W Stanley Moss

Early life and education

Ivan William Stanley Moss, (called Bill or Billy) was born in Yokohama, Japan. His mother, Natalie Galitch (born in Nikolayevsk Usuriski), was a White Russian émigrée, and his father, William Stanley Moss, an English businessman and steel merchant in Japan. They married on 22 September 1916. The family survived the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Moss attended Charterhouse in England (1934–39).

His uncle, Sir George Sinclair Moss (1882-1959), a British diplomat in China, also served the Special Operations Executive as adviser on Chinese affairs during the Second World War.

Soldier

In the autumn of 1939, Moss, aged 18, had just left Charterhouse and was living in a log cabin on the Latvian coast. By the outbreak of war, he reached Stockholm, and succeeded in crossing the North Sea to England in a yacht. After full training at Caterham, he was commissioned as an ensign into the Coldstream Guards in July 1941. He served on King’s Guard at the Court of St. James's punctuated by bouts of Churchillian duty at Chequers.

Posted to reinforce the 3rd Battalion the Coldstream, after the losses at Tobruk, Moss fought between October 1942 and July 1943 with Montgomery’s Eighth Army chasing Rommel across North Africa to Alamein and finished up the campaign in Chianti and Pantellaria. He returned to Cairo, where he volunteered to join Force 133 of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) on 24 September 1943.

Tara, Cairo

In 1943 in Cairo, Moss moved into a spacious villa, with a great ballroom with parquet floors, which four or five people might share. Moss chose to live in the villa rather than the SOE hostel, "Hangover Hall". He moved in alone at first, then bought his Alsatian puppy, Pixie; Xan Fielding, who had served in Crete, joined him. Next was Countess Zofia (Sophie) Tarnowska, forced to leave Poland in 1939 by the German invasion, followed by Arnold Breene of SOE HQ. Finally Patrick Leigh Fermor, an SOE officer who had spent the previous nine months in Crete, joined the household. The villa's new inhabitants called it Tara, after the legendary home of the High Kings of Ireland.

Sophie Tarnowska and two other women had been asked to share the house with the SOE agents, but only she went through with it, after the men pleaded with her not to let them down. Estranged from her husband, she moved in with her few possessions (a bathing costume, an evening gown, a uniform and two pet mongooses). She protected her reputation while living in the all-male household by the invention of an entirely fictitious chaperone, "Madame Khayatt", who suffered from "distressingly poor health" and was always indisposed when visitors asked after her. The group were later joined by SOE agents Billy McLean, David Smiley returning from Albania, and Rowland Winn, also active in Albania.

Tara became the centre of high-spirited entertaining of diplomats, officers, writers, lecturers, war correspondents and Coptic and Levantine party-goers. The residents adopted nicknames: "Princess Dneiper-Petrovsk" (Countess Sophie Tarnowska), "Sir Eustace Rapier" (Lt-Col. Neil (Billy) McLean), "the Marquis of Whipstock" (Col David Smiley LVO OBE MC), "the Hon, Rupert Sabretache" (Rowland Winn MC), "Lord Hughe Devildrive" (Major Xan Fielding DSO), "Lord Pintpot" (Arnold Breene), "Lord Rakehell" (Lt-Col Patrick Leigh-Fermor DSO) and "Mr Jack Jargon"(Capt W. Stanley Moss MC). By the winter of 1944, the Tara household had to leave their battered villa and move into a flat. Their landlord secured their eviction on the grounds that the villa had not been let to "Princess Dneiper-Petrovsk" et al., as stated on the villa's name plate.

Abduction of General Kreipe

Moss is best remembered for the capture of General Heinrich Kreipe on Crete and abduction of him to Egypt, in April and May 1944. Leigh Fermor, with Moss as his second-in-command, led a team of Cretan Andartes, part of the Greek resistance.

Moss and Leigh Fermor thought of the Kreipe abduction one evening in the Club Royale de Chasse et de Pêche (Royal Hunting and Fishing Club) and planned it during the winter of 1943. On the last evening before Moss and Leigh Fermor set off, Smiley presented Moss with the Oxford Book of English Verse - his companion from Albania - for good luck. McLean gave him a complete Shakespeare dedicated, "To Bill, with best of luck for Guernsey, Bill".

