Spyros Pappadimos
Private Spyros Pappadimos was a British Army soldier during World War II of Greek birth. His father was the principal resistance leader on Spyros' home island of Navarone, although later his sister Maria took over. His family sent him to the United States to receive secondary education, but while in the US, the somewhat mentally unbalanced, violence-prone Spyros got, as Commodore Jensen put it, the "wrong kind" of education (presumably he was a member of a gang and committed numerous murders). After leaving America, he joined the British Army.
He was among the men selected to be part of Captain Keith Mallory and Major Roy Franklin's commando team, on their mission to destroy the German guns on Navarone. Spyros' primary role was to serve as an assassin. In Castelrosso, he was ordered by Franklin to kill both Nicolai the laundry boy and the boorish Major Baker for security reasons, after Baker refused to have Nicolai arrested as a spy. Before he could, Baker relented and had the laundry boy taken away.
On Navarone, Spyros was reunited with his sister Maria and killed numerous German soldiers in his capacity as the group's assassin. To the distress of Andrea Stavros, Spyros enjoyed his killing far too much, and would often kill when it wasn't necessary. Despite his propensity towards violence, Spyros had a lovely singing voice, and joined the guests at a Greek wedding in Mandrakos in a song. When the group was confronted by German soldiers by Lieutenant Muesel at the wedding, Spyros' first reaction was to draw his gun, heedless of a young girl between him and Muesel. He was restrained by John Miller before he could fire.
After escaping the custody of Muesel and Captain Sessler of the SS, Spyros donned the uniform of a captured German soldier. His role in sabotaging the guns was to assist Andrea in providing a distraction to lure the guards away from the gun fortress. Again he proved too eager to kill, and this ultimately caused his own death. Confronting a lone German officer, Spyros took it upon himself to have a high noon-style showdown, and he and the officer ended up shooting one another dead. When informing Maria of her brother's death, Andrea said sadly, "He forgot why we came here."
