German air raids on Leros

On the morning of 26 September 1943 two destroyers lay in Portolago Bay (today Lakki) on the island of Leros: the Greek Vasilissa Olga and the British HMS Intrepid. During the night they had brought troops and supplies for the British garrison which, for a dozen or so days, had been holding the former Italian naval base. By dawn they should have been far away, out of range of German bombers – this time, however, they stayed in port. At about 9 a.m. Junkers Ju 88s, escorted by Messerschmitt Bf 109s, appeared over Leros. Bombs hit both ships. The Germans came back several more times during the day; by evening Vasilissa Olga had sunk, and Intrepid, hit several times, had capsized and gone to the bottom in the harbour.

It was the first day of the Luftwaffe’s systematic air offensive against Leros. The day is sometimes described as a German attack on the island that began the Battle of Leros. This needs qualifying: on 26 September only the air raids began. The German seaborne and airborne landing on Leros (Operation Leopard, eventually carried out under the name Taifun) came only on 12 November and ended on 16 November. Some historians, however, date the Battle of Leros from 26 September, treating the bombing as its first phase.

An island without cover

Leros had no airfield. The British had occupied it in mid-September, in the first phase of the Dodecanese campaign, because the island had the best harbour in the archipelago and strong Italian coastal artillery. The only airfield from which Allied fighters could cover it was the landing ground at Antimachia on the neighbouring island of Kos, about 50 km to the south. A handful of Spitfires were based there, and they had themselves been the target of air raids since 18 September. All other Allied aircraft flew from Cyprus and North Africa, several hundred kilometres from Leros.

The Germans were in an entirely different position. After the Italian capitulation and Operation Achse they had taken over the airfields on Rhodes, on Crete and in mainland Greece. The Luftwaffe brought reinforcements to the Aegean – Ju 88 bombers, Ju 87 dive-bombers and fighters – so that by the beginning of October it had more than 350 serviceable aircraft there. For several days before 26 September leaflets were dropped over Leros calling on the Italians to capitulate; their commander, Rear Admiral Luigi Mascherpa, had already rejected a German demand to surrender.

26 September

Both destroyers belonged to the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, brought to Alexandria from the central Mediterranean. Vasilissa Olga, built in Britain in 1938, was one of the best ships of the Greek navy in exile. She had escorted convoys off North Africa, sunk the Italian torpedo boat Castore in June 1943 and helped cover the landings in Sicily. During the night of 17–18 September, together with HMS Eclipse and Faulknor, she sank two ships of a German convoy bound for Rhodes off Astypalaia. After that she carried troops and supplies to Leros. HMS Intrepid, an I-class destroyer of 1936, had sunk the U-boat U-45 in October 1939, taken part in the evacuation from Dunkirk and sailed with the Arctic convoys.

The attack was carried out by bombers from several Luftwaffe units flying from airfields in Greece. Sources differ on the details: according to some, Vasilissa Olga sank almost immediately after the morning attack; according to others, both destroyers were finished off only by an afternoon wave of bombers from Larissa. The Greek navy lost 72 men, including the ship’s captain, Commander Georgios Blessas. Intrepid suffered fewer casualties; according to some sources she capsized only the following morning. That same day bombs also sank the Italian motor torpedo boat MAS 534 and two seaplanes in the harbour, and destroyed the submarine base, barracks, workshops and four of the five fuel tanks – fortunately for the defenders, the empty ones. Italian anti-aircraft guns and British Spitfires from Kos shot down several German aircraft.

The sinking of two destroyers in harbour had immediate consequences. The naval command concluded that Lakki was not adequately protected against air attack. From then on Allied ships entered the Aegean only at night and withdrew before dawn within range of fighters from Cyprus. Supplying Leros became a laborious series of night runs by destroyers, submarines and small craft.

Siege from the air

26 September was only the beginning. Until the end of the month the Luftwaffe mounted an average of four raids a day on Leros, more than 40 bomber sorties every 24 hours in all. On 27 September the seaplane base was bombed and put out of action. The bombs fell not only on the batteries and the harbour but also on the towns of Leros and Lakki; the inhabitants, mostly Greeks, sheltered in caves, and the hospitals were moved into underground shelters. The Italian gunners, most of whose guns stood in open emplacements, suffered heavy losses and quickly used up their ammunition.

The British garrison on Leros gradually grew – destroyers brought in further companies by night, and in time whole battalions. Yet everything was in short supply – anti-aircraft guns, transport, communications and, above all, aircraft. The British fighters on Kos could barely defend their own airfield, and Beaufighters from Cyprus could reach the islands only briefly and suffered heavy losses.

Place in the war

The raids of 26 September showed what the Dodecanese campaign would be: a struggle between island garrisons without air cover and an enemy who ruled the skies. A few days later, on 3 October, the Germans landed on Kos and took the island and its airfield the next day; Leros was now beyond the reach of any Allied single-engined fighters. The landing on Leros planned for 9 October was delayed when British cruisers and destroyers destroyed a German convoy during the night of 6–7 October, but the raids continued – an average of eight a day from 7 October to 11 November.

New British battalions arrived on the island, and on 5 November Brigadier Robert Tilney took command. On 12 November the Germans landed seaborne troops and paratroopers on Leros (Operation Taifun). After five days of fighting, on 16 November, some 3,200 British and more than 5,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner. The Germans handed Rear Admiral Mascherpa over to the authorities of Mussolini’s Social Republic; in May 1944 he was shot in Parma. The Battle of Leros was later called the last major defeat of the British Army in the Second World War, and in Britain it was compared with Gallipoli.

The ships sunk in Lakki harbour on 26 September were the first on a long list. According to British tallies, during the Dodecanese campaign the Allied navies lost six destroyers, and several cruisers were damaged – the overwhelming majority by aircraft.