Operation Lustre
Operation Lustre was an action during World War II: the movement of British and other Allied troops (Australian, New Zealand and Polish) from Egypt to Greece in March and April 1941, in response to the failed Italian invasion and the looming threat of German intervention.
Background
By April 1941 Greece had defeated the Italian invasion and was therefore Britain's only effective ally in Europe. British leaders, especially Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, thought it was politically unacceptable not to support an ally under threat. In addition, use of Greek airfields would put the Romanian oilfields at Ploieşti, vital to Germany's war effort, within reach of Allied bombers. General Archibald Wavell, commander of all the Allied forces in the Middle East, was told in January 1941 that support for Greece must take precedence over all operations in North Africa and this order was reinforced in February.
Wavell's attitude is unclear. It had been generally believed that he was pushed into the Greek campaign, but recent writers believe that Wavell approved of it. British commanders concluded that with British help, the Greek Army could hold the Germans at the Aliakmon Line. They knew German forces were being sent to Libya in Operation Sonnenblume, but thought these forces would be ineffectual until the summer. Both assessments were wrong. It is now accepted that the transfer of Allied forces to Greece had no chance of preventing a swift German victory, and that it weakened British forces in North Africa, leading to the success of Rommel's counterattack in April, and the failure of the British Operation Brevity offensive in May.
From 4 March, a series of convoys moved from Alexandria to Piraeus at regular 3-day intervals, escorted by warships of the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Although there were air attacks, these had little effect. Since January, when the Italian torpedo boats Lupo and Libra attacked convoy AN 14 off Suda bay and disabled the large tanker Desmoulea for the rest of the war, Allied shipping used to avoid passage into the Aegean Sea through the Kaso strait and chose the Antikithera strait instead, which was west of Crete.[1] The Italian fleet mounted a major attempt at the end of March to disrupt these convoys south of the island, but it ended in the stunning defeat at Cape Matapan. About 58,000 men and their equipment were moved to Greece by 2 April. These comprised the British 1st Armoured Brigade, the 2nd New Zealand Division and the 6th Australian Division, followed by the 7th Australian Division and the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade.[2]
Two infantry and two armored divisions were in place on the Aliakmon Line, south-west of Thessaloniki (Salonica), before the Axis (German, Italian and Bulgarian) invasion (Operation Brevity) on 6 April. The Greek Army did not retire to the Aliakmon Line as expected for fear of being overrun by the more mobile German troops during a retirement and the Allied troops were left vulnerable. These forces had little effect on the German invasion and they were evacuated (Operation Demon) on and after 24 April.
Some of these units were moved to Crete (Operation Scorcher), where they were overwhelmed by the airborne invasion of that island (Operation Merkur), although it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Germans.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ O'Hara 2009, p. 85.
- ↑ Playfair et al. 2004, p. 61.
References
- Beckett, Ian (1991). "Wavell". In Keegan, John. Churchill's Generals. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-36712-5.
- O'Hara, Vincent (2009). Struggle for the Middle Sea. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1612514081.
- Playfair, Major-General I. S. O.; with Flynn R.N., Captain F. C.; Molony, Brigadier C. J. C. & Toomer, Air Vice-Marshal S. E. (2004) [1st HMSO 1956]. Butler, J. R. M., ed. The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Germans come to the help of their Ally (1941). History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. II. Naval & Military Press. ISBN 1-84574-066-1.