Books like Daedalus Returned — picked by fans

For me, the standout history of the Battle of Crete to this day remains this book, first published back in 1966. Stewart was able to bring his own experience of the war to bear–he had served as a medical officer with a British unit and witnessed with his own eyes the spectacular airborne German invasion.

This is not, however, a first-hand battle account but rather the beautifully crafted result of six years of research drawing on voluminous first-hand accounts, archival sources, and histories. I am drawn to the compelling descriptions of battle while also appreciating the skill with which the author places the Battle of Crete in its wider political and strategic context. 

As an avid consumer of military history, I am looking for books that not only set the wider political and strategic context of a war, a battle, or a fighting unit but also take me as a reader into the field of battle. Antony Beevor has managed that balance superbly ever since his first major success with his work on the Spanish Civil War.

His book is no different, vividly delivering to me the lived experience of fighting men on both sides. Importantly–and as the subtitle says–it also reminds me that for the people of Crete the short battle led to a brutal occupation of the island lasting four agonizing years.

I know the value of visiting the sites of battle, even decades or centuries after the event. A sense of topography and space acquired in situ can provide insights in ways that pages, maps, and screens cannot. Yannis Prekatsounakis is a native of Heraklion. His book is infused with his own intimate sense of the place where a crucial part of the Battle of Crete raged. 

Prekatsounakis, for good reason, laments that the works of many historians on the Battle of Crete lack Greek perspectives. While he delivers them in abundance here, he weaves them with narratives and accounts of German and Allied participants as well. I love the abundance of maps and photographs that complement the author’s own heightened sense of place. 

As an Australian, I am struck by the silence around the Battle of Crete and other campaigns in that part of the world. In stark contrast to our neighbors across the Tasman, for Australia, the Second World War was all about the war in the Pacific.  

This book by the Australian military historian Albert Palazzo, published in an Australian Army Campaign series, is not simply an Australian perspective on the Battle of Crete, but it does foreground the Australian contribution. What appeals to me also is the rich array of visual material it presents, often in full color, from photographs and maps to Orders of Battle, Chains of Command, and weapons.

All of this is complemented by expert knowledge from a historian who knows his strategy, his tactics, and his hardware.

These are recollections of a Parish as a serving officer with Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. He was involved in fighting in Greece, starting with the Battle of Crete in 1941 and culminating in the capture of Leros in November 1943.

He addresses the failures of the events and why these happened.

Not crime although there are crimes in it. The narrative structure of the quartet was a major influence on structuring my trilogy. The first three present different versions of the same events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt before and during the Second World War. In Book 1, a self-absorbed, pretentious narrator, Darley, presents an account of an intense love affair. In book 2, Balthazar shows how ignorant he was about what was really going on about him. Mountolive widens the political context and shows both earlier narrators were looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Book 4 manages to tease out yet more solutions to mysteries thought resolved.

I have a theory that great fiction about the British Army may require conscription – that system propelled individuals who otherwise would have never joined the military into the institution. They could then respond in writing in a manner that peacetime volunteers were never able to.

Evelyn Waugh, already in his late 30s when the Second World War was declared in 1939, was an unlikely soldier. However, he turned his experiences – notably in West Africa, Crete, and Yugoslavia – into a trio of fine fiction centered on a somewhat Waugh-like character, Guy Crouchback.

Waugh’s genius is to capture some of the eccentricities of army life – the discussion about the merits of porpoise skin as a material for boots will echo with anyone who has ever overheard, or participated in, an earnest discussion about the minutiae of kit. 

This book brings back to life the pioneering British archaeologists who, basing themselves at the atmospheric Villa Ariadne, rediscovered the prehistoric civilisation of the Minoans at Knossos on the island of Crete.

I love this book because it brings back memories of when I excavated at Knossos—the local workmen lowered an apprehensive me into an ancient well to measure its depth and I stayed next door to the Villa, taking walks in the surrounding countryside carpeted with wildflowers.

The Villa was purloined by the Germans in World War II. The book also taught me about the bravery of the Cretan resistance to the Nazis, including the dramatic kidnap of a German general on the Villa’s doorstep. 

This is not only the story of a young American serving in WWII, it's a family story about what happens when that MIA or KIA telegram arrives. And how it permeates through the family when the family member is never found and the family is left in limbo, dealing with an ambiguous loss and unresolved grief that even affects more generations.

Because my Grandma Leora lost three sons during WWII, I can relate to the not knowing, as for one of the brothers, only God knows where his remains lie today.

It is encouraging to read about the author's trips to Europe and to learn how much the Dutch revere the young Americans who helped liberate their homeland. They publicly remember anniversaries and welcome visiting Americans, especially those hunting for answers.

This family history and historical journey, aiming for closure by one family, is a real American treasure.

I loved this book because it made me feel like I was there, living in the Cretan White Mountains in the 1960s on a very tight budget, surrounded by magnificent Greek countryside, and eating local foods. I have visited Crete several times and found the kindness, friendliness, and philoxenia- hospitality shown to strangers by the locals is still true of the Cretan people today.

This is a beautiful and truly memorable read. If you ever wondered what it would be like to go and live in the mountains of Greece, this book will make you feel like you have done just that. I want to go back just thinking about it.