Major
Dennis
John Ciclitira
2/4th
Battalion Essex Regiment 1939-1940 & SOE
Ciclitira was born in Patras, Greece in
1918 & moved to the UK when his family emigrated.
The family settled in Westcliff-on-Sea,
but Dennis was sent first to boarding school, then to Greece to
learn the family business - dried fruit.
But as war loomed, he returned to the UK.
In 1939, he joined up into the 2/4th
Essex Regiment & graduated as an officer in 1940.
He served 2 years with the South
Staffords, then joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
SOE’s business was spying, sabotage &
liaison with resistance groups in Occupied Europe.
In Oct 1942, Ciclitira moved to ‘Force
133’, the area of SOE with responsibility for the Mediterranean.
Based in Cairo, his role involved
organising arms & supply drops for the resistance forces in
Crete.
A year later in Dec 1943, he moved to
Crete as Major Ciclitira - codename Dionysios - to command SOE
actions in the west of the island.
It seems he adapted well to living in a
cave in the mountains. Fellow SOE officer, Billy Moss described
Ciclitira: “ He has grown an impressive beard, which he treats
with the affection of a spinster for her favourite cat, and
wears an elegant sort of musical comedy costume, complete with
wine coloured cummerbund, turban and all the usual trimmings.”
On April 26th 1944, an SOE team led by
Billy Moss & Patrick Leigh Fermor (PLF) carried out the
audacious capture of a German General, Heinrich Kreipe, near his
HQ just south of Heraklion. This became the subject of the 1957
film, 'Ill Met by Moonlight'.
For a week, they evaded German search
parties, then met up with Ciclitira & a team of resistance
fighters. Ciclitira had a radio & arranged for naval assistance
to extract them & their captive.
On May 14th, the party reached Rodakino
beach from where they were to be evacuated.
Darkness fell on the beach & the
hour approached. Suddenly Moss & PLF realised neither knew
enough morse code to signal the correct password to the incoming
SBS rescue team.
They began to flash their torches
desperately at the SBS rescue team. Fortunately, Ciclitira saw
what was happening, muttered “Bloody fools!” before grabbing a
torch & giving the right series of flashes. The team was
successfully extracted, including Ciclitira.
Ciclitira returned to Crete in late 1944
to continue his work.
In early 1945, the situation had changed
and the Germans began to evacuate their forces on Crete to the
west of the island. They took with them a number of prisoners,
who, it was feared, would be executed.
Contact was made with the Germans & a
meeting was held between Ciclitira, Captain Anders Lassen of the
SBS & the Germans, mediated by Bishop Xirouhakis of Chania.
The meeting dragged on & on & on.
Finally, Lassen exasperatedly suggested holding a 'Germans vs
Allies' football match, winner taking all, an idea which
apparently greatly amused the Bishop.
After further negotiations, 36 German
POWs were exchanged for the dozen captured Cretan resistance
fighters.One of them, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, later became
Prime Minister of Greece & had a son who is the current Greek
PM.
On May 8th, Ciclitira was ordered to
contact the German commanding officer, General Benthack, to
discuss the surrender. For this, Ciclitira employed the services
of Mitsotakis, who spoke German.
Wearing civilian suits, the 2 men visited
General Benthack. It was quickly realised that, according to
protocol, Benthack could only surrender to an officer of equal
rank.
Unfortunately, despite his many exploits
and his efforts, no medal was ever awarded to Ciclitira. In May
1946, however, he was mentioned in dispatches for his work in
Crete.
After being demobbed, he returned to the
UK.
His father, Demosthenes, had sadly died in 1943, so Dennis & his brother David set about reviving the family dried fruit importing business.
This they did, making it one of the leading UK importers of dried fruit.And so the end of this story comes with
the passing of Major Dennis Ciclitira on 9th June 2000.
