Monday, Nov. 22, 1943
A Campaign Wanes
Trouble loomed from the outset. Soon after Italy capitulated, a handful of British airborne troops took a handful of Dodecanese and Aegean islands off Turkey's west coast. Their aim: air bases, harbors from which to harass from the rear the Nazis' outer chain of Balkan defenses--the islands of Rhodes, Scarpanto and Crete.
The Germans, busy in the Balkans and Italy, seemingly paid little attention. But after weeks of reconnaissance and preparation, they started to recoup their losses. Last month, some 4,000 German seaborne troops recaptured Cos in the Dodecanese from a tiny garrison of British troops and R.A.F. ground personnel.
Last week the Germans threw parachute troops, dive-bombers and seaborne reinforcements against British and Italian troops defending nearby Leros. The Nazis said flatly that the island had fallen, boasted that the British Aegean gains had been reduced to the islands of Samos, Nicaria and Castelrosso. The British admitted that the Germans had made progress from their beachheads on Leros, did not boast about the chancy, raggedly conducted operation in the Aegean.
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