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,
Syrna (island) 7 December 1946, the ship "Athina Rafiah" carrying Jewish immigrants to Palestine was wrecked in the Agiou Soassin Bay, on the south coast of Syrna, and more than seven hundred survivors came ashore on the island. The British minesweeper HMS "Providence", working with HMS "Chevron", HHMS "Themistocles" and HHMS "Aegean" managed to rescue the survivors. Syrna (island) Syrna () or Sirna is a small island about 4 km in area to the south-east of Astypalaia in the Dodecanese group of Greek islands near the south-west coast of Turkey. It is mostly covered with juniper and garrigue scrub. The few inhabitants