Xan Fielding Major Xan Fielding DSO ( 26 November 1918 – 19 August 1991 ) was a British author , translator , journalist and traveller , who served as an Special Operations Executive agent in Crete , France and the Far East during World War II . Biography . Early life . Alexander Wallace Fielding was born at Ootacamund , India , where his father , Percival Wallace Fielding served in the Indian Army , as a major in the 50th Sikhs . Fielding ' s mother died soon after his birth , and he was largely brought up in Nice , France , by his grandparents . He was educated at Charterhouse School , and then studied briefly at the Universities of Bonn , Munich and Freiberg in Germany . In the late 1930s Fielding moved to Cyprus , where he worked as a sub - editor on " The Cyprus Times " and ran a bar . Crete . Following the fall of France , Fielding joined the Army , and was commissioned into the Cyprus Regiment as a second lieutenant on 1 September 1940 . After the fall of Crete in May 1941 , he joined the Special Operations Executive , and was eventually landed in Crete with a supply of weapons and explosives by the submarine , under Commander Anthony Miers . Fielding teamed up with Patrick Leigh Fermor , and built an intelligence gathering network which provided detailed information on the movement of Axis troops , shipping , and air transport . He also arranged for the transportation to Egypt of hundreds of Allied soldiers left behind after the evacuation , and now being hidden by the Cretans . After six months Fielding returned to Cairo , and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order on 15 October 1942 . Fielding finally returned to Crete at the end of 1942 . In November 1943 he successfully concluded a pact between the two rival groups of andartes , the communist - led EAM - ELAS and the EOK , the national organisation of Crete . He was then relieved by Dennis Ciclitira . In Cairo , he became a member of the famous Tara household created by Bill Stanley Moss . France . In early 1944 Fielding volunteered to join the French section of SOE , and was parachuted into the south of France in mid - 1944 , where he was met by two other SOE agents ; Francis Cammaerts ( codename " Roger " ) and Christine Granville ( codename " Pauline " ) of the " Jockey " network . On 13 August 1944 Fielding , Cammaerts , and a French agent Christian Sorensen , were stopped at a road block near Digne . An irregularity in Fielding ' s papers , plus the large amount of cash he and Cammaerts were carrying aroused suspicion and they were arrested . Granville soon arrived at Digne prison posing as Cammaert ' s wife and using a mixture of bribery and threats persuaded the Germans to release them . As a result the men were led out of prison expecting to be shot , and were astonished to be met by Granville , waiting for them with a car . Post - war career . Before the war in Europe ended Fielding briefly returned to Crete ; he was one of the first Allied officers to enter liberated Athens . He served in the Far East for a few months until the end of the war , and visited Tibet . He then spent six months in Germany serving with the Special Intelligence Service , before serving as a United Nations observer in the Balkans in 1946 . In 1948 he met Daphne Thynne , the wife of Henry Thynne , 6th Marquess of Bath . After her divorce , they were married in 1953 and lived in Cornwall , Morocco , Portugal and Uzès . In 1956 Fielding was hired by Michael Powell to act as technical adviser for the filming of Bill Stanley Moss ' s book " Ill Met by Moonlight " – the story of Leigh Fermor ' s and Moss ' s abduction of General Kreipe , the German commander in Crete . Fielding wrote a number of books ; including " The Stronghold " , an account of SOE ' s Cretan operations , and a memoir of his own wartime experiences " Hide and Seek " ( which he dedicated to Christine Granville ) . He also provided the English translations for many of the works of the French novelist Pierre Boulle , including his best - known books " Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï " ( " The Bridge over the River Kwai " ) and " La Planète des singes " ( " Planet of the Apes " ) . He translated several books by Jean Lartéguy , as well as works by Gabriel Chevallier , Pierre Schoendoerffer and Jean Hougron . Fielding also collaborated with Patrick Leigh Fermor in a translation from Greek of George Psychoundakis ' book " The Cretan Runner " . His marriage to Daphne was dissolved in 1978 , and he married Agnes " Magouche " Phillips , the daughter of Admiral John H . Magruder of the U . S . Navy and the widow of the artist Arshile Gorky . Fielding died in Paris , France , in 1991 .