The pictures below were sent in by Rory Cooper who is a regular correspondent to the blog.
Hello Tom,
Am in Crete at the moment and have just come back from a visit to the CWGC in Souda Bay where John Pendlebury is buried. Here are a couple of photos as well as one of Gen. Kreipe from the Maritime Museum in Chania.
I have acquired a copy of the Erotokritos and will attempt a translation, although I have few illusions about making sense of 17th century Cretan dialect.
All the best,
Rory
- Gen. Kreipe from the Maritime Museum in Chania
- John Pendlebury’s grave CWGC in Souda Bay
- Commonwealth War Graves Cemetary, Souda Bay, Crete
- The crossroads – site of the kidnap
- The pretty awful memorial to the kidnap
- The crossroads on the Ano Archanes to Heraklion Road
- General Kreipe’s car
- General Kreipe’s car in the museum
Hello. I am currently in Cyprus and will stop in Crete on my way back (to Switzerland where I live). I will check for the pennants and the pennant holes! Thanks, Tom for posting and apologiees for not answering earlier. Rory
The Pennants are now in the Historical Folk-Art Museum of Rethymno
Well done Rory for getting the information and putting the photographs on the website. Suda Bay is a beautiful peaceful place and well looked after by the war graves commission.
I visited Paddy and Joan at Kardamayli in 1999 after Paddy had come back from seeing George Psychoundakis on Crete and I took a photograph of Paddy sitting in the bay window but unfortunately he had his eyes closed, so I do not know whether it is worth showing on here.
Every Blessing
John Youde
There seems to be a translation of the Erotokritos available in Australia:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~byzaus/byzaust/byzaus14.html
When we visited this museum we came away with the impression that this was probably not the Kreipe car. Tim Todd did actually drive the smaller sand coloured vehicle, briefly, and we all ran for our lives!
I can confirm Alun’s comments that the car was not thought to be Kreipe’s car but was a bit of ‘licence’ on the part of the museum keepe I was told by a mutual friend.Next time anyone is there, it might be interesting to check whether there is any sign of the holes for the penants that we can now confirm (not that we ever doubted Billy’s account) were on the wings of the real car. I think not. The museum owner did indeed let me drive the car on the left and it’s brakes were so appalling I wasn’t that far off putting it into a wall! Couldn’t get out of it quick enough after a few pictures.