et al by air, if a sea passage was available, then that would have been attempted. I conclude that Moss et al cadged a lift on Houseman's trip.

A relevant extract from H-S 5 677