This medal was awarded to recognise the acts of courage performed by foreign civilians or military personnel, in the furtherance of the British and Commonwealth cause during World War Two. The King's Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom A famous recipient of this medal was George Psychoundakis. He was a Greek Resistance fighter on Crete during the Second World War. When the Nazis started the airborne invasion on 20th march 1941 he took arms with the local Resistance, but they where weak and the allies where soon defeated. Psychoundakis and the other Cretans organised the rescue of hundreds of Allies, guiding them to a safe pickup and shipment to north africa During the postwar years he was at first mistakenly imprisoned as a deserter and wrote his memoirs which achieved worldwide success and finally he translated key classical texts into Cretan.