The closest parallels to the fictional events of the “Guns of Navarone” were probably the raids undertaken in the Aegean in 1943-44 by the various Allied special forces units coordinated by Raiding Forces these included the British LRDG, Special Boat Section and Levant Schooner Flotilla, the Greek Sacred Regiment, and the mixed Anglo-Hellenic Schooner Flotilla. Would be interested in hearing others thoughts about this. Of course “Ill Met by Moonlight” was published in 1950 and the film version in 1957-accounts of the actual Gen. The parallels with Paddy’s exploits seem obvious. In the movie Mallory is described as the “world’s greatest mountain climber” and “speaks Greek like a Greek and German like a German”-but was chosen mainly because he has survived for a year and a half as a guerrilla with the Cretan resistance.
Keith Mallory leading a team to destroy German guns on “Navarone”-said to be the real island of Leros. I wonder if there is any connection between PLF’s WW2 deeds and the fictional work “Guns of Navarone”, Alistair MacLean’s 1957 novel and the 1961 film starring Gregory Peck as Capt. He asks an interesting question so I thought I would elevate it from deep in a comments page to the main blog site to see if it provokes some debate. The following was posted as a comment in Your Paddy Thoughts by Robert Seibert.
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