A War of Shadows

A War of Shadows

Author	W. Stanley Moss
Language	English
Genre	War
Publisher	T.V. Boardman and Co. Ltd, Bene Factum Publishing, Paul Dry Publishing
Publication date	1952, 2014 (UK), 2014 (USA)
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	240
ISBN
Preceded by	Ill Met by Moonlight

A War of Shadows is a non-fiction book written by W. Stanley Moss, a British soldier, writer and traveller, best known, together with Patrick Leigh Fermor, for the Kidnap of General Kreipe as described in Moss’s book Ill Met by Moonlight. Moss recounts his subsequent activities during World War II as agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Crete, Macedonia (Greece) and Siam (Thailand). The 2014 editions contain an Introduction by one of Moss's children and a short biography, Billy Moss: Soldier, Writer, Traveller - A Brief Life by Alan Ogden as an Afterword.

In May 1941, German forces attacked and occupied Crete. Allied forces were driven back and evacuated to North Africa by June. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) inserted agents on Crete in order to work with the local resistance in harrying German occupying forces.

After the Kreipe Abduction, Moss returned to Crete on 6 July 1944. On the main road connecting Rethymno and Heraklion, he led a resistance group consisting of eight Cretans and six escaped Russian POW soldiers in an ambush on German forces intent on attacking Anogeia. He chose an ambush site by a bridge in the Damastos location, one kilometre west of the village of Damasta. After the team destroyed various passing vehicles, among which was a lorry carrying military mail to Chania, the German force on its way to target Anogia finally appeared. It consisted of a truck of infantrymen backed up by an armoured car. Moss and his group attacked the troops. Moss crawled up to the back of the armoured car and dropped a grenade into the hatch. In total, 40 to 50 Germans were killed in the clash that followed and one Russian partisan. He left Crete on 18 August 1944.