Improvise & Dare
War in the Aegean 1943-1945

By J.S. Guard
1997
ISBN: 1-85776-170-7
257 p. illus.
$48.95 Cloth

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Following the Italian surrender and change of sides in 1943, at the insistence of Winston Churchill, the British moved to occupy the Italian Dodecanese Island colonies. At first they enjoyed some success, but unexpectedly swift and determined reaction by the Germans led to their being driven out before the end of the year in a brief but violent campaign. Within two months, British and Greek Special Forces were back in the Aegean. Basing themselves in neutral Turkish waters with the last sailing warships in history, they conducted a maritime guerrilla campaign against the German island garrisons until their forces withdrew from Greece in late 1944, leaving some marooned on distant islands. Improvise and Dare is a fascinating and comprehensive chronicle of this little known campaign which included minor naval actions, small boat operations, special forces raids, and a plethora of secret intelligence-gathering activities.

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