Holy Company (World War II)

Holy crowd
active	August 1942 to August 7, 1945
Country	Greece
Armed forces	Greek army
Type	Special unit
structure	2 departments
Strength	1000
motto	Η ΤΑΝ Η ΕΠΙ ΤΑΣ - "With the shield or on it"
Butcher	Battle of Enfidaville (Tunisia) , Aegean
Awards	Golden Cross of Valor, First Class War Cross
commander
Colonel of the regiment	Colonel Christodoulos Tsigantes

The Holy Band ( Greek Ιερός Λόχος ) or Holy Company was a Greek special unit during World War II . It existed from 1942 to 1945 and fought in North Africa and the Aegean Sea .

designation

The unit initially called itself "Troop of Chosen Immortals". When Colonel Christodoulos Tsigantes took over command in September 1942, he chose the traditional name “ieros lochos”. "Lochos" is the modern Greek name for a company or simply means troop, but the historicizing translation "holy crowd" is predominant. Because the designation was based on the historical elite troops of the same name such as the ancient Theban Holy Band or those in the Greek War of Independence .

founding

The Holy Band was formed in August 1942 by the Greek government in exile, which fled to Egypt in May 1941 after the occupation of Greece by the German Wehrmacht . It consisted exclusively of selected officers and officer candidates who were loyal to the government in exile. A cousin of King George II , Prince Petros, was also a major.

Calls

Assignment to the Special Air Service

The force was assigned to the British Special Air Service (SAS). The SAS squadron was built on the amphibious capabilities of the famous command unit " Special Boat Service " (SBS) and was to become the Special Boat Squadron (SBS). With the end of the war in Africa in May, the SAS was split into two troops. The Special Raiding Squadron was to operate in the central Mediterranean Sea before returning home, while the SBS was to operate in the Aegean Sea with the Greek Holy Company for the remainder of the war. Both were later expanded to form regiments .

In coordination with the commander of the British SAS regiment, Lieutenant Colonel David Stirling , and the Greek headquarters , the unit was first transferred to the SAS base in Qabrit in Egypt to begin training for its new tasks. But after the Battle of El Alamein , the speed of the Allied advance in Libya made the training of vehicle-based commandos obsolete.

Operations in Tunisia

At the suggestion of Colonel Tsigantes, General Bernard Montgomery , the commander of the British 8th Army , placed the Greek unit under the command of General Leclerc of the French 2nd Armored Division of the Forces françaises libres in Tunisia on February 7, 1943 as light mechanized cavalry . On March 10, 1943, in the area of ​​Ksar-Rillan, the Holy Band fought their first battle against a German mechanized detachment to secure the advance of the British X Army Corps, which was trying to bypass the Mareth Defense Line to the south.

After the Allied forces took the Tunisian city of Gabès , the Holy Company was assigned to the 2nd New Zealand Division, and on April 6 a mixed Greek-New Zealand division fought against the Germans around Wadi Akarit . The Holy Company entered Sousse on April 12th and took part in the Battle of Enfidaville from April 13th to 17th .

Operations in the Aegean

From May 1943 the Holy Company, now 314 strong, was transferred to various camps in Palestine . In July she went to Jenin for parachute training. After the armistice of Cassibile on September 3, 1943, British troops advanced to the islands of the Dodecanese , which had previously belonged to Italy . The first division of the Holy Company was airlifted to the Greek island of Samos on October 30th , while divisions II and III advanced on fishing boats. However, with the failure of the campaign following the Battle of Leros in mid-November 1943, Samos was evacuated and the Holy Company withdrew to the Middle East.

In February 1944 she was placed under the command of the "British Raiding Forces". On February 7, their first division advanced to the northern Aegean islands of Samos, Psara , Lesbos and Chios , division 2 to the Dodecanese.

In April 1944 the Holy Band was expanded to a regiment size of around 1,000 men.

In mid-July 1944, the Holy Band with an SBS unit carried out a successful surprise attack on the German garrison on Symi .

Dekemvriana and end of the war

After the Greek mainland was liberated from the occupation by the Axis powers in October 1944, the Holy Company returned to Greece, as did the Greek government under Georgios Papandreou . Tensions between the British-backed government and the left-wing National Liberation Front (EAM), which controlled large parts of the country, were sparked over the issue of disarming the partisan units and the formation of a new national army made up of members of the two armed forces in exile and the partisans of ELAS and EDES . However, the Papandreou government and the British mistrusted the political intentions of the numerically strong Liberation Army and wanted to leave the politically reliable Holy Horde and the Rimini Brigade untouched instead of integrating their members into a possibly EAM-dominated people's army. The conflict culminated in December 1944 in the armed struggle of the Dekemvriana in Athens, in which the Holy Company fought against the ELAS. As in October 1944, after the fighting in Athens, the Holy Band continued the fight against the remaining German units on the Aegean islands until the end of the war in May 1945.

Tilos, northeast of Rhodes, was the last island in the Aegean to be liberated on May 2, 1945 after a hard fight man against man.

War cross

resolution

In June, the Holy Company returned to Egypt before being disbanded on August 7, 1945 in a ceremony in Athens. At the ceremony, Archbishop Damaskinos awarded her troop flag with the highest military medals in Greece, the Golden Cross of Valor and the Greek Cross of War, First Class .

The holy multitudes lost 25 dead, 56 injured, 3 missing and 29 captured.

Literary consideration

This unit found its way into the novel The Cannons of Navarone by the author Alistair MacLean as well as in the film of the same name a . a. with Gregory Peck , David Niven and Anthony Quinn .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ English: Sacred Band, Sacred Brigade, Sacred Company, Sacred Squadron, Sacred Battalion; French: Regiment Sacré
2. ↑ James Shortt, Angus McBride: The Special Air Service. 1981, p. 11 [1]
3. ^ Charles W. Koburg: Wine-dark, blood red sea: naval warfare in the Aegean, 1941-1946. 1999, p. 73 [2]
4. ^ Christopher Montague Woodhouse: The struggle for Greece, 1941-1949. 2002, p. 121 [3]
5. ^ Charles W. Koburg: Wine-dark, blood red sea: naval warfare in the Aegean, 1941-1946. 1999, p. 113 [4]