17 Hill, op. cit.
18 Trooper W.R. Hill, The Levita Raid – October 23rd 1943. IWM: LRDG 5/2.
19 Ibid.
20 Ian Gold, letter to Brendan O’Carroll. In another letter (23 June 2001) Gold commented further, ‘The Germans on the island treated us very well, which surprised me after what Dobbie had done with his boot to get early results.’ Sergeant Edwin J. Dobson died while in captivity in Germany on 6 April 1945.
21 Hill, memoir. Two Germans are recorded as having been wounded: Obergefreiter Reinganz (shot in the thigh) and Gefreiter Kucza (shot in the knee).
22 Olivey, op. cit.
23 Hill, The Levita Raid.
24 John Kevan, letter to the author 7 July 2003.
25 Ibid.
26 The prisoners, all of 11. Kompanie of III./Lw.-Jg-Rgt.21, are identified in Olivey’s after-action report as Jäger Gerhard Lau, Obergefreiter Hans Riechoff and Gefreiter Franz Luboska. Operation Report No. 107. IWM: LRDG 2/1.
27 Gunner J. Patch, Report of attack on Levitha 23–24 Oct. 1943. IWM: LRDG 5/2.
28 Ibid. In a memoir written for his wife (IWM: LRDG 11/3), John Olivey refers to Francis K. Lieutenant John H. Kay of The Border Regiment had joined the Levitha party as a last minute replacement. After being taken prisoner on Levitha he escaped from the train transporting him and fellow prisoners, but was soon recaptured. Long after the end of the war, Ron Hill tried to find out more about the officer, with inconclusive result.
29 Hill, The Levita Raid.
30 Gefechstbericht für den 24.10.1943 [Combat report for the 24.10.1943]. According to the same report, ‘one of the badly wounded’, evidently Trooper H.L. Mallett, died during the night of 24–25 October.
31 Hill, memoir.
32 The defensive line of Section 2 seems to have extended from the area of Point 74 (Mount Tromba) east at least as far as Point 141 (Mount Calasuria, where in September 2014, the author found evidence of a Bren gun position). It is not known whether the line continued beyond to Point 99 (Mount Piriallo), but the combat report of III./Lw.-Jg-Rgt.21 states that Mount Piriallo, Mount Calasuria and Mount Tromba were all attacked during the afternoon of 24 October.
33 Hill, The Levita Raid.
34 Hill. Article later published in newsletter No. 56: 2000 of the Long Range Desert Group Association. Available records make no mention of Gebirgsjäger on Levitha during the battle.
35 Hill, The Levita Raid.
36 Patch, op. cit. Kapitänleutnant and Gruppenführer Minensuchgruppe Albert Oesterlin in his Bericht über das Unternehmen im Cykladengebiet [Report on the operation in the Cyclades] dated 19 December 1943, records that during the night of 24–25 October, GA 54 embarked at Naxos for passage to Levitha 1. Kompanie of Gebirgsjäger-Bataillon 76. The combat report of GA 54 by the Bootsman and Kommandant (Wittlich) refers to a Polizeistosstrupp of one officer and seventy-six men, thus indicating a different unit (probably SS-Polizei-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 18). It is unclear from German reports how many casualties resulted from the attack by His Majesty’s Submarine Surf. Oesterlin records that two Gebirgsjäger were killed and five were seriously wounded (two of whom subsequently died), and that ten men, including two of the boat crew, sustained minor injuries. According to Wittlich, two of the Polizeitruppe died, and five were wounded together with two of the crew.
37 Initially, the Germans reported their own casualties as one killed, two wounded (one of whom may have died of his wounds), and two missing. According to the combat report of III./Lw.-Jg-Rgt.21, casualties were two wounded only. In the same report, Allied casualties are stated to have been three dead, and thirty-seven captured, including two officers. After taking into account the seven who were evacuated, two remain unaccounted for: presumably the water-resupply party from Section 2. Among those taken prisoner and who later escaped were Trooper Ron Hill and Gunner Jim Patch, who broke out of a moving train while en route through Yugoslavia. They joined Dragoljub Mihailović’s Četnici and remained with them until September 1944. They were recruited by the British Military Mission and evacuated from Yugoslavia three months before the war’s end, in February 1945.
