page_title: Damasta sabotage
section_title: Ambush
hierarchical_section_title: Damasta sabotage / Ambush
caption_attribution_description: English: Kosta "Deerslayer" Kephaloyannis
context_page_description: The Damasta sabotage was an attack by Cretan resistance fighters led by British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC against German occupation forces in World War II. The attack occurred on 8 August 1944 near the village of Damasta and was aimed to prevent the Germans from assaulting the village of Anogeia.
context_section_description: On the following day, August 8, a resistance group commanded by the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC consisting of eight Cretans from Anogeia organized into EOK (Kefalogiannis, Stavrakakis, Sbokos, Spithouris, Skoulas and Kontokalos) and six escaped Russian prisoners of war, marched to the main road connecting Rethymno and Heraklion. Moss had previously created a small strike force of escaped Russian POWs working with the andartes, planning to attack enemy transport on the Heraklion-Rethymno road. However, in the light of events in Anogeia, he instead set out to waylay the inevitable response before the German troops left their transport and deployed, so that Anogeia might be saved.
  He chose an ambush site by a bridge in the Damastos location, one kilometer west of the village of Damasta and mined it with Hawkins grenades, preparing for the German reaction. After destroying various passing vehicles, among which was a lorry carrying military mail to Chania, the German force on its way to target Anogeia finally appeared. It consisted of a truck of infantrymen backed up by an armoured car. Moss and his group attacked the German troops. Moss crawled up to the back of the armoured car and dropped a grenade into the hatch. In total 35 Germans and 10 Italians were killed, as well as one Russian partisan, and 12 Axis prisoners taken in the clash that followed. Cretan partisan Manolis Spithouris (Ntampakomanolis) was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Nevertheless, he was rescued in "extremely brave action" by Kostas Kephaloyannis (Kountokostas) and treated by fellow andartes, as well as Moss and Georgios Tyrakis, managing to survive. Moss argued on his return to Cairo that Kephaloyannis should be decorated for his action.
  The operation is described in detail in Moss's book A War of Shadows and commemorated at Damasta and the Historical Museum of Crete.
caption: Kephaloyannis Kostas, codenamed "Deerslayer" by SOE - Crete 1944
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