Dodecanese campaign lies in the south-eastern Aegean Sea, and had been under Italian control since the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. During Italian rule, the strategically well-placed islands became a focus of Italian colonial ambitions in the Eastern Mediterranean. Rhodes, the largest of the islands, was a major military and aerial base. The island of Leros, with its excellent deep-water port of Lakki (Portolago), was transformed into a heavily fortified aeronautical base, "the Corregidor of the Mediterranean", as Benito Mussolini, the Italian leader, boasted. An early British attempt to contest Italian control of the Dodecanese, codenamed Operation Abstention, was thwarted in February 1941,
Dodecanese Regiment Dodecanese Regiment The Dodecanese Regiment or Regiment of the Dodecanesians () was an infantry regiment of the Hellenic Army composed to a large extent of volunteers from the Dodecanese Islands and was formed shortly after Greece entered World War II. The islands were under Italian occupation since 1912, and consequently the Dodecanesian Greeks had Italian citizenship, yet they were eager to fight against the Italian Army either in the Dodecanese or on the Albanian Front. On October 28, 1940, Italy invaded Greece and the Dodecanesian community in Athens saw it as the best chance to press for the liberation of