The
Battle of Crete lasted ten days, during which Helias' brother
George Doundoulakis worked as an interpreter for the joint Greek/British military headquarters. After the battle was lost, the Doundoulakis brothers joined the
Cretan resistance.
"Monty" Woodhouse, a
Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent, approached George after witnessing his competence and leadership abilities. He asked that George help him evacuate British soldiers stranded on Crete. George formed an underground organization by recruiting friends, ex-military officers, and civilians from
Heraklion and
Lasithi. George's organization supplied key intelligence to the SOE by collaborating with Woodhouse, then with
Thomas Dunbabin ("Tom"), and later,
Paddy Fermor ("Mihalis"). Helias was assigned to the Heraklion Airfield, where he relayed to a nearby peanut vendor the number of
Luftwaffe planes returning from
Rommel's Afrika Korps in Egypt. George's organization was betrayed to the
Gestapo by a local Cretan after two years with the SOE. Leigh Fermor urged Helias and George to depart immediately to the south shore of Crete through the
Psiloritis Mountains and await exfiltration by the SOE. After hiding in caves for a month, the Doundoulakis brothers were rescued by a
British torpedo boat. Along with thirteen others, they were bound for
Mersa Matruh. As they were about to board, Helias and George reunited with Leigh Fermor and partisan leader
Petrakogiorgis. Petrakogiorgis had returned to Crete on the same boat ferrying the Doundoulakis brothers to Egypt on June 7, 1943.) After safely arriving in
Mersa Matruh, Helias, George, John ("Yanni") Androulakis to recruit them as they were Americans. Their commanding officer was Major
John Vassos,
RCA's well-known industrial designer. Prospective agents were trained inside an elaborate palace rented from Egypt's ruling monarch,
King Farouk. Helias was trained for six months in the arts of
espionage in a facility known as the
'Spy School,' by the
Secret Intelligence Branch. Advanced
commando and
parachute training was provided by the British at their
SOE STS-102 training facility in
Haifa, Palestine. Upon completion of his training in March 1944, Helias was dispatched on a mission to
Salonica, Greece by Major Vassos. He set up a phony business in a factory once owned by
Greek Jews. Helias remained embedded undercover in Salonica from April to December 1944, sending
encrypted radio messages to OSS-Cairo on German activity. One message resulted in the destruction of a German troop train by a squadron of
Allied B-25 bombers. His radio transmissions were pinpointed by German triangulation methods, but he escaped. Although constantly hunted by the
Gestapo and the
Greek police, he eluded capture. He was never suspected of being an American spy — outwitting both the Germans and Greeks. Had he fallen into enemy hands, he was determined to take his own life with a cyanide capsule. Helias was awarded the
Good Conduct Medal George Doundoulakis was trained in the
Morale Operations and Special Operations branches. He was dispatched to
Volos, Greece where he coordinated 7,000
Greek leftist rebels into a unified fighting force. He provided food, weapons, and materials for his irregular army through OSS bases in Turkey. Entrenched in the impassable
Pelion Mountains of
Thessaly, they destroyed Greece's eastern railway system and Volos' maritime link to
Athens, effectively choking the German Army. George was promoted to
first sergeant and awarded the
Legion of Merit. ==Post-war==