Strana 18
TWO TOWERS
8th war patrol: 24 July–9 August
1942, Crete area, commanding officer: Cdr
Athanasios Spanidis.
On the evening of 24 July, the submarine
sailed from Haifa on a special mission.
The change of home port was prompted by
a major Axis offensive that directly threatened
Alexandria and other parts of Egypt.
The boat‘s mission was to transport members
of the resistance movement and British
officers to the southern coast of Crete; in fact,
it was carrying two separate groups.
During the voyage, the submarine
encountered bad weather that nearly made
the landing operation impossible. At first,
communications with the reception party on
Crete also failed. Fortunately, the problems
were gradually resolved. During the first part
of the operation, the submarine landed 17 Greek
resistance fighters and one British officer,
while taking aboard a group of 24 Greeks
and another British officer. In his memoirs,
one of the Greek resistance fighters ashore
describes this landing from their perspective
(George Psychoundakis, The Cretan Runner).
The second part of the mission, however,
was not completed and no landing took
place, as contact with the shore could not be
established and the site instead appeared to be
under the occupiers‘ control. All this occurred
during the night and early morning of 4 August.
Another notable aspect of the mission
was the evacuation of a leading resistance
figure, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas Papadakis,
his wife and their three children. All were
transported beyond the reach of German
forces to the Allies.
On the return voyage, the submarine
reported that it was short of fuel and requested
assistance. Thanks to the prompt intervention
of the destroyer Kountouriotis, it was refuelled,
and on the evening of 9 August the submarine
moored in the port of Beirut.
9th war patrol: 31 August–15 September
1942, Rhodes area, commanding officer: Cdr
Athanasios Spanidis.
For its next mission, the submarine was
dispatched from Beirut at the end of August,
again to covertly transport a group of
commandos and their equipment. This time
the boat headed for the island of Rhodes, and
there was no shortage of dramatic moments.
On 2 September, while cruising on the surface,
the submarine came under machine-gun fire
from an Italian patrol aircraft. As Papanikolis
could not dive immediately, it made an
unsuccessful attempt to return fire. The same
day, the submarine encountered an enemy
tanker escorted by two corvettes. The attack
failed, however, because of the considerable
distance and the evasive manoeuvres of the
targeted vessels.
The boat reached the coast of Rhodes on
the evening of 4 September. During the night,
it landed Allied soldiers tasked with attacking
German and Italian aircraft on the island.
In return, another group of commandos
who had been operating there covertly was
evacuated from the island during the operation.
The submarine returned to Beirut on 15
September. There, its commanding officer,
Spanidis, had to answer criticism from his
superiors over his poor handling of the crew,
which ultimately resulted in his dismissal.
Incidentally, the commandos‘ attack on the
airfield was highly successful, but only a few
individuals made it back to the Allies; the rest
of the group were captured.
A British Model 1937 torpedo preserved at the Athens War Museum.
INFO Eduard18
August 2026