The Sacrifice of Leros
Public opinion will not be satisfied until the whole question of Cos. Leros and Samos has been cleared up. After days of heroic resistance in which 3,000 British troops and 5,000 Italians received and deserved public admiration for holding on against perpetually reinforced German troops and mass bombing-attacks against which there was virtually no protection, we now learn that the inevitable has happened—that the garrison has been overwhelmed and the Wand lost. What the public will want to know is who planned expeditions against islands which could not be effectually reinforced by sea or protected from the air? Under whose direction were the forces in Leros and Samos kept in their hopeless position after Cos had proved a failure and the air-support it Might have rendered was not forthcoming? And incidentally it might be asked, from whom in Whitehall emanates the lame and preposterous argument that the effect of the diversion of German effort needed to recapture Leros may prove equal to that caused by our fight for Greece and Crete? The expedition to Greece was a delaying action directed against the victorious Germans in the moment of Greece's extreme agony—a moment when the holding up of the enemy was of vital consequence for all military operations in the East. The recent ill-judged ex- peditions to the Aegean were undertaken when we have over- whelming superiority in the Mediterranean and when adventures of this kind should be undertaken in sufficient force or not at all. To adopt the course taken was to make a present to the enemy of gallant troops and the prestige of a local victory which they so badly need. The least that can be done now is to give a full explanation of the planning and conduct of these ill-conceived and ill-supported operations.
