Initial Target: Müller

In late 1943, SOE officers Major Patrick Leigh Fermor and Captain W. Stanley Moss conceived a plan in Cairo to abduct General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, commander of the 22nd Air Landing Division in Crete. Müller was targeted due to his extreme brutality and responsibility for numerous atrocities against the Cretan population, earning him the nickname “The Butcher of Crete”. The operation aimed to boost Cretan morale and damage German prestige.