Frank Macaskie

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Francis Gilbert MacAskie (* 1912 , † 1951 in Middlesex ) was a British journalist who played a key role in the coordinated transfer of power from the Wehrmacht to British troops in Greece during World War II .

Life

Frank Macaskie was the son of Thomas Septimus Macaskie (1869-1934), an uncle of Nicholas Lechmere Cunningham Macaskie (1881-1967)

On March 9, 1940, he was drafted into the Royal Leicestershire Regiment . First in the 1 / 5th Bn and then in the 2nd Leicesters. In 1941 he was wounded by the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Crete , captured and escaped to Cairo, where he became Special Operations Executive MO4 under the lawyer Colonel George A. Pollock from August 15, 1941 Terence Maxwell, August 1942 and Lord Glenconner major at the end of 1943 General William Stawell was in charge of the Anglophone Resistance in Greece.

He was released from a submarine off Italy- occupied Greece, captured three times and escaped twice. He arrived with Alexis Ladas as interpreter in November 1941, and in the following February 1942 both were captured by the Italians on the island of Kythnos on their return journey . In 1943, on his third attempt to escape, he killed a German and was sentenced to death. Pius XII. intervened and his release was negotiated before the Germans took over the prison camp he was in. In 1944 he was parachuted over Greece and organized the escape of around 250 Allied entourage.

On March 26, 1944, he was awarded the Military Cross with two silver clasps on the ribbon for gallant and respected service in the Middle East.

From June 16, 1944 to 1945, Alfred Martin Escher was administrator at the Swiss embassy in Athens, which was occupied by the Wehrmacht . Initiated by a letter from Frank Macaskie, Escher coordinated the transfer of occupation from the Wehrmacht to the Anglo-American troops in Greece, which prevented ELAS from taking over power .

On Thursday, October 12, 1944, he and 10 soldiers from the unit of George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, took command of Maximilian von Weichs in Athens.

In 1944 he was a correspondent for The Daily Telegraph in Athens.

From 1945 to 1946 he was a liaison officer to Archbishop Damaskinos Papandreou during his reign in Greece. On November 14, 1946, he resigned from the British Army and became The Times ' Balkan correspondent , initially in Athens.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jane Macaskie's Berlin letters 1946-48.
  2. ↑ Panteleymon Anastasakis, The Church of Greece under Axis Occupation, 2014, [1]
  3. ↑ Frank Macaskie in the database Dodis the Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland
  4. ↑ Dario Gerardi, Athènes 1944: la mission secrète du consul Alfred Escher: un épisode d'avant-guerre froide? doi : 10.5169 / seals-81364
  5. ↑ Jellicoe (now well on his way into Macedonia) got into Athens on Friday the thirteenth, the day the Germans left, but actually the first here was Frank Macaskie with ten of Jellicoe's men, who already roamed the city on the twelfth. Macaskie is living in the house of the Archbishop of Athens, Damaskinos. See Richard Capell, Simiomata: A Greek Note Book, 1944–1945, Books 1944–1945, MacDonald - 218 pp., 43
  6. ↑ André Gerolymatos, An International Civil War: Greece, 1943-1949, p.24
  7. ↑ Having sheltered MI6 officer Frank MacAskie during the occupation, Damaskinos had been in touch with the Greek Prime Minister of the government-in-exile on the possibility of forming an anti-communist block to EAM / ELAS.
  8. ^ Royal Leicestershire Regiment
personal data
SURNAME Macaskie, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacAskie, Francis Gilbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1912
DATE OF DEATH 1951
Place of death Middlesex