Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

The RAF in Counter-<strong>Insurgency</strong> Warfare: British Intervention in Greece, 1944-45
Communist resistance movements. Because <strong>the</strong> Communists tended to be <strong>the</strong> most
vociferous, Britain thought that <strong>the</strong>y would provide <strong>the</strong> most credible guerrilla forces.
By <strong>the</strong> time SOE realised that ELAS was hard-line Communist <strong>and</strong> had a longer term
political agenda, it was too late. In <strong>the</strong> spring of 1943, during what is considered by
many to be <strong>the</strong> “first round” of <strong>the</strong> Greek civil war, ELAS set about eliminating all o<strong>the</strong>r
resistance movements in Greece, <strong>and</strong> by mid-1944, only EDES remained in any numbers.
There are a number of lessons to be taken away from this experience. It was felt that
SOE operatives going into Greece, <strong>and</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r countries under occupation, did not need
political briefings before <strong>the</strong>y deployed. The Foreign Office did not want <strong>the</strong> “military
types” to interfere with what <strong>the</strong>y saw as <strong>the</strong>ir preserve. This turned out to be a very
serious mistake. Any involvement in Greece was always going to be highly politicised,
because that was just <strong>the</strong> nature of <strong>the</strong> beast. Since <strong>the</strong> 1920s <strong>and</strong> early 1930s, <strong>the</strong> political
scene in Greece had been dominated by Royalist <strong>and</strong> Liberal agendas, with <strong>the</strong> Royalists
looking to Germany for foreign policy guidance <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Liberals following British <strong>and</strong>
French leads. During this period, both <strong>the</strong> Liberal <strong>and</strong> Royalist camps regarded <strong>the</strong>
Greek Communist Party as a threat to national security <strong>and</strong> sought to undermine <strong>the</strong>
Communists’ political base, which <strong>the</strong>y both achieved in some measure. During <strong>the</strong> late
1930s, <strong>the</strong> Greek Communist Party was forced underground by <strong>the</strong> far right dictatorship
of General Metaxas. This provided an ideal basis for <strong>the</strong> subsequent insurgency because
<strong>the</strong> Communists were already adept at operating within small cells by <strong>the</strong> time of <strong>the</strong>
German invasion in 1941. Under <strong>the</strong> German occupation, many Communist agitators
were released from prison <strong>and</strong> were not monitored. In short, SOE unwittingly made a
Communist insurgency more likely by channelling most of its early support to ELAS <strong>and</strong>
not to <strong>the</strong> Republican resistance group, EDES. It took SOE some time to see through
ELAS’s political agenda. However, <strong>the</strong> political intelligence ga<strong>the</strong>red by SOE from 1942
onwards at least provided British forces with some underst<strong>and</strong>ing of <strong>the</strong> Communist
insurgency a few years later. 205
In <strong>the</strong> first half of 1944, <strong>the</strong>re were increasing fears over Soviet domination of <strong>the</strong> eastern
Mediterranean, especially when SOE reported that <strong>the</strong> Soviets had parachuted in advisory
teams to work alongside ELAS. As early as May 1944, Churchill advocated diverting 5,000
British troops from <strong>the</strong> Italian campaign at <strong>the</strong> time of <strong>the</strong> German withdrawal from
Greece so as to prevent a Communist takeover. This operation, code-named Operation
Manna, was referred to at <strong>the</strong> time as “reinforced diplomacy,” <strong>and</strong> was to be supported by
three RAF squadrons <strong>and</strong> an RAF Regiment unit. The RAF’s official role was: “<strong>Air</strong> Defence
of A<strong>the</strong>ns, assistance to <strong>the</strong> Army in <strong>the</strong> field of law <strong>and</strong> order, disarming German forces,
attacks on hostile shipping in <strong>the</strong> Aegean, <strong>and</strong> any German evacuations”. 206
The Germans duly withdrew from Greece between August <strong>and</strong> November 1944. Not
surprisingly, <strong>the</strong>re was very little resistance activity against <strong>the</strong> Germans, except by SOE
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<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”