Dodecanese of Italianization, hoping to make Rhodes a modern transportation hub that would serve as a focal point for the spread of Italian culture in the Levant. The islands were overwhelmingly Greek-speaking, with a Turkish-speaking minority and an even smaller Ladino-speaking Jewish minority. Immigrant Italian speakers were a marginal language community. The Fascist program, in its many attempts to modernize the islands, eradicated malaria, and constructed hospitals, aqueducts, a power plant to provide Rhodes' capital with electric lighting, and established the Dodecanese Cadastre. The main castle of the Knights of St. John was also rebuilt. The concrete-dominated Fascist architectural style detracted
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