Film Review: Ill Met by Moonlight, 1957

I decided to re-watch this classic WWII 'true-life' thriller having just read Nigel West's Secret War, a history of the SOE. 

Ill Met by Moonlight, based on the memoirs of the same name by former SOE agent Stanley Moss is, fortunately, a Powell and Pressburger film, and that means excellence.

A nice old edition of Moss' book.

Stanley Moss and Leigh Fermor in their German disguises. [1]

Set on Crete, SOE agent Patrick Leigh-Fermor forms an ambitious plan to kidnap General Friedrich- Wilhelm Muller, the German commander on Crete, notorious for his brutality [2]. However, in typical SOE style (see West's book for more on this theme), by the time the mission goes ahead, Muller has been replaced by Kreipe. Rather than abort, the mission goes ahead, only now with a different target.

This small but significant detail is omitted from the film, which starts, after a brief visual and musical intro to the themes of Cretan freedom fighters and the beauty of the island, by introducing us to Leigh-Fermor, catching a local bus toting a sack of potatoes! Very soon, however, he's planning the op with a local Cretan resistance chap on the terrace of a saloon.

You'll want to visit Crete after watching this.

To the filmmakers' credit the island itself, its ruggedly arid mountainous topography having a rather savage beauty and grandeur, is as much a character in the film as any of the human (or animal*) players. In this respect this film reminds me of They Who Dare, which is also set under the scorching Mediterranean sun. Music is also used very well, mixing typically filmic atmospherics (I adore the mournful piano and clarinet theme played as the guerillas trek through the countryside) with Cretan folk styles - including a frantic 7/8 motif - to great effect.

The film celebrates the enthusiastic amateurs of SOE as plucky Brits, very much public schoolboys up to their japes, and looks rather quaintly dated in this respect. West's book on the SOE is at pains to point out that for numerous reasons, typically including both internal political wrangling and brutal German reprisals, locals weren't always as cooperative or fond of such Brit adventurers and interlopers as is suggested here.

A useful map, from the book. The film uses maps to help as well.

The bulk of the film is given over to first the abduction itself, which is a terrific bit of real life James Bond type derring-do, and then the eighteen day trek through the mountain wilderness before a hoped for extraction. The drama throughout is superbly done. And we grow to love all the major protagonists, from our plummy heroes and their salt of the earth local sidekicks to Kreipe, who isn't such a bad egg.

I've yet to see a Powell and Pressburger film I don't like - Colonel Blimp is an out and out masterpiece, in my view - and Ill Met by Moonlight is one of several excellent WWII era films (another I re-watched recently being Battle of the River Plate, about the sinking of Graf Spee) they made. The only reason I dock half a 'kreuz is on account of the 'jolly hockey sticks' style sanitisation of these purveyors of state sanctioned murder and mayhem. [3]

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Kreipe in the tender care of his Cretan abductors, movie style.

The real Maj. Gen. Kreipe.

NOTES: 

* Perhaps to emphasise the rustic nature of the island and it's people a few animals - dogs, goats, donkeys - feature in a prominent and endearing manner!

A short documentary on Kreipe's abduction can be viewed here, on YouTube. Rather amazingly, the Gerneral and his kidnappers were reunited on a Greek TV show, in 1972. A brief clip from this can also be found on YouTube. 

[1] The taking of the photographs from which this example is drawn is a scene that features in the film. These and numerous others can be viewed online, here.

The actual abduction team.

[2] Known as the 'Butcher of Crete', Muller committed atrocities against civilian and military targets throughout the war, in numerous locations, eventually being tried and executed for these actions by the Greeks.

[3] The expected German reprisals for Kriepe's abduction and other similar/related partisan style actions were in turn subject to partisan reprisal. SOE operatives, including Moss, being implicated in the murder of a number of German soldiers who had surrendered after being ambushed.

Leigh Fermor and Dirk Bogarde, who plays him in the movie.

