12 February 1942. Kastellorizo, Greece.
The 7 Australian Division, with the Commandoes and the Poles, were finishing up preparation for taking the fight to the Italian held islands. The Royal Navy’s surface and submarine fleet had put a firm cordon around Rhodes and Karpathos, while the RAF had attempted to suppress the Italian garrison and airfields.
The previous February an attempt to capture the small island of Castelrosso (the Italian name for Kastellorizo) had failed miserably. This time the force was large enough, with plenty of rehearsals to make sure all the elements worked together. Admiral Cunningham had the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, with cruisers and destroyers on hand to intercept any Italian Navy interference. The final pieces of the puzzle were the arrival back of HMS Formidable from Ceylon, now carrying Martlet fighters along with Albacores and Fulmars, and a clear weather window.
HMS Karanja and Prince Charles, each with a battalion (40 and 41 (RM) Commando) of the Special Service Brigade, were carrying the main invasion force. Three LCT(1)s, each carrying two Valiant I tanks, (one gun and one Close Support tank) were also part of the force, but there was still some doubt about the tanks’ ability to land and get off the beach to support the commandoes. The Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga was part of the close escort force, and carried a company of Greek troops who would be landed later to regain the island for the Greek people.
The Royal Navy had formed a Levant Schooner Flotilla from various caïques and other small vessels, and these had been used to reconnoitre the area. Some of the Long Range Desert Group men, re-tasked with the same principle of working behind enemy lines providing intelligence, had been landed on Kastellorizo, Kasos, Karpathos and Rhodes.
The report from Kastellorizo was that the Italian garrison was about 250 men. There were a few artillery pieces, mortars and machine guns, covering the approaches to the main town of Kastellorizo. The LRDG had also reported that they hadn’t seen any ship entering the harbour in the previous two weeks and that there was obviously a shortage of water. The report wasn’t able to gauge the morale of the Italian troops or whether they’d be open to a negotiated surrender.
Command of the operation had been given to Rear-Admiral Philip Vian RN. He commanded Force B: the cruisers HMS Naiad (flying his flag), HMS Euryalus and the destroyers HMS Sikh, HMS Kipling HMS Kingston, HMS Foxhound and HMS Gurkha, along with RHS Vasilissa Olga. The intention of the admiral had been to use the ships’ guns as a warning, then to issue a call to surrender. Colonel Robert Laycock, commanding the invasion force asked instead for his men to be able to invade the island by surprise. All the rehearsals only meant so much, the Commandoes would have to go in against opposition at some point. Having a real test was necessary before more difficult islands were invaded. Vian reluctantly agreed, and so long before dawn the commandoes were loaded into their landing craft and set off for shore.
Naval gunfire support was still essential and the LRDG had identified the main Italian artillery position, which would be engaged by two of the destroyers as soon as the landing party lost the element of surprise. Air support from HMS Formidable was to consist primarily in preventing any Italian air force interference. A section of Albacores, loaded with bombs, would also be available should the need arise.
As the landing craft made for shore, they were spotted by an Italian sentry who set of the warning by firing a flare. That was the signal to the gunnery officers on HMS Kipling and Kingston to open fire with their main armament. Three salvos of twelve 4.7-inch guns from the two destroyers amounted to a devastating demonstration of fire-power, something that the Italians had no answer for. When the first wave of Commandoes landed, they encountered only limited resistance.
The Italian garrison surrendered very quickly. The Major commanding the garrison got off a radio message that his men had offered some resistance, but against the overwhelming odds, and to protect the civilian population, he was surrendering to the British forces. As this message was sent in the clear, and with white flags appearing, the Commandoes had the fairly easy task of marshalling the Italian troops to a central point where they were disarmed and processed.
A couple of minesweepers were prepared to enter the port, and the Italian senior naval officer was sent out by boat with the map of the Italian mines. By noon the Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga had entered the harbour and the Greek troops officially took control of the first Greek island to be liberated from the Axis forces. Some of the Levant Schooners arrived shortly afterwards with supplies of water and other essentials. The Italian prisoners were shipped off the island onboard HMS Karanja, to join their many comrades already in captivity.
From Colonel Laycock’s point of view the exercise had gone pretty much as well as possible. A full report would be made, but his men had been landed in the correct positions, and their training had paid off in both the speed and sureness of taking their objectives. If there had been greater resistance, then some casualties would probably have been taken, but other than a couple of broken bones, and a few cuts and bruises the Medical Orderlies had nothing much to deal with.
As suspected, there were problems with unloading some of the tanks from the Landing Craft Tank. One LCT had found a smooth enough area, and its tanks had been able to get off the beach and onto the ‘road’. The use of the heavy Valiant I tanks wasn’t the best choice, light Tetrarch DD tanks would probably have been a better fit for the mule tracks that counted as roads. The second LCT had run aground too far from the beach to be able to unload the tanks, which weren’t fitted with the Duplex Drive system. Although waterproofed, the tanks wouldn’t have been able to ‘swim’ to the shore. The last LCT had reached the beach, but the tanks weren’t able to climb the rocky slope off the beach. The two tanks had reversed back onto the LCT and it moved them to where the first LCT had successfully unloaded its tanks.
Having four tanks on the island was overkill, but when the first two reached the place where the Italian prisoners were gathered, the crews noted the dismay on the soldiers’ faces. Even if they had put up the fullest resistance possible, the Italian troops had nothing that could easily counter the tanks. The British tanks which had cleared North Africa had gained something of a reputation among the Italian troops, that resistance was futile.
