"Some time later I met David Balfour again in Cairo, and this time he HAD shaved off his beard, and he was wearing the uniform of a Major in the Intelligence Corps which is a regular unit of the British army."Eliascos said he would like to quote a little more from the sensational article written by J.M.Thursby in the 'ATHENIAN'.
"Several years before war was even declared, the Abwehr (German military intelligence), along with the Nazi civilian secret service, had highly trained undercover agents operating in Greece.With consummate skill they had catalogued all military and civil information that could be useful to the Third Reich, and organised spy rings throughout the country.As war became more and more inevitable, it also became increasingly imperative that Britain and other anti-fascist countries should gain specific and accurate knowledge of these operations.
"During this period a monk, who had embraced the Orthodox faith in Warsaw, arrived from Poland via Mount Athos, to join the monastery of Pendeli, just outside Athens.According to his biographer John Freeman, his registration at Pendeli reads,Cell 102 Serial number 75 Secular name David Balfour Ecclesiastic name Dimitri Place of birth England Age 35 Inscribed order of His Holiness the Archbishop of Athens.Coming from the Russian Church.Archbishopric ordinance number 3197 of 9 May 1936.""Father Dimitri was obviously a well-educated and very courteous person.He had studied in various parts of Europe and spoke several languages fluently.These included ancient, Byzantine and modern Greek, not to mention colloquial 'mangika' (slang).When a vacancy arose for a priest to serve the chapel at Evangelismos Hospital in central Athens, who should be more suitable for this post in the heart of the select neighbourhood of Kolonaki than the well-educated, well-bred, charming and conscientious Father Dimitri."(David Balfour died aged 86 on the 11th of October 1989.)"Anyway, let me continue my story of the 'Corinthia trip", Eliascos went on."We celebrated Easter on board and when we arrived at Alexandria some of us were sent on to Cairo and others went to India.My brother and I presented ourselves at the offices of the Press Department of the British Embassy in the Garden City.We were received by the well- known Byzantine scholar Stephen Runciman who was in charge of all foreign language broadcasts directed to Europe, that is, the Balkans,Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Poland and several others.One of our colleagues was Lawrence Durrell who later became the famous author of many successful books like the banned 'Black Book', 'Bitter Lemons', 'The Alexandria Quartet', 'Prospero's Cell' and others.But at that time, he used to entertain us daily with a fresh episode about his Aunt Agatha with the wooden leg."Eliascos continued: "My brother Patroclos and I were told that we would be attached to the section producing the broadcasts in Greek directed towards occupied Greece, acting as translators, editors and newsreaders.The Head of this section was George Haniotis the sports editor of the Athens newspaper 'Elefthero Vima' who used to sign his sporting articles 'GEO'.Under him was the well-known literary figure of Dimitri Fotiadis, who died in October 1988.
"When the broadcasts began early in May 1941 I was the principal newsreader.Later when Haniotis was posted to the Greek Embassy in Washington D.C.as Press Attache, my brother was appointed Section Head.At that time the Prime Minister of the Greek government in exile was Emmanouil Tsouderos, a former Director of the Bank of Greece.The foreign language broadcasts from Radio Cairo were under the over-all control of the Political Warfare Executive (P.W.E.) of the British Ministry of Information.Later, in conjunction with the Americans, the title of the unit was changed to Psychological Warfare Branch (P.W.B.)"Every evening we had two broadcasts, at 7.30 and 10.30 pm, which went out on the medium wave transmitter of Radio Cairo at Abu Zabal, run by the E.S.B.(Egyptian State Broadcasting).The transmissions in eleven foreign languages were also relayed by three short wave transmitters, two belonging to the telegraph company Cable & Wireless (callsigns SUV & SUW), and an experimental transmitter of 7.5 kilowatts belonging to a British army signals unit, with the odd callsign JCJC, operated by young corporal Rowley Shears G8KW, a radio amateur friend of Norman Joly.
"The Greek broadcasts began in May 1941 and went on to the end of January 1945.
"During this period many important personalities broadcast fromStudio 3, which was also used by well-known war correspondents of the B.B.C., the N.B.C.and many other news organisations.The people of occupied Greece were addressed by Mr Tsouderos, Crown Prince Paul of Greece, Sofoclis Venizelos, son of the famous Cretan politician Eleftherios Venizelos who had played a leading role in the political fortunes of modern Greece, and Panayiotis Kanellopoulos Minister for War.After the naval mutiny in the port of Alexandria Admiral Voulgaris spoke to the officers and naval ratings of the Greek Royal Navy."Eliascos described in detail the negotiations of the Lebanon Conference which resulted in the appointment of George Papandreou (father of Andreas Papandreou who was recently Prime Minister), as the new Prime Minister of the Coalition government in exile.He can be seen at the famous R.C.A velocity microphone type 44BX which was used throughout World War II and many years after.This ribbon type microphone had a very large and heavy permanent magnet embodied in the design and must have weighed about 1,000 times more than a modern electret lapel microphone.