Christopher Lee has a brief cameo.

Book Review - Images of War: 37-41, François Cochet

As if to illustrate a point I alluded to in a previous post on the M7 Priest title, regarding variable editorial quality (both are from the same Images of War series), this book on the earlier history of Germany's Fallschirmjäger is very different in feel and quality. Where the Doyle title came over very professionally, this reads like the work of an amateur/enthusiast. That in itself isn't necessarily an issue. But it becomes one when the writing is also plagued by other problems.

I'm a big 'fan', you might say, of the German military in WWII, but not - given the toxic political context of Hitler's Germany, in which it was rooted - an uncritical one. It seems to me that Cochet has been seduced by the German perspective to such an extent that his writing all too frequently reads as it's been lifted directly from the wartime commentary and picture captioning you encounter in such German propaganda publications as Signal or Der Adler.

A fairly hilarious training photograph. 

Plus points in the books favour are things such as the written and visual history of the beginnings of the German airborne infantry arm, the training the troops went through, and the fairly full coverage of the operations they took part in during the period covered herein. The bulk of the text, however, and even a good number of the images are not of the highest quality. But they are of course very useful if you have a particular interest in the subject. 

By way of an example of the poorer quality occasionally evident, there's a fairly comical instance where a picture describes the 'recovery of a container filled with heavy weapons'. Even a cursory glance at the image - which, alas, I can't find online (giving more than usual credence to the tag line 'rare photographs from wartime archives') - reveals that the contents of the container are very obviously food: one fallschirmjäger is even handing another a sausage! Heavy weapons indeed!!

A fallschirmjäger stands sentry on the Dordrecht bridge, Holland, 1940.

Despite my penchant for all things German in WWII, and their often very funky gear, I'm not massively drawn to the Fallschirmjäger branch of service. I don't quite understand why that is. But this book hasn't had the same effect on me as Doyle's Priest book did, which excited an interest in something I hadn't given much thought to before.

Having said all this, and despite being quite critical of the book, I would nevertheless like to see the second instalment, covering '42-'45. After the very costly deployment of airborne forces on Crete, which is covered here, Germany never repeated such operations on the large scale (the loss of aircraft alone in the Cretan operation having serious knock-on effects on German air strength, and directly affecting Barbarossa), the Fallschirmjäger effectively becoming, for the most part, a quasi-elite part of ordinary ground forces, save for the occasional special op, such as Skorzeny's famous rescue of Mussolini.

Casualties of the invasion of Crete.

In conclusion, not the best title in this series, but useful for those with a special interest in the subject.

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Notes:

Whilst researching photos etc for this post, I found this page, here you can peruse the whole of an issue of Der Adler (August, 1940), from which I reproduce the following:

The airborne attack on Holland is front page news.

And in amongst the adverts, a possible source for the sentry image?

Book Review: Greece 1941, Jeffrey Plowman

I've wanted to know more about the Greek Campaign of '41 since seeing the very brief but tantalising bits of footage on it in The World At War. The look of the buildings and terrain in those brief clips, I think, drew me towards this theatre.

Operation Lustre, as the campaign was known, is but a passing footnote in that epic TV series and, as the dust jacket blurb for this book says, remains 'a neglected theatre of the Second World War'. The campaigns of North Africa have taken the lions share of attention in relation to the Mediterranean. Even the subsequent battle for Crete eclipses Greece in terms of coverage in much WWII history.

Aussie troops posed, like any tourists, at sites of interest.*

Australian and Greek troops in a very staged looking pic.*

Anzac forces played a large part in this campaign, and Plowman, a Kiwi himself, judging from his special interest in NZ forces and info in his Acknowledgments section, covers everything from the larger strategic picture, to the nitty-gritty firsthand of battle. The writing is very good, let down occasionally by a few editorial oversights. 

