Patrick Leigh Fermor
Source: Web (adventure.com)
Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇬🇧 Great Britain • 9 views

Patrick Leigh Fermor 🇬🇧

Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor
Travel Writer, Scholar, SOE Commando, Decorated War Hero
Born Feb 11, 1915 🇬🇧 London, Great Britain
Passed Away Jun 10, 2011 Dumbleton, United Kingdom
Lifespan 96 years old
9 views
Notice / Correction
"Walking is the only true way to see a country: at human speed, step by step."

Archival Overview

Renowned British travel writer and World War II hero who walked across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933 and abducted German General Kreipe in Nazi-occupied Crete.

Biographical Record

At age eighteen in 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on foot across Europe, sleeping in barns and aristocratic castles, a journey that inspired his travel masterpieces 'A Time of Gifts' (1977) and 'Between the Woods and the Water' (1986).

During World War II, Leigh Fermor served in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) behind enemy lines in Crete. Disguised as Cretan shepherds, he and Captain William Stanley Moss daringly kidnapped German garrison commander Major-General Heinrich Kreipe in 1944. Later settling in the Peloponnese, he was acclaimed as Britain's greatest living travel writer.

Key Life Milestones

1944

Kidnapping of General Kreipe in Crete

Led the daring SOE commando operation that captured the German island commander and smuggled him to Cairo.

1977

Publication of A Time of Gifts

Published his lyrical masterpiece chronicling pre-war Central Europe, widely ranked among the finest travel books in English.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Saint Peter's Churchyard
Dumbleton, United Kingdom
GPS: 52.0167, -2.0000
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