Promoted to the rank of Captain, at age 22 Moss set off with Leigh Fermor, age 29, to Crete in 1944. Leigh Fermor landed by parachute. Moss, unable to jump due to cloud cover, followed several weeks later, landing on 4 April 1944 by boat on the south coast where he joined Leigh Fermor, Andartes and other support (using the cover name of 'Dimitrios'). Walking north, they passed through Skinias, Kastamonitsa and Haraso. Just south of Skalani, they prepared for the abduction. Throughout the operation, as they travelled across Crete, they were hidden and supported by the Resistance and the local population.

Moss and Leigh Fermor, disguised as German soldiers, stopped the General's car. With the help of their team, the driver was knocked out by Moss with his cosh and the General and car seized. With Leigh Fermor impersonating the General, and Moss his driver, and with the General bundled in the back, secured by their Cretan team, Moss drove the General’s car for an hour and a half through 22 controlled road blocks in Heraklion. Leigh Fermor took the car on, as Moss walked with the general south into the mountains to Anogeia and up towards Psiloritis. Reunited, the entire abduction team took the general on over the summit of Psiloritis before descending, aiming for the coast. Driven west by German forces cutting off escape to the south, they travelled to Gerakari and on to Patsos. From here, they walked on through Fotinos and Vilandredo before striking south, finally to escape by ship on 13 May 1944.

After the war, a member of Kreipe’s staff reported that, on hearing the news of the kidnapping, an uneasy silence in the officers' mess in Heraklion was followed by someone saying, "Well gentlemen, I think this calls for champagne all round."

Post-war correspondence explains that Kreipe was disliked by his soldiers because, amongst other things, he objected to the stopping of his own vehicle for checking in compliance with his commands concerning troops' reviewing approved travel orders. This tension between the General and his troops, in part, explains the reluctance of sentries to stop the General’s car as Moss drove it through Heraklion.

The episode was immortalised in his best-selling book Ill Met by Moonlight (1950). It was adapted into a film of the same name, directed and produced by Michael Powell and released in 1957. It featured Dirk Bogarde as Patrick Leigh Fermor and David Oxley as Moss.

The abduction is commemorated near Archanes and at Patsos.

Damasta Sabotage

Returning to Crete on 6 July 1944, Moss led a resistance group consisting of eight Cretans and six escaped Russian POW soldiers in launching an ambush on German forces, intent on attacking Anogeia, on the main road connecting Rethymno and Heraklion. He chose an ambush site by a bridge in the Damastos location, one kilometre west of the village of Damasta. After the team destroyed various passing vehicles, among which was a lorry carrying military mail to Chania, the German force intending to target Anogeia finally appeared. It consisted of a truck of infantrymen backed up by an armoured car. Moss and his group attacked the troops. He destroyed the armoured car by crawling up behind it and dropping a grenade into the hatch. In total, 40 to 50 German and Axis troops were killed in the clash that followed as well as 1 Russian partisan. He left Crete on 18 August 1944. The operation, for which a bar to his Military Cross was recommended, is described in full in Moss's book A War of Shadows and commemorated at Damasta. Moss's exploits in Crete are recorded in the Historical Museum of Crete.

Macedonia

Moss served in Macedonia between September and November 1944, being promoted to Major on 24 October. He was sent to join Major Ken Scott in an operation to blow up the railway bridge over the Aliakmon River in order to disrupt German troop movements in and out of Thessaloniki. Heavy rain burst the river banks preventing Moss from a final attempt to blow up a section of the bridge. He continued to undertake sabotage operations to hinder the German withdrawal.

He returned to Britain for reposting on 30 January 1945 and, resisting regimental duties, reapplied for special operations. On 6 March 1945, he returned to Cairo for 28 days leave where he married.

Siam (Thailand)

He was then posted to join Force 136 in Siam arriving from Cairo on 25 June 1945 to stay at the Grand Hotel, in Calcutta. Joining Major Ken Scott as Jedburgh team leader and Capt John Hibberdine (W/T) for Operation Sungod, he flew out of Jessore on 22 August by Dakota landing by parachute in a drop zone by a river, south of Bandon in the Bandon Nakon Sri Tamaraj area. The team’s orders included establishing communication with HQ (W/T station Gaberdine), liaising with the Siamese 6th Independent Division, identifying all POW camps, finding locations for drop zones and seaplane landings and preparing to demolish the tunnel on the railway from Chong Khao and Ron Phibun, east to Tunsong, as also described in his book A War of Shadows. The Mission arranged the orderly surrender of Japanese forces in their area of operations, before Moss left in November 1945

On 25 January 1946, he joined Operation Python. He was discharged on 21 November 1946.

