During World War II, the Greece Mediterranean island of Crete was Axis occupation of Greece during World War II by the Nazis. British officers Patrick Leigh Fermor (Dirk Bogarde) and W. Stanley Moss (David Oxley) of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) land on the island. With the help of the local Cretan resistance in April 1944, they kidnap General Kreipe (Marius Goring), the commander of the island. They take Kreipe across rough country to a secluded cove on the far side of the island, where they are picked up and taken to Cairo, the Middle East headquarters of British forces.