Where the book is weaker is, despite a too brief glossary, the lack of explanation of certain acronyms or military terms, and the maps. The last is a common issue in military history literature, I find. I like to have sufficient and detailed enough maps to try and follow the action visually, as well as textually. But there are not enough nor detailed enough maps here. 

German flak against a fabulous backdrop of classical columns.*

Despite the Blitzkrieg myth a lot of Landser slogged along on foot.*

Mountainous terrain and poor roads meant rail lines sometimes doubled as highways.*

German artillery in a beautiful landscape.*

Most Greek roads were dirt tracks like these; ok in good weather, but appalling when it rained.*

However, overall Greece 1941 is well enough written to keep the reader - or this one at by rate - excited and interested. The bigger picture is sketched out at either end of the narrative, with the bulk of the book given over to the blow by blow ground level action, with excellent use of firsthand accounts keeping it very lively. This said, there are times when the barrage of unit numbers and names gets a bit tough to keep a handle on. But that's war, complex, ever-changing, confusing!

The Commonwealth forces for the Greek campaign were always under strength, and poorly equipped compared with the German invaders. [1] And to some degree the whole operation was doomed from the outset. Plowman maintains, however, that the Allied forces, even the Greek element, gave a good account of themselves. 

Amongst the NZ forces in Greece was this Maori unit.*

One of the mainstays of the Allied contingent, the Universal Carrier.

 Blitzkrieg blunted; German pioneers work to reopen supply lines.*

Soon it was the Germans turn to play tourist.*

Germans pass by and examine wrecked and abondoned Allied materiel.

I think the provocative subtitle of the book, The Death Throes of Blitzkrieg, overstates things somewhat. But Plowman's contention that this may be the first time the vaunted Blitzkrieg began to falter is a lesser and far more plausible claim. His focus is definitely more on the Commonwealth forces, but he does include Axis testimony. 

As well as regular Wehrmacht troops and materiel, there are SS, paratroopers and, of particular interest to me (I'm not sure why?), Gebirgsjager. And the campaign is doubly or triply fascinating because, due to the interesting topography, all elements/arms are involved, for all belligerents, from the ground forces to the naval and airborne contingents.

Gebirgsjager at rest in Greece.*

Gebirgsjager at work in the mountains, Greece.*

Mountainous terrain isn't ideal Blitzkrieg territory.*

The fate of much Allied materiel, abandoned and destroyed.*

This is one of those books that poses a real danger to me, in terms of a desire to build wargaming forces with which to refight elements of it. If I were to go down this avenue, I think I'd choose 1/300 scale, or 6mm, so as to be able to involve air and sea elements, as well as land warfare, and also so as to include as much topography (mountains, coast, islands, etc) as possible. Uh oh...

A thoroughly enjoyable read. I'd definitely highly recommend this.

Most Allied A10 tanks threw their tracks, or broke down one way or another.*

Retreat for the Allies and advance for the Germans was often hampered by poor roads laden with heavy traffic.*

ANZAC troops take shelter whilst waiting to be evacuated.*

Amongst those rescued by sea, these NZ nurses.*

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NOTES:

* I've tried as far as possible to use pictures in the public domain found online, that are not used in Plowman's book.

I suppose the image chosen for the cover (see top of this post) fits with the subtitle of the book. But as I say in my review, above, I think that's an attention grabbing overstatement. A much more representative cover image would've been an A10 that had been abandoned due to track failure! Indeed, I've a mind to make me a diorama of a scene depicting German soldiers gathered around the wreck of an A10 somewhere in Greece. That's a definite one for the the 'to do' project list!

[1] It was the actions of Mussolini's Italians that forced Hitler's hand in this theatre, at least as he saw it. But the theatre as a whole included Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary, and ramifications further afield meant that Crete, Turkey and all around the eastern and northern Mediterranean were affected by events on the Hellenic peninsula, as was Hitler's planned invasion of Russia. These other nations and their actions are often mentioned, as they relate to unfolding events in Greece itself, but don't come within the scope of this book.