• Operation Bricklayer
• Special Operations Executive (SOE)

Date of birth:

August 11th, 1919 (Patras, Greece)

Date of death:

June 9th, 2001

Nationality:

British

Born in Patras, Greece, Dennis Ciclitira moved with his family to Essex, England, where his father founded a dried fruit import business. Educated at Wycliffe School, Ciclitira later returned to Greece to learn the trade.

In 1939, he joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1940. Two years later, he volunteered for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), joining Force 133 in Cairo to support the Cretan resistance. He coordinated secret arms drops and evacuations, and in 1943 took command of SOE operations in western Crete.

Ciclitira played a key role in the 1944 evacuation of General Kreipe’s abductors, famously correcting their failed Morse signal with a torch and a sharp rebuke. He returned to Crete later that year, negotiated a prisoner exchange in 1945, and oversaw the formal German surrender on V-E Day.

Ciclitira later revived the family business, Demos Ciclitira Ltd, which became a leading UK importer of dried fruit.

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• - LEIGH FERMOR, P., Abducting a General, John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2014.
  - The London Gazette 1946

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