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fortress, and once we are ensconced in this area air and light naval forces would have a fruitful part to play … I beg you to consider this.” He argued that operations in the eastern Mediterranean were “worth at least up to a first-class division.”783 The Americans disagreed. They transferred some Lightning squadrons to Libya, to operate in support of the Royal Navy in the Aegean. But, as other priorities pressed, after only four days these aircraft were withdrawn. Since the Germans were operating much superior Bf-109 single-engined fighters, it is anyway unlikely that the twin-engined Lightnings could have altered the local balance of airpower any more than did the RAF’s Beaufighters. But the British were bitter that they were left to fight alone.

In London on October 8, the Times said of the fall of Kos: “It cannot be expected that every allied venture will be successful: but there is no denying that the state of affairs in the Dodecanese is causing disquietude.” The paper asked pertinent questions about why stronger allied forces had not been committed. That day, Brooke wrote in his diary:

I am slowly becoming convinced that in his old age784 Winston is becoming less and less well balanced! I cannot control him any more. He has worked himself into a frenzy of excitement about the Rhodes attack, has magnified its importance so that he can no longer see anything else and has set his heart on capturing this one island even at the expense of endangering his relations with the President and with the Americans, and also the whole future of the Italian campaign. He refuses to listen to any arguments or to see any dangers! … The whole thing is sheer madness, and he is placing himself quite unnecessarily in a very false position! The Americans are already desperately suspicious of him, and this will make matters far worse.

All that Brooke said was true. That same day, October 8, Churchill wrote again to the Americans, addressing himself to both Eisenhower and the president: “I propose … to tell Gen. Wilson that he is free785 if he judges the position hopeless to order the garrison [of Leros] to evacuate … I will not waste words in explaining how painful this decision is to me.” But Leros was not evacuated, as it should have been. Churchill cabled Maitland Wilson on October 10: “Cling on if you possibly can … If after everything has been done you are forced to quit I will support you, but victory is the prize.”

On October 13, John Kennedy wrote: “It does seem amazing that the PM786 should spend practically a whole week on forcing forward his ideas about taking an island in the face of all military advice … Jumbo [Maitland Wilson] chanced his arm in occupying Kos and the other Aegean islands.” Churchill cabled Maitland Wilson on October 14: “I am very pleased with the way you used such poor bits and pieces as were left to you. Nil desperandum.” And again to Maitland Wilson, copied to Eden: “Keep Leros safely.” Churchill referred to Leros, absurdly, as a “fortress,” even less meaningful in this case than when he had used the same word of Singapore and Tobruk. The C-in-C, desperate not to disappoint the prime minister, persevered. Given the scepticism of Brooke, why did not the CIGS assert himself, and insist upon withdrawal from the Aegean? The most plausible answer is that, when he was fighting Churchill almost daily about much bigger issues, notably including the prime minister’s enthusiasm for an invasion of Sumatra, Leros seemed insufficiently important to merit yet another showdown. Win or lose, the campaign represented only a marginal drain on resources. Brooke could not hope to overcome the prime minister’s passions on every issue. Instead he stood back, and watched the subsequent fiasco unfold.

For five further bloody weeks, the British struggled on in the Aegean. The battles which took place in that period at sea, in the air and on land more closely resembled those of 1941 than most Allied encounters with the Germans in 1943. The Royal Navy’s cruisers, destroyers, submarines and small craft sought to sink German shipping