| The 11th Day: Crete 1941 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Christos Epperson |
| Written by | Michael Epperson |
| Produced by | Christos Epperson Michael Epperson |
| Cinematography | Ian Ashenbremer |
| Edited by | Jordan Dertinger |
Release date |
|
| Country | United States |
| Languages | English and Greek |
The 11th Day: Crete 1941 is a 2005 documentary film featuring eyewitness accounts from survivors of theBattle of Crete duringWorld War II. The film was created by producer-director Christos Epperson and writer-producer Michael Epperson, and funded byAlex Spanos. Among the eyewitnesses interviewed are BritishSOE operative and famous travel writerPatrick Leigh Fermor, along withGeorge Doundoulakis, andCretan Resistance hero George Tzitzikas. The film also includes historical commentary and analysis by Chase Brandon of theCIA and ProfessorAndre Gerolymatos ofSimon Fraser University.
On May 20, 1941, thousands of elite German paratroopers, theFallschirmjäger, assaulted the island of Crete.[2] It was the beginning of one of the largest paratrooper assaults in modern history, ultimately involving 22,040 German soldiers.[3] It was also the first timeGerman troops faced a unified resistance from a civilian populace.[4] The Battle of Crete would become the largest German airborne operation of World War II, known as "Operation Mercury," (German:Luftlandeschlacht um Kreta, alsoUnternehmen Merkur,Greek:Μάχη της Κρήτης).
The Germans had expected to control the island within a few days; after all, in less than seven weeks they had defeatedFrance and occupied Paris for eight days before an armistice was signed.[5][6] What the Germans had not anticipated was the unrelenting opposition from the men, women, and children ofCrete, who would fight alongside British andDominion forces,[7] ultimately embroilingNazi Germany in one of its most costly campaigns of the war. Collaborating with a handful of BritishSpecial Operations Executive commandos likePatrick Leigh Fermor,William Stanley Moss (both featured in the film) andJohn Pendlebury, the Cretan resistance would prove to become the most dauntingly potent civilian resistance movement Nazi Germany would encounter throughout the war.[8] Although the Battle of Crete ended after ten days with the withdrawal of British forces from the island, history would record it as aPyrrhic victory for the Germans, as the years-long resistance that began on the "11th Day" would belong to the Cretans.
With the help of a handful of British agents of theSpecial Operations Executive, as well as supply drops from the U.S.Office of Strategic Services, the Cretan civilian resistance engaged in many significant sabotage operations, among these the destruction of theKastelli Airfield.George Doundoulakis, along withKimon Zografakis and two English commandos, was able to destroy the airfield, which included German airplanes and hundreds of barrels of aviation fuel.[9][10] Among the most historically significant of these operations was the abduction and rendition ofthe German commander of Crete, General Heinrich Kreipe. Masterminded and led by BritishSpecial Operations Executive officersPatrick Leigh Fermor andBilly Stanley Moss, it was undoubtedly the most ambitious, if not the only successful, kidnapping of a German general throughout the war.[11] BothLeigh Fermor andMoss became legend after the war in the British book and film,Ill Met by Moonlight, for theirabduction of German general Kreipe and their rendition of the general from Crete to Egypt. Notably, "The 11th Day: Crete 1941" includes rare, exclusive interview segments withPatrick Leigh Fermor himself, wherein he recounts this historic operation in great detail.
Pre-production for the project began in 2000, when producer-director Christos Epperson and his brother, philosopher Michael Epperson,[12] the film's writer and co-producer, began to document the history of their great aunts and uncles—three brothers and their two sisters—who fought with the Cretan resistance in Chania.[13] In 1944, their aunt Eleftheria Xirouhakis was captured, tortured, and executed, and her brothers Kyriako, Manoli, and Dimitri were sent to theMauthausen concentration camp, and were later transferred to theAuschwitz concentration camp, then theBergen-Belsen concentration camp and finally back to the Mauthausen camp where they remained until their liberation by the U.S. Army on May 5, 1945.[14] Moved by the story,Los Angeles Chargers ownerAlex Spanos provided major funding for the project, allowing it to expand to include the stories of numerous other Cretan resistance veterans, British soldiers,Special Operations Executive agents, as well as historical analysis byAndre Gerolymatos of Simon Fraser University and Chase Brandon of the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency. Principal photography began in late 2001 in Crete, with additional footage shot in Northern California.[15]
The film premiered on September 28, 2005 in Chicago,[16] beginning a tour of theaters throughout the United States and Canada.[17][18] In November 2006, the film was released on DVD with Greek and English-language tracks. A photo gallery of over 500 images is also included. The film is available in libraries as well as through commercial online retailers. On the official film website, the producers have made available their collection of research material. Included are over 2000+ photos, of which many are rare and unpublished. It is the perhaps one of the largest online archive of World War II photos and documents in the world.