Somewhere near "Damasta" - Island Cache War! Traditional Geocache

This cache has been archived.

erik88l-r: Cache has been archived due to the lack of a timely response from the cache owner to the previous request. If the owner would like it unarchived please contact me within 30 days. Please keep in mind that the cache will be subject to the same guidelines applied to a new cache proposal.

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Hidden : 3/5/2011
Difficulty:
4 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size: not chosen (not chosen)

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Geocache Description:

Looked like a good place for a cache while driving from Rethymno to Heraklion on the Old Road.


History about the Damasta sabotage

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 Anogia.

On 7 August 1944, Feldwebel Josef Olenhauer (known to the locals as "Sifis", the local diminutive for his name, quite widespread in Crete) and ten men of the German garrison based in Yeni Gave went up to the village of Anogia in search of concentration camp labourers. Olenhauer ordered his men to round up selected males in order to force them to march towards Rethymno. The villagers refused to come and so in retaliation, fifty hostages were taken. On leaving, the Germans were surrounded by local andartes, who attacked the detachment, freeing the hostages and killing all the Germans. Despite the success of their move, the villagers of Anogia feared that reprisals from the Germans were imminent and therefore took to the mountains and the local resistance.

On the following day, August 8th, a resistance group commanded by the British Special Operations Executive officer Captain Bill Stanley Moss MC consisting of eight Cretans from Anogia organized into EOK and six escaped Russian soldiers, marched to the main road connecting Rethymno and Heraklion.

They 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 themselves for the German reaction. After destroying various passing vehicles, among which was a lorry carrying military mail to Chania, the German force targeting Anogia finally appeared. It consisted of a truck of infantrymen backed up by an armoured car. The partisans attacked the German troops and Moss destroyed the armoured car by dropping a grenade into the hatch. In total 40 to 50 Germans and one Russian partisan were killed in the clash that followed. Cretan partisan Manolis Spithouris (Ntampakomanolis) was seriously wounded in the abdomen.

The expediency of the ambush in Damasta has been strongly disputed. Whilst Moss had hoped that it might have saved Anogia, Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, the German commander in Crete, would not let Anogia go unpunished and had further strategic reasons for reprisals and terror across Crete in order to assist the German planned evacuation from much of the island to Chania. Anogia dwellers had been actively involved in, and given refuge to, the resistance for many years, had killed the sergeant Commander Olenhauer and the garrison from Yeni-Gave and had also provided shelter to the abductors of General Heinrich Kreipe.

Thus, on 13 August 1944, Müller ordered that Anogia should be razed to the ground and every male inhabitant found in the village executed. As a result, about 50 residents of Anogia were shot, the village was systematically pillaged and eventually destroyed.

On August 21, the Germans executed 30 men from the village of Damasta after accusing them as accomplices for not having given warning about the ambush and swept their village away. Müller was convicted for this and other war crimes. He was sentenced to death on 9 December 1946 and executed by firing squad 20 May 1947.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Xrrc ybbxvat vgf gurer

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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