Alexander Wallace Fielding (26 November 1918 – 19 August 1991), known as Xan Fielding, was a British author, translator, journalist and traveller, who served as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent in Crete, France and East Asia during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and Asia against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany.
Biography
Early life
Fielding was born in Ootacamund, India, where his father, Alexander James Lumsden Wallace, served in the Indian Army, as a major in the 52nd Sikhs (Frontier Force). Fielding's mother Mary Gertrude (née Feilmann) died soon after his birth, on 13 December 1918, and he was largely brought up in Nice, France, by his maternal grandparents who adopted the name Fielding. For the first eight years of his life, he thought his grandparents were his parents and his seven aunts and uncles were his older siblings. He was educated at Charterhouse School and then studied briefly at the Universities of Bonn, Munich and Freiburg in Germany. In the late 1930s, Fielding moved to Cyprus, where he worked as a sub-editor on The Cyprus Times and ran a bar.
The actress Vivien Leigh was his first cousin once removed, as her mother Gertrude was the youngest sister of Fielding's maternal grandmother. The actor Gerald Fielding was his uncle and took care of him after the death of his grandparents.
Crete
Following the fall of France, Fielding joined the British Army, After the fall of Crete in May 1941, he joined the Special Operations Executive, and was eventually landed in Crete with a supply of weapons and explosives by the submarine , under Commander Anthony Miers.
He arranged for the transportation to Egypt of hundreds of Allied soldiers left behind after the evacuation, and now being hidden by the Cretans. After six months Fielding returned to Cairo,
Fielding finally returned to Crete with Arthur Reade in November 1942. In November 1943 he successfully concluded a pact between the two rival groups of andartes, the communist-led EAM-ELAS and the EOK, the national organisation of Crete. In Cairo, he became a member of the Tara household created by Bill Stanley Moss.
France
In early 1944 Fielding volunteered to join the French section of SOE, and was parachuted into the south of France in mid-1944, where he was met by two other SOE agents: Francis Cammaerts (codename "Roger") and Christine Granville (codename "Pauline") of the "Jockey" network.
Post-war
Before the war in Europe ended Fielding briefly returned to Crete; he was one of the first Allied officers to enter liberated Athens. He served in the Far East for a few months until the end of the war, and visited Tibet. He then spent six months in Germany serving with the Special Intelligence Service, before serving as a United Nations observer in the Balkans in 1946.
In 1956 Fielding was hired by Michael Powell to act as technical adviser for the filming of Bill Stanley Moss's book Ill Met by Moonlight – the story of Leigh Fermor's and Moss's abduction of General Kreipe, the German commander in Crete.
Publications
- The Stronghold: An Account of the Four Seasons in the White Mountains of Crete (1953)
- Hide and Seek: The Story of a War-time Agent (1954)
- Corsair Country: The Diary of a Journey along the Barbary Coast (1958)
- The Money Spinner: Monte Carlo and its Fabled Casino (1977)
- Best of Friends: The Brenan - Partridge Letters (1986), editor
- One Man in His Time: The Life of Lieutenant-Colonel N.L.D. ("Billy") McLean DSO (1990)
- Images of Spain (1991)
- Aeolus Displayed (1992)
- A Hideous Disguise (1994)
See also
- Sophie Moss
- Dudley Perkins
- Cretan resistance