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 out, the LSSAH had entered Kleidi Pass and 2/8 on the right was under extreme pressure. From 14:00 the Dodecanese Regiment on the right of the Australian 2/8 was under increasingly heavier artillery fire, signifying the preparation for the second Kampfgruppe’s attack, and at 15:40 the regiment received the order to withdraw immediately. According to the initial plan, after the withdrawal (the precise time of which was Mackay’s responsibility) the Greek GHQ counted on the Dodecanese Regiment to hold the Kleisoura Pass, the last one before Germans could reach the rear of the Greek Army on the Albanian Front. Unfortunately