itish Embassy) that the
Gestapo had visited all the active amateurs and had managed to arrest
only one of them, Nasos Coucoulis SV1SM (later SV1AC) and put him in a
concentration camp in Italy for nearly a year.

I would like to sketch briefly the turbulent events of the
following three years with some extracts from my diaries.

One year earlier, in 1940, following the invasion of Greece by the
Italian army operating from Albania, the broadcasting authority in
Athens (ETHNIKON IDRIMA RADIOFONIAS) began a news service in English
which was beamed to England and the U.S.A. on the short waves. In my
capacity as a member of the Press Department staff of the British
Embassy I took part in the first programme, and in fact read the first
news bulletin, which went out at 3 a.m. Athens time. As I said
above, early in April I was transferred to the British Embassy in
Cairo, Egypt.

1941: Very small contingents of the British army landed in Greece
to help the Greek army. But they proved totally incapable of standing
up to the onslaught of the German army which followed soon after. The
Greek army laid down its arms in Epirus (north-western Greece).
General Tsolakoglou became the first 'Quisling' Prime Minister of
Greece. King George and his government, under Premier Emmanouil
Tsouderos had left for Cairo.

1942: In North Africa General Rommel had advanced to within 100
miles of Cairo, but his supply lines had become very long. One of the
most important was the railway link through Greece, so the British
strategists decided that attempts must be made to disrupt it. The
Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) in London, despatched two small
groups of saboteurs (about a dozen men altogether) under the command
of Brigadier Eddie Myers and Major Chris Woodhouse who had the task of
linking up with the various bands of 'Andartes' (Resistance movement
fighters) which had started forming in the mountains.

Unfortunately, the British officers were told nothing at all about
the bitter rivalries between the various groups, most probably because
H.Q. in Cairo were themselves ignorant about the real situation. It
didn't take Meyers and Woodhouse long to discover that by far the
largest group was E.L.A.S. (the Popular Liberation Army) under Aris
Velouhiotis, about 120 ill-equipped men operating in the Pindus
mountains. Another smaller group of about 60 men had rallied round a
regular officer of the Greek army, C