Operation Animals

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Operation Animals
Part of Operation Barclay
Date21 June – 11 July 1943 (1943-06-21 – 1943-07-11)
Location
Central/Northern Greece
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
  •  
    EDES
  • Organization Zeus
Commanders and leaders
Napoleon Zervas
Units involved
  • USAAF
Casualties and losses
  • 41 killed
  • 92 executed
  • 129 wounded
  • 22 airplanes destroyed
  • 15 airplanes damaged
  • 32 killed
  • 165 executed
  • 16 villages destroyed

Operation Animals was a

United States Army Air Force. The operation took place between 21 June and 11 July 1943 and included an organized campaign of sabotage in Greece, to deceive the Axis Powers into believing that Greece was the target of an Allied amphibious landing, instead of Sicily
. Despite the mission's success, the Greek civilian population suffered from mass reprisals and British intervention into the internal affairs of the Greek resistance exacerbated the tensions between its various components.

Background

On 28 October 1940, Italy began the

Defenders of Northern Greece (YBE) played a much smaller role.[1]

In June 1943, the head of the British

Operation Husky – and decided to undertake the invasion no later than July that year.[7] There was concern among the Allied planners that Sicily was an obvious choice – Churchill is reputed to have said "Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it's Sicily"[3] – and that the build-up of resources for the invasion would be detected.[8]

Adolf Hitler was concerned about a Balkan invasion, as the area had been the source of raw materials for the German war industry, including copper, bauxite, chrome and oil. The Allies knew of Hitler's fears,[8] and they launched Operation Barclay, a deception operation to play upon his concerns and to mislead the Germans into thinking the Balkans were the objective, thereby keeping Sicily less defended than it could have been.[3][9] In doing so, the deception operation reinforced German strategic thinking about the likely British target.[10] To suggest the eastern Mediterranean was the target, the Allies set up a headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, for a fictional formation, the Twelfth Army, consisting of twelve divisions. Military manoeuvres were conducted in Syria, with numbers inflated by dummy tanks and armoured vehicles to deceive observers. Greek interpreters were recruited and the Allies stockpiled Greek maps and currency. Falsified communications about troop movements were generated from the Twelfth Army headquarters, while the Allied command post in Tunis – which was to be the headquarters of the Sicily invasion – reduced radio traffic by using land-lines wherever possible.[11][12]

On 29 May, Myers was informed by Cairo that Sicily was to be invaded in the second week of July and ordered that Greek resistance organizations were to commence Operation Animals a sabotage campaign throughout Greece. The operation was to begin on 21 June and last until 14 July and Myers immediately contacted local SOE agents and the leadership of ELAS, which agreed to participate in the operation. The strategically important Gorgopotamos bridge which had been destroyed during Operation Harling had been repaired and was to be blown again. Myers proposed to destroy the bridge across the river Asopos but the ELAS commander Stefanos Sarafis, thought it too dangerous and proposed to demolish the Kournovo tunnel; Myers eventually gave in and supplied ELAS with explosives. On the night of 1 June, an ELAS engineer unit, accompanied by 250 fighters, blew up the tunnel while a train loaded with ammunition and Italian soldiers on leave was passing through. About 200–300 Italians and seven Germans were killed while 100 more suffered burn injuries and 60 Greek prisoners of war perished in the explosions that followed. The tunnel suffered no serious damage and the Germans repaired the railroad tracks a week later. The Italian army conducted the reprisal killing of 106 prisoners of war in the Larissa concentration camp. On 20 June, in 'Operation Washing', a group of six SOE officers evaded German guards to scale a steep slope near the Asopos bridge, place explosives at its northern end and set them off. Upon hearing about the demolition, Adolf Hitler expressed his dissatisfaction with the level of protection of the Greek railroad network, while also acknowledging that such subversive acts could not be wholly avoided. The damage caused to the bridge severed the railroad connection between northern and southern Greece until 28 August and paved the way for Operation Animals.[2]

Operation

On the night of 20 June 1943, five bridges were blown up along the

117th Jäger Division was ambushed by a party of 100 ELAS fighters, while passing through the narrow Sarantaporo pass. In an eight-hour exchange of fire, 11 Germans were killed, 97 surrendered, and five escaped. The Sarantaporo bridge and the 64 cars and trucks belonging to the column were destroyed. The captured German soldiers were interrogated, and killed several days later.[13]

Eleusina and Kalamaki airfields killed 16 Germans and 32 Greeks, 59 people were injured and 12 aeroplanes destroyed.[14]

