Lying in the Aegean Sea off the south-west coast of Turkey, the Dodecanese are a group of 12 major and 150 minor islands, the most significant being Rhodes. Although mainly inhabited by Greeks, the islands were Turkish until 1912, when they were conquered by the Italians.
After Italy entered the Second World War on the Axis side in 1940, the Dodecanese became the principal German staging-post for the invasion of Crete, and Rhodes later became a strong forward-base, a malevolent presence in the central Mediterranean garrisoned by 35,000 Italian and 7,000 German troops, boasting two good airfields and a harbour. Airfields were also located on Scarpanto and Kos, and Leros had a seaplane base and a harbour suitable for small warships.
Operation Accolade
An enemy presence so close to Egypt forced the British to maintain forces in Palestine, and the islands remained an irritant to British planners. Winston Churchill cherished dreams of seizing the islands, and using them as a springboard for his cherished assault on the ‘soft underbelly’ of the Axis through the Balkans. Seizing the Dodecanese would also have helped the Allies supply the Soviet Union, and possibly even bring Turkey into the war on the Allied side.
