Doubtless you know that the Battles of France and Stalingrad were among the most disastrous
engagements of the Second World War, at least for one side. But have you ever
even heard of the Battle of Kos before? What about the 1943 Dodecanese campaign?
In this video, we're going to provide you with an overview of the dumpster fire that
went down on the Greek island of Kos, where even the Italians fell prey to the German war machine.
The island of Kos is situated in the Aegean Sea and is part of a group of islands known
as the Dodecanese Islands. Kos is far closer to Turkey, in fact, than it is to the Greek mainland.
For around 28 years before World War II had even kicked off, Kos was firmly in Italian hands. When
the Italians got their butts handed to them in the Allied invasion of Sicily and capitulated soon
after, the Germans were more than a little let down by their European Tripartite Pact ally and
moved to pick up some of the pieces the Italians still held. One of such pieces was — you guessed
it — the island of Kos. But the Germans weren't the only ones who had poor Kos in their sights.
Due to the island's proximity to Turkey, which was basically a sneaky back door into the Balkans,
the British wanted it too. Both superpowers made a move on the Dodecanese Islands,
and the Germans took one of the larger islands, an island called Rhodes, between the 9th and
11th of September 1943, leaving the British with the breathing room to drop in on several of the
smaller islands. The British invasion — if we can even call it that — of Kos began under the
cover of a bombing of the island Rhodes by a few dozen B-24 Liberators on the 11th of September.
While the B-24s were dropping their loads on Rhodes, preventing the German Luftwaffe from
getting off the ground, units of Britain's spec ops unit the Special Boat Service,
which is still active today, putted up to the shores of Kos then took hold of a port and
airfield near the village of Antimachia. Three days later, a pair of Bristol Type
156 Beaufighters and several Spitfires of the South African Air Force or SAAF
touched down on the island, their crewmen eager to lay down their lives for the British Empire.
Throughout the next night, 120 paratroopers of the British 11th Parachute Battalion descended upon
the island, and the combined British and South African forces met up with the Italians and had a
good chat about how — even if they set aside their differences and teamed up — they were still going
to get absolutely wrecked by the Germans, who had bucket-loads more planes in the area.
That morning, Allied transport aircraft and ships brought a little more manpower,
such as ground units of the Royal Air Force, and a little more firepower too,
namely a bunch of AA guns. More of such deliveries arrived a couple of days later as well, but still,
the Allies were definitely not as prepared as they could have been, owing at least in part to the
perceived unimportance of the Dodecanese theatre of war. In short, there were bigger fish to fry,
and the theatre was a bit of an after thought. With that said, there were around 1,400 British
and South African military personnel operating on Kos, bolstered by some 3,500 Italians, who were
probably praying to the Allied powers-that-were for some extra manpower. Long story short, it
didn't come, and the Italians took the full brunt of the German reprisal. But how did it go down?
While the Germans didn't set foot on the island until early October, they put those aforementioned
Allied AA guns and South African fighters to the test from the 17th of September onwards. With
the Luftwaffe now able to take off from Rhodes, German Messerschmitt 109 fighters and Junkers 88s
laid waste to British and Italian garrisons on the ground and overwhelmed the South African
pilots in the sky, slowly but surely chipping away their already-lacking aerial force. By the 26th of
September, there were just four SAAF aircraft in the sky. But some help did come, namely in
the form of 74 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force or RAF. Unfortunately, that was not enough.
As described by one of the pilots of 74 Squadron, Guy de Pass, "On the morning of 3rd October
I awoke at about 04.30 hours and heard the sound of aircraft above me but didn't take much notice.
Then ... I heard in the distance the sound of a motor launch. By this time I was very
apprehensive. Shots from the direction of the landing beaches strip were heard. ... The firing
became more persistent. Flares were being fired and mortar fire could be discerned.
It appeared to all of us that the island was being invaded and that
enemy troops were in the vicinity." In short, what had been merely a softening
of the island had now passed, and the true Battle of Kos was about to begin.
On the 1st of October, a German invasion fleet of around 10 vessels departed the waters of Crete,
headed for the Dodecanese Islands. On board was the German 22nd Infantry Division and units of
the German spec ops force the Brandenburgers, seemingly in answer to the spec ops Special
Boat Service deployed by the British. On the morning of the 3rd, the German invasion fleet
spewed its first batch of what would amass to be some 4,000 soldiers onto the shores of Kos,
while German Brandenburg operatives descended from the sky in parachutes. Over the next day,
in an operation they designated Operation Polar Bear, the Germans absolutely wrecked
the Allied and Italian garrisons, quite literally forcing the Allies to flee into the Aegean Sea.
But only some of them managed to get away, and the Italian soldiers who had not already been killed
were starting to sweat — the German noose becoming tighter and tighter.
In the end, around 3,000 of the original 3,500 Italians garrisoned on Kos
were taken prisoner by their former ally Germany — a fate shared by about 600 to 900
of the 1,400-ish British troops deployed there, except for the "former ally" part.
As you might have guessed, the Germans did not treat their Italian POWs to currywurst
and chips. Between the 4th and 6th of October, the German general who led Operation Polar Bear,
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, put 148 captured Italian officers on trial. Seven of the officers gave into
"if you can't beat them, join them" logic and defected, 10 were beaten up and sent to
POW camps in Germany, 28 somehow managed to flee to Turkey, and the remaining 103 became victims
of what went down in history as the Massacre of Kos. After telling those 103 men that they were
going to be transferred across the Aegean Sea to POW camps on the mainland, the Germans organised
them into a march and then gunned them down with a few MG-42 machine guns they had hidden
in the bushes on the road ahead. The majority of the officers were buried in a mass grave.
With Rhodes and Kos now in German hands, one of the other major Dodecanese Islands,
an island called Leros, fell on the 16th of November,
just less than a week before the Germans gained a resounding victory in the Dodecanese campaign,
blocking the Allies from Turkey and thus the Balkans. As per British Admiral
Andrew Cunningham's analysis of the campaign, "The enemy's command of the air enabled him
so to limit the operations and impair the efficiency of land, sea and air forces."
But as always, we're eager to know what you think. Had you heard of the joint Allied-Italian
disaster that was the Battle of Kos before this video?
Are you surprised by what the Germans did to their Italian POWs? Lastly, would you like to
learn more about the Dodecanese campaign? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.