Chapter 6: The War at Sea
1 Operations in the Dodecanese Islands: September – November 1943. TNA: AIR 41/53, p.29.
2 TNA: FO 954/32.
3 On 14 October 1943, Vice Admiral Sir A.U. Willis, KCB, DSO superseded Admiral Sir J.H.D. Cunningham, KCB, MVO as Commander-in-Chief, Levant.
4 TNA: FO 954/32.
5 A Festungsinfanteriebataillon (fortress infantry battalion) was a garrison force composed of non-essential types, such as those who had been wounded or otherwise deemed as unsuitable for front-line service.
6 According to the War Diary of the German Naval Staff, Operations Division, Part A, Volume 50 (IWM: EDS 233), German air reconnaissance also reported that submarines had attacked the Olympos convoy.
7 Oberleutnant zur See Schunack, combat report dated 26 October 1943. It is uncertain whether the Royal Navy was under orders to finish off survivors of this particular convoy, but it is possible in view of the fact that the troops were assumed by the British to have been destined for an invasion of Leros. The War Diary of the German Naval Staff, Operations Division, Part A, Volume 50 records: ‘Most of the crew were in the water, either swimming or in rubber dinghies, and were fired on with tracer ammunition by cruisers and destroyers which passed them repeatedly a very short distance away. As the enemy force withdrew, it fired its guns on the soldiers floundering in the water. The matter will be pursued.’
8 Four of the Marinefährprähme lost with the Olympos convoy have been identified as F 308, F 327, F 336 and F 494; the fifth was either F 523 or F 532. Although only one F-lighter is believed to have reached Astipalaea, a British cipher dated 8 October (Cositrep No. 18) indicates otherwise: ‘After naval action, one enemy LC [landing craft] one small escort vessel both badly damaged arrived Stampalia [Astipalaea] and captured by GRN [garrison] with 80 prisoners.’ (TNA: WO 106/3149). An LRDG report records that ninety-three Germans were taken prisoner, but makes no mention as to the number of craft captured.
9 Casualty figures from HMS Penelope’s ship’s log (TNA: ADM 53/118344). According to Captain Patrick W.B. Brooking, RN, commanding HMS Sirius, there were seven fatalities and sixteen wounded on Penelope. Bomb splinters from near misses also seem to have taken their toll, with two officers and eleven ratings killed and twenty-nine wounded on Sirius alone.
10 The Luftwaffe acknowledged the loss of two aircraft, both to anti-aircraft fire: Unteroffizier Siegfried Herrmann (pilot), Gefreiter Kurt Auer (observer), Gefreiter Werner Pietsch (or Pitsch, wireless operator) and Gefreiter Walter Flegel (air gunner) were posted missing from 4./K.G.6 when their Ju 88A-4 (888872/3E+KM) crashed into the sea north of Karpathos; Leutnant Wolfgang Wendel (pilot) and Feldwebel Georg Scheller (wireless operator) of I./St.G.3 were picked up injured after their Ju 87D-4 (2376/S7+OL) crashed south-west of Rhodes.
11 Flight Sergeants John P. Hey (pilot) and Eric A. Worrall (navigator) of 603 Squadron were reported missing after ditching their Beaufighter VIC (JL761) following an attack by Oberleutnant Alfred Burk of 11./J.G.27.
12 By 9 October the Germans had picked up 1,027 survivors of the Olympos convoy, leaving 150 unaccounted for. Of these, 80 or more captured with F 496 were later freed during German operations (see Chapter 5). By 10 October, 302 of the 366 men on the Bulgaria had also been saved; British submarines picked up some, and four survivors were freed from captivity on Amorgos in November.