Wartime honours

Moss was recommended for and received the Immediate Award of the Military Cross following the Kreipe abduction.

23 May 1944 Recommendation for MC.

This officer showed exceptional gallantry in taking part, with Major Leigh Fermor, in the organization and execution of the kidnapping of Major-General Kreipe at Arkhanes, Crete on 26 April 1944. It was due to Captain Moss’s swiftness in attacking the General’s car that the operation was made possible.

In the early stages of the kidnapping, Capt. Moss impersonated the chauffeur of the General’s car and for an hour and a half drove “the General” through Heraklion and passed 22 controlled road blocks before the car was finally abandoned. Subsequently Capt. Moss assisted in moving the General during a period of 17 days through enemy held territory.

For outstanding courage and audacity Capt. Moss is recommended for the Immediate Award of the MC.

Marriage and family

In Cairo, on 26 April 1945, Moss married Countess Zofia Tarnowska, his former housemate. She was the granddaughter of Count Stanislaw Tarnowski (1837–1917) and a direct descendant of Catherine the Great of Russia. Their witnesses were Prince Peter of Greece and Major the Hon Peter Pleydell-Bouverie KRRC. The reception was held at the house of Princess Emina Toussoun.

They had three children: Christine Isabelle Mercedes, named after their mutual friend and former SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek (Christine Granville), Sebastian (who died in infancy) and Gabriella. Initially living in London, they moved to Riverstown House, County Cork in Ireland. They later returned to London. They separated in 1957.

Writer and traveler

Moss achieved success as an author with three novels, as well as his two books based on his wartime adventures. In addition, he travelled to Germany and wrote an investigation of post-war Germany, studying what happened to gold accumulated by the Nazis: Gold Is Where You Hide It: What Happened to the Reichsbank Treasure? (1956).

Disappearance of Reichsbank and Abwehr reserves

Between 1952 and 1954, Moss joined up with his friend and former SOE agent, Andrzej Kowerski – who adopted his cover name, Andrew Kennedy, after the war – to investigate a mystery of the final days of the Third Reich. In April and May 1945, the remaining reserves of the Reichsbank – gold (730 bars), cash (6 large sacks), and precious stones and metals such as platinum (25 sealed boxes) – were dispatched by Walther Funk to be buried on the Klausenhof Mountain at Einsiedl in Bavaria, where the final German resistance was to be concentrated. Similarly the Abwehr cash reserves were hidden nearby in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Shortly after the American forces overran the area, the reserves and money disappeared.

Moss and Kennedy travelled back and forth across Germany and into Switzerland and corresponded with fugitives in Argentina, to research what had happened. They talked to many witnesses before finally establishing what had become of the treasure. What Moss and Kennedy uncovered, and the conclusions they reached on the various people responsible for the disappearances, have not been disputed to this day. The disappearance of Major Martin Borg, the US Military Governor of Garmisch-Partenkirchen at the time, has not been explained.

Later, Moss and Kennedy went on to uncover the consequences of Heinrich Himmler’s order of 28 October 1939, which confirmed the Lebensborn programme. They researched what had become of the children born as a result of the order.

Antarctica

He continued to travel extensively first to New Zealand from where, on 14 February 1958, he flew in a Globemaster aircraft (with one engine cutting out six hours from his destination) to Scott Base at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica to report on the arrival of the first Antarctic crossing achieved by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1957-8 led by Vivian Fuchs and Edmund Hillary. Months later, he returned to New Zealand in the icebreaker, The Glacier.

Sailing the Pacific

Taking to sea from New Zealand again, he sailed with Warwick Davies, John Ewing, Rex Hill and Bill Endean in Endeans’s 47 ft Alden-rigged Malabar ketch, the Crusader, through the islands of the Pacific via Tahiti, Pitcairn Islands, Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands to Panama, eventually landing at Nassau, Bahamas in December 1959.

Jamaica

Moss moved on to Kingston, Jamaica, where he settled. He died there on 9 August 1965, aged 44.

Books

Short stories

Teleplays

Translations

The William Stanley Moss Prizes

The Prizes are awarded annually by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Crete to students in the Department of Literature and Department of History and Archaeology. The prizes were created to honour the Cretans, in Moss's name, and as an expression of gratitude and debt to the Cretan people. The prizes were founded by his daughter, Gabriella, in 2014, the 70th anniversary of Moss's wartime missions to Crete, and were first awarded in July 2015.