Unfortunately, the British officers were told nothing at all about the bitter rivalries between the various groups, most probably because H.Q. in Cairo were themselves ignorant about the real situation. It didn't take Meyers and Woodhouse long to discover that by far the largest group was E.L.A.S. (the Popular Liberation Army) under Aris Velouhiotis, about 120 ill-equipped men operating in the Pindus mountains. Another smaller group of about 60 men had rallied round a regular officer of the Greek army, Colonel Napoleon Zervas. They called themselves the National Republican Greek League (Greek initials E.D.E.S.) I met Zervas personally years later when he was Minister of the Interior (and therefore responsible for the Police). I was then acting as interpreter for the Assistant-Head of the British Police Mission to Greece. I remember vividly with what relish he described to Colonel Prosser his method of torturing E.L.A.S. prisoners, which left no physical marks on any part of the body. It was in the course of a secret visit to Athens that young Chris Woodhouse found out the real chain of command, when he was introduced to George Siantos, the Secretary of the Greek Communist Party (Greek initials K.K.E.). The K.K.E. controlled E.A.M., the National Liberation Front which, in turn, ran E.L.A.S. But with a title like that (National Liberation Front) it was easy to see why E.A.M. enjoyed such widespread support, not only in the countryside, but also among the intelligentsia in Athens. But the task of the S.O.E. officers was made very difficult for various reasons: Winston Churchill had given orders that they were to support, as far as possible, only those guerrilla leaders who favoured the King--but there were none, or very few. The S.O.E. units had orders to cause the maximum disruption to the German occupation of the country. And that was impossible without the support of E.L.A.S., which was controlled by the Communists. At the outset, it became obvious to the S.O.E. officers that military and political priorities were already in conflict. E.L.A.S. forces were getting stronger every day and very soon they began attacking fellow Greeks in non-communist Andarte units. The successful attack on the railway bridge over the Gorgopotamos river on the 26th of November was the first and last time that ELAS and EDES co-operated against the common enemy under the coercion and technical guidance of the British. 1943: Friction between EDES and ELAS continued to increase. When Eddie Myers told them that he had been instructed to destroy the bridge over the Asopos river, ELAS said it was too dangerous a target and refused to help, so this became an all-British operation. A 24-year-old demolition expert of the Royal Engineers Captain Ken Scott, was sent from Cairo. He was dropped by parachute, and planned the successful attack on the bridge. It took the Germans four months to rebuild it.