Five men were chosen to silence THE GUNS OF NAVARONE which controlled the approaches to the eastern Mediterranean island of Kheros. The British garrison on Kheros, twelve hundred men, had to be evacuated before the Germans launched their inevitable attack. The guns would have to be silenced in one swift, secret strike.
The raiding party would go by boat, landing where the Germans least expected them: at the foot of the towering cliffs, beneath the impossible, impregnable walls of rock. Then they would climb the cliffs.
First the stowed away a sackful of old clothes, then the food, pressure stove and fuel, the heavy boots, spikes, mallets, rock axes and coils of wire centered rope to be used for climbing, then, more carefully, the combined radio receiver and transmitter and the firing generator fitted with the old-fashioned plunge handle. Next came the guns two Schmeissers, two Brens, a Mauser and a Colt then a case containing a weird but carefully selected hodge-podge of torches, mirrors, two sets of identity papers and, incredibly, bottles of Hock, Moselle, ouzo and retsima.
Finally, and with exaggerated care, they stowed away for ard om the forepeak two wooden boxes, one green in colour, medium sized and bound in brass, the other small and black...the explosives.
Five men were going to attempt the impossible.
