On the morning of 12 November 1943, German landing craft approached Leros. Operation Taifun, the final assault on the island, brought German, British and Italian troops into one of the fiercest engagements of the campaign.
Leros owed its strategic importance to its position and to installations built by Italy, above all the naval base at Lakki. After the Italian armistice on 8 September 1943, the island’s Italian forces joined the British in trying to prevent a German takeover.
The sinking of Vasilissa Olga
The island’s ordeal began well before the landings. On 26 September German aircraft struck military installations and Allied shipping. The Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga sank in Lakki Bay, taking her commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Georgios Blessas, and 71 members of her crew with her. The British destroyer HMS Intrepid was also lost. Weeks of bombing followed, damaging military facilities, civilian infrastructure and settlements. Islanders lived with the danger day after day.
Five days of fighting
On 12 November German forces assembled on Kalymnos and elsewhere in the Aegean went ashore on the east coast of Leros despite British and Italian resistance. A German parachute landing near Rachi in the centre of the island put the defenders under further pressure. According to British war diaries, the Germans sought to divide the Allied positions between Alinda Bay and Gourna Bay.
British and Italian troops fought to recover the ground they had lost. German air support and the Allies’ difficulty getting supplies through helped decide the outcome. On 16 November, after five days of fighting, the British command surrendered. The loss was a serious blow to Allied operations in the Aegean and helped end their attempt to hold the Dodecanese.
What remains on Leros
The battle left lives lost, homes and installations damaged, and traces still visible today. Fortifications, gun batteries, underground tunnels and wrecks off the island bear witness. The War Museum at Merikia tells much of that story. For Leros, 12 November remains a day to remember what islanders and combatants endured, and to pass that history on to younger generations.
