A British engineer officer drawn into Greek resistance politics
On 25 November 1942, Myers's party blew up a span of the Gorgopotamos railway viaduct with support from about 150 Greek partisans.
Edmund Myers was a Royal Engineers officer who led the Special Operations Executive's British military mission to occupied Greece during the Second World War. He planned and commanded the November 1942 operation that destroyed the Gorgopotamos railway viaduct, coordinating cooperation between the rival ELAS and EDES resistance groups. His military assignment became entangled with British intervention in Greece's postwar political order, and he later recorded the experience in his memoir Greek Entanglement.
Career Timeline
- 1926Commissioned into the Royal Engineers
- 1942–1944Head of the SOE British Military Mission to occupied Greece
- 1942Commanded the Gorgopotamos viaduct operation
- 1943Took part in the destruction of the Asopos railway bridge
- 1944Commander Royal Engineers, 1st Airborne Division, at Arnhem
- 1955Published the memoir Greek Entanglement