FORTUNES FLUCTUATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25384, 16 November 1943, Page 5

FORTUNES FLUCTUATE

EARLIER' OPERATIONS According to reports brought by several shiploads of refugees who landed in Cyprus, the Germans made divebombing attacks on Rhodes within an hour of Italy’s capitulation on September 9 and later invaded the island with a force of about 5000, including tanks, and after some fighting the ill-equipped Italian garrison of 20,000 surrendered. Allied landings on Leros and Samos, the latter of which is north of the Dodecanese, were reported on September 16 by Turkish sources, which stated a few days later that there had been a further landing on the island of Castelorizo. It was confirmed from Cairo on September 22 that the Royal Air Force had occupied a landing field on Cos with paratroops and that the former Italian naval base at Leros was in British hands. The Leros landing was stated to have been a combined operation.

At the beginning of October the Germans heavily bombed Cos t and launched a seaborne and airborne attack on the island. Berlin claimed a few days later that 200 British troops and all military establishments had been captured and the rest of the defenders had fled to the hills. Next day all resistance was said to have ceased, and a German communique declared that 600 British and 2500 Italians had been taken prisoner, with 40 guns and 22 aircraft. Later, however, Berlin admitted that 1000 British were still fighting. The Cairo correspondent of the Daily Telegraph on November 6 summed up the situation by saying that the Germans were relentlessly bombing the small garrisons at Leros and Samos, which had no air cover, because the Germans held the Cos airfields. British warships dominated the scene at night, sinking shipping and menacing German convoys to Rhodes and Crete. The correspondent said that in spite of serious setbacks the original object of the Allied operations in the Aegean had been achieved.