13 Unteroffizier Friedrich (Fritz) Christian Eisenbach, a Ju 87 pilot in I./St.G.3, flew twenty-two sorties over the Aegean during October–November 1943, including nine sorties during the five-day battle for Leros. His nephew, retired Luftwaffe officer Hans Peter Eisenbach, has determined from his uncle’s flight logbook that he participated in the successful convoy attack of 9 October 1943, thereby also identifying the unit involved. (Fritz Eisenbach was reported missing over Russia on 31 March 1944.)
14 L.F.S. Fo
rster, “The Admiralty regrets to announce the loss” (two-page account about the loss of HMS Panther dated 2 February 1977). IWM: 87/15/1.
15 Major William L. Leverette, combat report.
16 Leverette, op. cit.
17 Seven Ju 87D-3s fell to fighter attack south-west of Rhodes. II./St.G.3 lost six aircraft. The crew of Werknummer 1007/S7+HN was picked up injured by German air-sea rescue. Leutnant Heinz Spielmann (pilot) was killed, and Feldwebel Rudolf Malina (wireless operator) was injured when Stuka 110336/S7+MP failed to return. The remainder who died or were reported missing were Leutnant Rolf Metzger (pilot) and Unteroffizier Hans Sonnemann (wireless operator) in 100375/S7+GM; Unteroffizier Heinrich Manger (pilot) and Obergefreiter Erfried Primissl (wireless operator) in 100380/S7+DN; Unteroffizier Josef Rose (pilot) and Gefreiter Franz Neumann (wireless operator) in 110322/S7+FP, and Leutnant Horst Skambraks (pilot) and Unteroffizier Georg Peters (wireless operator) in 100374/S7+KP. What appears to have been a Ju 87 of 13./St.G.151 (110535/S7+AU) was reported missing with Hauptmann Peter von Heydebrand und der Lasa (pilot) and Oberfeldwebel Herbert Bluschke (wireless operator). A Ju 87D-3 (100378/S7+BC) of 6./St.G.3 made an emergency landing at Rhodes; the pilot survived but air gunner Oberfeldwebel Hans Birkner was killed in undisclosed circumstances. Anti-aircraft gunners also accounted for a I./St.G.3 Ju 87D-4 (110461/S7+AK): Unteroffizier Siegfried Martens (pilot) and Oberfeldwebel Ernst Kröger (wireless operator) were reported missing off Karpathos, and Leutnant Otto Hecht (pilot) and Unteroffizier Hans Krajacic (wireless operator) of II./Schlachtgeschwader 3 (II./Schl.G.3) were both wounded as a result of fighter attack south of Rhodes. Einsatzkampfgruppe Ju 88/-General der Flieger Ausbildung lost one Ju 88A-4 (4579) south of Kos, but apparently due to engine trouble (the crew was rescued).
18 When the Sinfra was torpedoed, the order went out: ‘Send rescue vessels … Rescue the Germans first.’ (ADM 223/588). By the end of the day, 566 survivors, including 163 Germans, had been saved. Allied aircraft destroyed one Dornier Do 24T-3 rescue plane. This was almost certainly a 7. Seenotstaffel machine (3214), was reported lost about 18 miles north of Chania, Crete. Two of the crew, Unteroffizier Mathias Schneider (air gunner) and Obergefreiter Heinrich Seilkopf (flight engineer), were injured.
19 Notwithstanding rough seas and the loss during take-off of a rescue Do 24, by 18 October 320 survivors from the Kari had been saved.
20 By 2 November 1943, 306 of Ingeborg’s 408 crew had been rescued. Another thirteen survivors were later freed from captivity on Amorgos.
21 Commander J.N. Toumbas, Report of Proceedings in H.H.M.S. Adrias 21/23rd October, 1943. TNA: ADM 199/1040.
22 Commander R.H. Wright, Loss of His Majesty’s Ship Hurworth. TNA: ADM 199/1040.
23 Toumbas, op. cit.
24 Ibid.
25 Report of Proceedings of Lieut. H.C.A. Middleton, R.N., subsequent to the mining of H.M.S. Hurworth. TNA: ADM 199/1040.
