Damasta sabotage
World War II ambush near Damasta, Greece
The Damasta sabotage (Greek: Το σαμποτάζ της Δαμάστας) 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 (Greek: Δαμάστα) and was aimed at preventing the Germans assaulting the village of Anogeia.
Background
As part of a coordinated attack with the Special Boat Service, Billy Moss, the second-in-command of the Kreipe kidnap team, was despatched back to Crete in early July by Brigadier Barker-Benfield, the new commander of Force 133 in Cairo to provide guides for the S.B.S. and to raise a small strike force to carry out a diversionary attack at the same time.
Commanded by Major Ian Patterson MC, a force of forty-one S.B.S. raiders had been tasked by G.H.Q.M.E. to destroy petrol and fuel dumps on the island. The recce patrols landed on the night of 1/2 July. The S.B.S. attacks duly went in on the night of 22/23 July and the raiders were extracted by 29 July. They did a great deal of damage. Like the Special Air Service, it was their stock in trade to kill the enemy and destroy assets. At Durasi, 20,000 gallons of petrol [estimate] had been destroyed, one truck and one staff car wrecked and two Germans killed; at Apostoloi, the tally was 35,000-40,000 gallons, ten German killed and two seriously wounded; at Veneration, 70,000 gallons [Estimate] and two Germans killed; at Armeni, thirteen Germans killed, one wounded and one staff car destroyed; at Alikianos, 6,500 gallons [estimate] and three German killed; and at Voukolies, 20,000 gallons [estimate] and two Germans killed including one officer. It cannot have been lost on Müller that a previous commander of Fortress Crete, General Andrae, had been replaced by Bräuer after the 1942 S.B.S. raid; the whole garrison therefore was brought to a high state of readiness.
As a diversion, Moss opted to ambush enemy transport on the Heraklion-Rethymnos road with his small band of Cretan E.O.K. andartes and Russian escaped POWs.
“Damasta sabotage” enters the record as world War II ambush near Damasta, Greece. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Damasta, sabotage and World can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5212054. The first chronological checks are 1944 and 1942.
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