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The Dodecanese campaign was the capture and occupation of the Dodecanese islands by Nazi Germany forces during World War II. Following the signing of the Armistice of Cassibile on 3 September 1943, Italy switched sides and joined the Allies. As a result, the Germans made plans to seize control of the Dodecanese, which were under Italian control. The Allies planned to use the islands as bases to strike against German targets in the Balkans, which the Germans aimed to forestall.
Beginning in early September 1943, invading German troops defeated both the Italian garrison in the Dodecanese and British forces sent to support them, aided by the fact that Allied units were operating without sufficient air cover. Most of the Dodecanese islands fell to German forces within two months, resulting in one of Germany's last major victories during the conflict.Cunningham Pg 582 The Germans continued to occupy the Dodecanese islands they had captured until the end of the war in 1945, when they surrendered to British forces.
As an Italian surrender became increasingly possible, in August 1943 the British prepared to take advantage of a possible Italian–German split, in the form of a smaller version of Accolade. A force based on the 8th Indian Infantry Division was assembled and American assistance in the form of P-38 Lightning long-range fighter squadrons was requested. As a result of the Quebec Conference and the US refusal to assent to British plans, the forces and ships earmarked for Accolade were diverted barely a week before the surrender of Italy in the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September.Anthony Rogers (2007), pp. 54–56.
On 8 September 1943, the Italian garrison on the island of Kastelorizo surrendered to a British detachment, which was reinforced during the following days by ships of the Allied navies. The next day, a British delegation, headed by George Jellicoe, was dropped by parachute on Rhodes, to persuade the Italian commander, Admiral]] Inigo Campioni, to join the Allies. Swift action by the German forces forestalled the Allies; Kleemann attacked the 40,000-strong Italian garrison on 9 September and forced it to surrender by 11 September. The loss of Rhodes dealt a critical blow to Allied hopes. Many Italian soldiers in the Aegean were tired of the war and had become opposed to Mussolini. Italian Fascist loyalists remained allied to Germany in the Greek campaign. German forces in Greece convinced 10,000 Italians in the Aegean to continue to support their war effort.
Despite this setback, the British pressed ahead with the occupation of the other islands, especially the three larger ones of Kos, Samos Island, and Leros. The Germans were known to be overstretched in the Aegean, while the Allies enjoyed superiority at sea and the air cover provided by 7 Squadron, SAAF and 74 Squadron, RAF (Supermarine Spitfires) at Kos was deemed sufficient. It was hoped that from these islands, with Italian cooperation, an assault against Rhodes could be eventually launched.Anthony Rogers (2007), pp. 66–67.
From 10 to 17 September, the 234th Infantry Brigade (Major-General Francis Brittorous) coming from Malta, together with 160 men from the Special Boat Service, 130 men from the Long Range Desert Group, a Company of the 11th Battalion, Parachute Regiment and Greek Sacred Band detachments had secured the islands of Kos, Kalymnos, Samos, Leros, Symi, Castellorizo and Astypalaia, supported by ships of the Royal Navy and Royal Hellenic Navy. By 19 September, Karpathos, Kasos and the Italian-occupied islands of the Sporades and the Cyclades were in German hands. On 23 September, the 22nd Infantry Division under Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, which was garrisoning Fortress Crete, was ordered to take Kos and Leros.Anthony Rogers (2007), p. 87.
The German invasion force consisted of personnel from all branches of the Wehrmacht, including veterans from the 22nd Infantry Division, a Fallschirmjäger (paratroop) battalion and an amphibious operations company Küstenjäger (Coast Raiders) from the Brandenburgers]] special operation units. The Allied garrison of Leros consisted of most of the 234th Infantry Brigade with men of the 2nd The Royal Irish Fusiliers (Lieutenant Colonel Maurice French), the 4th The Buffs, 1st The King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster) and the 2nd Company, 2nd Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (Brigadier Robert Tilney), who assumed command on 5 November. There were also Italians, mostly naval personnel, under Ammiraglio Luigi Mascherpa.
Leros had been subjected to air attack by the Luftwaffe beginning on 26 September which caused significant casualties and damage to the defenders of the island and supporting naval forces. In the early hours of 12 November, the invasion force in two groups approached the island from east and west. Despite failures in some areas, the Germans established a bridgehead, while airborne forces landed on Mt. Rachi, in the middle of the island. After repulsing Allied counter-attacks and being reinforced the following night, the Germans quickly cut the island in two and the Allies surrendered on 16 November. The Germans suffered 520 casualties and captured 3,200 British and 5,350 Italian soldiers.
On 14 September, the first Allied loss occurred, when the Greek submarine RHN Katsonis, was rammed and sunk by U-boat hunter UJ 2101. The Luftwaffe also intervened on 26 September, when 25 Junkers Ju 88s sank RHN Vasilissa Olga and at Lakki Bay, Leros. On 1 October the Italian destroyer was sunk and on 9 October was sunk and the cruiser seriously damaged. At the same time, the short range of Hunt-class destroyers , RHN Pindos and RHN Themistoklis prevented them from intercepting the German invasion convoy headed for Kos. Further losses on both sides followed; after the loss of Kos and friendly air cover, the Allied navies concentrated on supply missions to the threatened islands of Leros and Samos, mostly under the cover of night. From 22 to 24 October, and Eclipse sank in a German naval mine east of Kalymnos, while RHN Adrias lost its prow. Adrias escaped to the Turkish coast and after makeshift repairs, sailed to Alexandria.
On the night of 10/11 November, destroyers , and bombarded Kalymnos and bombarded Kos, where German forces were assembling for the attack on Leros. The German convoy reached Leros on 12 November, escorted by over 25 ships, mostly submarine chasers, torpedo boats and minesweepers. During the subsequent nights, Allied destroyers failed to find and destroy the German vessels, limiting themselves to bombarding the German positions on Leros. With the fall of Leros on 16 November, the Allied ships were withdrawn, evacuating the remaining British garrisons. By that time, the Germans had also used Dornier Do 217s of Kampfgeschwader 100 (KG 100), with their novel Henschel Hs 293 radio-controlled missile, scoring two hits. One caused severe damage to HMS Rockwood on 11 November and another sank two days later. The Allies lost six destroyers sunk and two cruisers and two destroyers damaged between 7 September and 28 November 1943.
The German occupation of the Dodecanese islands sealed the fate of Jews living there. Although Italy had passed the anti-Jewish law of the Manifesto of Race in 1938, Jews living on the Dodecanese islands (and Italian-occupied Greece) experienced much less antisemitism than in the German and Bulgarian occupied zones of Greece, which culminated in March 1943 with deportations to the death camps in occupied Poland. The Italian surrender, the German takeover and the failure of the Allied offensive meant that the haven disappeared. Most of the Dodecanese Jews were murdered by the Germans; 1,700 members of the ancient Jewish community of Rhodes (of a population of about 2,000) were rounded up by the Gestapo in July 1944 and only some 160 of them survived the camps. Out of 6,000 Ladino-speaking Jews in the Dodecanese, about 1,200 people survived by escaping to the nearby coast of Turkey.
Italian prisoners of war were transferred to the mainland by the Germans in overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels, which led to several accidents, of which the sinking of the on 12 February 1944 was the most deadly. More than 4,000 Italians died when the ship sank in a storm; other ships were sunk by Allied forces. The revival of German fortunes in the eastern Mediterranean helped restore Francisco Franco's confidence in the German war effort, shaken by the Allied landings in Operation Torch and Operation Husky, and ensured several months of Spanish tungsten exports for German war industry.
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