26 Wright, op. cit. The War History of the Royal Navy (TNA: ADM 199/1044) records that by 25 October eighty-five crew, including Commander Wright, had been rescued.
27 4th Battalion The Royal East Kent Regiment (The Buffs) had served in Malta from November 1940 until its departure to Egypt in September 1943. Instead of being redeployed as expected for the Italian campaign, the battalion was ordered in October to proceed to Leros.
28 H.M.S. “Eclipse” & H.M.S. “Petard’s” Report of Proceedings 22nd – 26th October 1943. TNA: ADM 199/1040. According to the War History of the Royal Navy, 136 of those on board HMS Eclipse had been rescued by 25 October. The War Diary of 4 Buffs (TNA: WO 169/10185) records that 135 of all ranks from the 187 who embarked were still missing on this date.
29 The wartime experiences of Mr Lukehurst of The Royal East Kent Regiment 1940–1946, Malta Leros Stalag IVB. IWM: 96/41/1.
30 Peter Wood, One Man’s War (unpublished manuscript). IWM: 94/43/1.
31 Lukehurst, op.cit.
32 Ibid.
Chapter 7: Leros
1 Frank Smith, adapted from recorded memoirs sent to the author on 4 March 2001.
2 Commander C.A. de W. Kitcat, Report of Proceedings dated 5 October, 1943. TNA: ADM 199/1040. At least seventy perished on Vasilissa Olga.
3 G.W. Searle, At Sea Level, 128–9.
4 Athanasios Paraponiaris via Ioannis Paraponiaris. The German bomber seen to be hit by anti-aircraft fire may have been a Ju 88A-4 (885875/3E+GM) of 5./K.G.6 that was lost over Lakki with its crew: Unteroffiziere Heinz Radünz (pilot) and Heinz Bräuer (observer), Gefreiter Erwin Tillwicks (wireless operator) and Unteroffizier Heinrich Stutz (air gunner).
5 Ibid.
6 Major G.J. Ryan, unpublished manuscript. Further testimony of the volatile nature of Brittorous is provided by Bob Earle in a letter to the author dated September 2000: ‘It was my misfortune to be posted, from “The Buffs” to “234 Bde HQ”. as the Motor Transport Sgt. This was unfortunate in as much as the Brigade Commander, Brigadier Brittorous, was much hated for his violent manner & temper & unpredictable behaviour.
The first morning of my duties at Bde HQ, I bent down to polish my shoes at my billet doorstep, a stone hut with a corrugated iron door, when a violent bang occurred just above my head & a stone the size of a house brick dropped on my foot. Behind me a voice was screaming. “You didn’t salute me,’” “The Hun will get you”, etc. etc … That was my introduction to the Brigadier.’
7 Ryan, op. cit.
8 Ibid. Two British and five Italian submarines delivered to Leros up to 325½ tons of cargo. In addition, on 22 October, six Bofors guns arrived on HMS/M Severn with the barrels and working parts stowed inside the hull and the gun mountings lashed to her outer casing. She was followed by HMS/M Rorqual carrying six guns and a jeep.
9 Ryan, op. cit.
10 Major J.M. McSwiney DSO MC, The Aegean Dodecanese Venture (unpublished manuscript), p.138. IWM: 97/36/1.
11 Ryan, op. cit. George Gilchrist Hall was a SNCO in the Royal Corps of Signals at Meraviglia. He did not share the popular opinion regarding Brittorous: ‘By golly, he knew his stuff. He was a soldier.’
12 Royal Navy War Diary. TNA: ADM 199/2281.
13 Edward B.W. Johnson, M.C., Island Prize, Leros, 1943, p.36.
14 1st Battalion The King’s Own Royal Regiment was actually a composite unit comprising the remnants of 1st Battalion The South Wales Borderers, 1st Battalion The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and 1 King’s Own; all of which had suffered heavy casualties, mainly during the fighting in North Africa.