On 1 July, the 1st Mountain Division and two Italian regiments enacted an anti–partisan operation in the vicinity of Servia and after their rendezvous, the operation was converted to a punitive expedition. The expedition lasted until 5 June and resulted in the burning of 16 villages, the killing of 92 civilians and the looting of large numbers of cattle. After the departure of the Mountain Division towards Ioannina, the area was declared a dead zone and placed under the control of collaborationists under the command of Georgios Poulos. On 2 July, 50 prisoners of war were killed at Vyrsodepseia in reprisal for Ersfeld's death and later in the day, insurgents skirmished with a German patrol at Platamonas. On 3 July, insurgents shot at a German car, wounding a passenger and blew up a railroad tracks outside Litochoro. On the night of 4 July, the Leptokarya–Litochoro railroad was sabotaged once more leading to the derailing of an ammunition train and in the ensuing explosion 10 Germans were wounded. At the same time a German outpost between Katerini and Pyrgetos was attacked. German reprisals led to the killing of 10 prisoners of war in Thessaloniki and the destruction of part of Litochoro. On the night of 11 July, a bridge was blown up 25 km (16 mi) north-west of Lamia as a German column passed through and 25 wagons of ammunition were destroyed. The following day Germans killed 13 people accused of carrying out the bombing. On 11 July, Myers ordered the cessation of the operation as the landings on Sicily had begun.[15]

Aftermath

Hitler had been deceived as to the real location of the Allied landing, believing that Sardinia and the Peloponnese were more likely to be the target. Following the landing at Sicily, the staff of Army Group E continued to expect a second landing in Greece for a short time, anticipating that the Greek resistance would act as a fifth column. Despite the success of the operation, Maitland Wilson admitted that the civilian population of Greece had suffered much in the German reprisals. This was partially due to inefficient planning by ELAS, which failed to provide the civilian population with adequate warning of German reprisals.[16] Following the end of the operation Greece lost what little strategic importance it had in the Allied war effort.[17]

Operation Animals fostered the expansion of right-wing resistance groups such as EDES and YBE to counterbalance the dominant ELAS.[1] As part of this effort, the leadership of YBE agreed to embrace armed struggle, forming guerilla bands in rural areas. In July 1943, YBE was renamed Panhellenic Liberation Organization (PAO).[18] The formation of PAO strained relations with ELAS and no effort was made to combine their operations. PAO managed to gain the support of the Turkish-speaking Pontic Greeks, who maintained independent resistance networks and were also anti-communist. In August, ELAS fighters in the area of Kilkis began pressuring PAO insurgents into disarming. When ELAS applied the same tactic on the Turkish-speaking Pontians, the latter murdered seven regional ELAS commanders in the village of Imera, near Kozani. By the end of the month the conflict between the two groups had escalated into a civil war, which continued until December. ELAS managed to destroy PAO's armed units, before they managed to regroup in Chalkidiki.[19][20] Exploiting a mutiny within the Greek Armed Forces in the Middle East, ELAS also clashed with EKKA and EDES, in an effort to solidify its position before the anticipated return of king George II of Greece from exile, whom ELAS vehemently opposed.[21]

In January 1944, the remnants of PAO, consisting of several hundred men, requested aid from the German authorities and they were reformed into collaborationist, counter-insurgency units. Under German direction, PAO took part in operations against ELAS, while attacking the Bulgarian army, with the tacit approval of the Germans. From then on PAO operated under the umbrella of the collaborationist Security Battalions, committing numerous atrocities.[19][20] ELAS remained the dominant resistance organization in Greece until the end of the war. The Treaty of Varkiza significantly weakened the communists, while the Greek army and gendarmerie were reformed with former members of anti-communist resistance organizations, including ex-collaborators. The Greek Civil War continued until the communists were defeated in 1949.[19][20][22]

Footnotes

Notes

  1. ^ American planners favoured either a cross-channel invasion into northern France in 1943, or to increase pressure in the Pacific War; Roosevelt was undecided on either of the two options, and was persuaded by Churchill to support the invasion of Sicily.[6]

Citations

  1. ^ a b Stefanidis 1992, pp. 64–95.
  2. ^ a b Dordanas 2002, pp. 333–341.
  3. ^ a b c Crowdy 2008, p. 195.
  4. ^ Arnold-Forster 2001, pp. 114–115.
  5. ^ Buell 2002, p. 195.
  6. ^ Buell 2002, p. 186.
  7. ^ Smyth 2010, pp. 45–46.
  8. ^ a b Cave Brown 1975, p. 278.
  9. ^ Howard 1990, p. 85.
  10. ^ Howard 1995, p. 93.
  11. ^ Holt 2004, pp. 368–369.
  12. ^ Howard 1990, pp. 87–88.
  13. ^ Dordanas 2002, pp. 341–356.
  14. ^ Dordanas 2002, pp. 356–362.
  15. ^ Dordanas 2002, pp. 356–374.
  16. ^ Dordanas 2002, pp. 374–376.
  17. ^ Katsikostas 2011, p. 263.
  18. ^ Hatzianastasiou 2001, pp. 173–178, 181.
  19. ^ a b c Hatzianastasiou 2001, pp. 178–188.
  20. ^ a b c Maratzidis 2000, pp. 68–72.
  21. ^ Katsikostas 2011, pp. 251–258.
  22. ^ Chimbos 1999, pp. 254–255.

References

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