George Psychoundakis George Psychoundakis ( , November 3 , 1920 – January 29 , 2006 ) was a Greek Resistance fighter on Crete during the Second World War . He was a shepherd , a war hero and an author . He served as dispatch runner between Petro Petrakas and Papadakis behind the German lines for the Cretan resistance and later , from 1941 to 1945 , for the Special Operations Executive ( SOE ) . During the postwar years he was at first mistakenly imprisoned as a deserter . There he wrote his memoirs , which achieved worldwide success . Later he translated key classical Greek texts into the Cretan dialect . Early life . George Psychoundakis was born in Asi Gonia ( ) , a village of a few hundred people high in the Mouselas valley in western Crete . The village was not serviced by a road until the 1950s . He was the penultimate son of Nicolas and Angeliké , one of the poorest families in the village . They lived in a one - roomed home with an earth floor . After a minimum of tuition in the village school , he became a shepherd , tending his family ' s few sheep and goats . He developed an intimate knowledge of his part of the island . In the coming war , people used the caves to live in and to store weapons . They traveled the goat tracks to carry messages , goods and people . Crete had a tradition of resistance to invaders ; the island only obtained its freedom from Turkey in 1898 . Numerous insurrections during the long occupation , together with the mountainous terrain , helped maintain an independence of character and willingness to bear and use arms . Wartime service . As an airborne Nazi invasion began on 20 May 1941 , Psychoundakis immediately went to the nearest town ( Episkopi , Rethymno ) about 15 km away . He took part in an ill - armed resistance soon followed by defeat of the allies . The Cretans hid many hundreds of British forces left behind , and the resistance organised their movement to the south coast . From there the British were shipped to Egypt . Psychoundakis helped guiding groups from village to village . By the autumn of 1941 , SOE were beginning to organise with British liaison officers on the island , one of whom was Patrick Leigh Fermor . He arrived clandestinely by sea in July 1942 . Psychoundakis acted as Fermor ' s runner , carrying messages between resistance groups and guiding parties unfamiliar with the territory . Leigh Fermor described the man in his introduction to " The Cretan Runner " : The Cretan runners performed amazing feats and made essential contributions to the British operations in the Mediterranean . In 490 BC Pheidippides ran 42 km from the battle of Marathon to tell about the victory over the Persians , and died just after delivering his message . In comparison , Psychoundakis ran from Kastelli - Kissamou on the northwestern coast of Crete to Paleochora on the southwestern coast in one night . The distance along the present main road is 70 km . Through a rugged landscape with deep ravines , where he had to run to avoid the Germans , the distance may have been twice as far . The resistance fighters faced baking Cretan summers and severely cold winters , particularly in the hills . Food was often short and fighters suffered from hiding in cold , dripping caves with deep snow outside . The island ' s fighters were never put to the ultimate test ; they had hoped Crete might be a starting point for the invasion of southern Europe . The island was liberated in 1945 . The British offered Psychoundakis payment for his work , but he turned them down . He said that he worked for his country and not for money . Postwar life . After the liberation , Psychoundakis was arrested as a deserter and was confined for 16 months despite having been honoured by the British with BEM ( Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service ) and £200 as an award for his services during the war . While in confinement he wrote his memories of service in the SOE and the Cretan resistance movement . His former superior Patrick Leigh Fermor , later Sir Patrick , discovered his plight by accident and managed to secure his release by clearing up the misunderstanding . After reading his manuscript , Leigh Fermor translated it into English , and assisted in getting it published , under the title " The Cretan Runner " in 1955 . The book has since been translated into a number of European languages . After his release from prison , Psychoundakis was first forced to fight in the civil war . Then he worked as a charcoal burner in the Cretan mountains to support his family until his book was published . During this period , he wrote the book " The Eagle ' s Nest " , which deals with the life and customs of the mountain people in the villages near his home of Asi Gonia . This book has been translated into English by Dr Barrie Machin , the social anthropologist , who worked with George Psychoundakis in 1967 and 1968 on an anthropological study of Asi Gonia . Barrie returned on numerous occasions to work with George . They became very close friends . The work should be published as ' Warriors and Maidens ' . George was a natural anthropologist as well as a gifted writer , with a phenomenal memory . He was extremely impoverished . He could not afford pen and paper . In 1968 Barrie left him an enormous pile of 5 " by 4 " cards and pens so he could write . He started the Iliad that year . Psychoundakis made considerable contributions to Cretan culture . He learned much of Crete ' s tradition of oral poetry and also wrote . Psychoundakis translated Homer ' s works , " Iliad " ( 560 pages ) and " Odyssey " ( 474 pages ) , from ancient Greek to the Cretan dialect . For this he was honoured by the Academy of Athens . Given his two or three years of occasional village education , it was a remarkable achievement . From 1974 until his retirement , Psychoundakis , together with another fighter in the Greek resistance , Manoli Paterakis , were caretakers at the German war cemetery on Hill 107 above Maleme . George Psychoundakis buried Bruno Brauer when he was re - interred on Crete later in the 1970s .