15 According to a report by the War Office dated 23 November 1943, British (including imperial and colonial) troops on Leros would eventually total 3,282 all ranks comprising: 2,468 infantry, 244 (anti-aircraft and field) artillery, 65 (Indian) engineers, 135 Long Range Desert Group and 64 Special Boat Squadron personnel and 306 officers and men from other units. This was in addition to a Headquarters Staff of one Royal Air Force and 12 Royal Navy officers. TNA: WO 365/49.
16 According to Italian sources (see Appendix 3) there were on Leros twenty-five batteries with 107 guns ranging in calibre from 76mm to 152mm, not all of which were effective on 12 November 1943.
17 Brigadier R.A.G. Tilney, DSO, The Battle of Leros, 12 – 16 Nov 1943. TNA: WO 32/12271.
18 Ibid.
19 Johnson, op. cit., p.41.
20 Tilney, op. cit.
21 The Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb was a remote controlled anti-shipping missile with a 500 kilogram warhead. The device that hit HMS Rockwood was launched from a Dornier Do 217 of 12./K.G.100.
22 Decoded German ciphers. TNA: ADM 223/589.
Chapter 8: Operation Taifun: Day One
1 Available reports fail to provide a wholly satisfactory explanation as to the failure by the British to react to preliminary sightings of the German invasion fleet. According to the Admiralty publication, C.B. 3081 (29) – Battle Summary No 36 – Aegean Operations – 7th September to 28th November, 1943. – British occupation and German re-capture of Kos and Leros (TNA: ADM 1/20020): ‘T
hese [sightings] were, in fact, the invading barges, though this was not appreciated by Captain (D), 8th Destroyer Flotilla, nor, until later, in the Commander-in-Chief’s Operations Room.’ The Admiralty’s H.M.S. Faulknor – Report of Proceedings 8th to 15th November, 1943 (TNA: ADM 199/1040) states: ‘It had always been expected that the enemy would launch his assault in daylight from the cover of the minefields at the northern end of KALYMNOS. Captain (D), Eighth Destroyer Flotilla appreciated that the forces now reported were moving up to these bays and that he would be unable to interfere with them on account of the minefield. Due to an erroneous appreciation in the commander-in-chief’s Operations Room it was not believed that these might in fact be the assaulting forces until it was too late to order Captain (D), Eighth Destroyer Flotilla to intercept.’ In his Report of Proceedings (TNA: ADM 199/1040) for the same period, Captain (D), Eighth Destroyer Flotilla (Captain M.S. Thomas) makes no mention of the enemy sightings.
2 Report of Proceedings of H.M.M.L. 456 from 3rd to 26th November 1943. TNA: ADM 199/1040.
3 Capture of B.Y.M.S. 72: Interrogation of survivors. TNA: ADM 199/1040.
4 Report by Oberleutnant zur See Hansjürgen Weissenborn from the War Diary of 12. R.-Flottille.
5 What became of the code books on board BYMS 72? Some British sources indicate they were destroyed. German records clearly state they were captured after the minesweeper was commandeered by a boarding party from UJ 2102 under the first officer Oberfähnrich zur See Wolf. According to Weissenborn: ‘The English minesweeper was carrying the secret code for the English radio communications, and my surprise attack delivered it into the hands of Gen. Müller (head of landing operations in Kos) who could without effort listen to the English communications during the landing operations in the week ahead.’ Ergänzungsbericht zum Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandes der Wehrmacht 1943 zum Leros-Einsatz mit einem Landungsverband, bestehend aus Marinefährpremen, Pionierlandungsbooten und einigen anderen Hilfs- und Sicherungsschiffen [Supplementary report to the War Diary of Oberkommandes der Wehrmacht 1943 on the mission to Leros with a landing unit, consisting of Marinefährpremen, Pionierlandungsbooten and some other auxiliary and escort boats].
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