British Passport, Secret Service Agent’s Wife
Major Ian Pirie was a British agent working for the Secret Service – SOE. Major Pirie was stationed in Crete and Niki Dermetzi, a devastating blonde at the Argentina nightclub, was his girlfriend and later his wife. Niki’s British passport was issued in 1947 in London with numerous revenues: 7 Greek, 1 British, 2 Turkish & 3 Spanish, and many border stamps. (SOE activities in Greece, 1940-1942)
The Germans expected their airborne attack on Crete in 1941 – a unique event in the history of warfare – to be a textbook victory based on tactical surprise. They had no idea that the British, using Ultra intercepts, knew their plans and had laid a carefully planned trap. It should have been the first German defeat of the war, but a fatal misunderstanding turned the battle round.
Nor did the conflict end there. Ferocious Cretan freedom fighters mounted a heroic resistance, aided by a dramatic cast of British officers from Special Operations Executive. British Passport Secret Service
They were among the last to leave Athens – only a few hours before the Germans raised their flag over the Acropolis – Nicholas Hammond, David Pawson, Ian Pirie, and Nicki Demertzi. To ensure Nicki’s safe conduct in the face of British officialdom, the couple had hurriedly married. Leaving Athens at dawn, they drove to the yacht harbor of Tourkolimano. Their load included a large batch of German uniforms, which Pirie had been hoarding, and the remains of Hammond’s plastic explosive (Source: Antony Beevor – Crete – The Battle and the Resistance, 1991, ISBN 978-1-84854-635-6). British Passport Secret Service
The Special Operations Executive (SOE)
was a British World War II organization. Following Cabinet’s approval, it was officially formed by Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers and aid local resistance movements.
It was initially also involved in forming the Auxiliary Units, a top-secret “stay-behind” resistance organization that would have been activated in the event of a German invasion of Britain.
Few people were aware of SOE’s existence
It was sometimes referred to as “the Baker Street Irregulars,” after the location of its London headquarters, to those who were part of it or liaised with it. It was also known as “Churchill’s Secret Army” or the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”
To enhance security, names like the “Joint Technical Board” or “Inter-Service Research Bureau” concealed various branches or the entire organization. Fictitious branches of the Air Ministry, Admiralty, or War Office were also used.
SOE operated in all countries or former countries occupied by or attacked by the Axis forces, except where demarcation lines were agreed with Britain’s principal Allies (the Soviet Union and the United States). It also made use of neutral territory occasionally or made plans and preparations if the Axis attacked neutral countries.
The organization directly employed or controlled just over 13,000 people, about 3,200 of whom were women. It is estimated that SOE supported or supplied approximately 1,000,000 operatives worldwide. British Passport Secret Service
Operations in Greece
The Axis overran Greece after a desperate defense lasting several months. In the aftermath, SIS and another intelligence organization, SIME, discouraged attempts at sabotage or resistance as this might imperil relations with Turkey. However, SOE maintained contact with resistance groups in Crete.
When agent “Odysseus,” a former tobacco-smuggler, tried to contact potential resistance groups in Greece, he reported that no group would cooperate with the monarchist government in exile in Cairo.
Operation Harling
In late 1942, the army instigated SOE’s first operation, Operation Harling, to disrupt the railway in Greece. Colonel Eddie Myers, later Brigadier, with assistance from Christopher Woodhouse, parachuted into Greece. They discovered two guerrilla groups in the mountains: the pro-Communist ELAS and the republican EDES.
On 25 November 1942, Myers’s party blew up one of the railway viaduct’s spans at Gorgopotamos, supported by 150 Greek partisans from these two organizations that engaged Italians guarding the viaduct. This cut the railway linking Thessaloniki with Athens and Piraeus. British Passport Secret Service
Operation Husky
Relations between the resistance groups and the British soured. When the British needed to disrupt the railway across Greece as part of the deception operations preceding Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, the resistance groups refused to take part, rightly fearing German reprisals against civilians. Instead, a six-man commando party from the British and New Zealand armies carried out the Asopos viaduct’s destruction on 21 June 1943.
EDES received most aid from SOE, but ELAS secured many weapons when Italy collapsed, and Italian military forces in Greece dissolved. ELAS and EDES fought a vicious civil war in 1943 until SOE brokered an uneasy armistice (the Plaka agreement).
A lesser-known but essential function of the SOE in Greece was to inform the Cairo headquarters of the German military aircraft movement serviced and repaired at the two former Greek military aircraft facilities in and around Athens. British Passport Secret Service
Eventually, the British Army occupied Athens and Piraeus in the aftermath of the German withdrawal and fought a street-by-street battle to drive ELAS from these cities and impose an interim government under Archbishop Damaskinos. SOE’s last act was to evacuate several hundred disarmed EDES fighters to Corfu, preventing their massacre by ELAS.
Crete
After the Germans occupied Crete in the Battle of Crete, resistance groups and Allied parties formed. SOE operations included figures like Patrick Leigh Fermor and Bill Stanley Moss. Leigh Fermor and Moss famously abducted General Heinrich Kreipe, depicted in the film Ill Met by Moonlight. Another notable event was the sabotage of Damasta directed by Moss.
HMS Wryneck (D21)
Historian and SOE operative Nicholas Hammond, Major Ian Pirie, leader of the British expedition, and high-ranking SOE operative David Pawson were passengers. The caïque’s captain, George Vergos, a decorated Royal Navy veteran from World War I, was also involved in SOE work. He fled Greece with his extended family and other Greeks.
Pirie, Pawson, and Hamson undertook the task of evacuating an unspecified amount of bullion lost during the Irene incident from the Athens British Embassy.
The organization officially dissolved on 15 January 1946 after the war. In October 2009, London unveiled a memorial to SOE’s agents located on the Albert Embankment by Lambeth Palace.
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