Italian colonists in the Dodecanese Italian colonists in the Dodecanese Italian colonists were settled in the Dodecanese Islands of the Aegean Sea in the 1930s by the Fascist Italian government of Benito Mussolini, Italy having been in occupation of the Islands since the Italian-Turkish War of 1911. By 1940, the number of Italians settled in the Dodecanese was almost 8,000, concentrated mainly in Rhodes. In 1947, after the Second World War, the islands came into the possession of Greece: as a consequence most of the Italians were forced to emigrate and all of the Italian schools were closed. However, their architectural legacy is still evident,
Dodecanese campaign Allies lost six destroyers sunk and two cruisers and two destroyers damaged between 7 September and 28 November 1943. After the fall of Leros, Samos and the other smaller islands were evacuated. The Germans bombed Samos with Ju 87 ("Stukas") of I "Gruppe, Stukageschwader" 3 in Megara, prompting the 2,500-strong Italian garrison to surrender on 22 November. Along with the occupation of the smaller islands of Patmos, Fournoi and Ikaria on 18 November, the Germans completed their conquest of the Dodecanese, which they held until the end of the war. Only the island of Castellorizo off the Turkish coast was