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
hunting submarines at night, but crews on <strong>the</strong> Wellington squadron deployed to A<strong>the</strong>ns
thought through <strong>the</strong> problem of night illumination over <strong>the</strong> city. Flares had been used,
but failed to provide <strong>the</strong> consistency of illumination required. ELAS insurgents came to
realise that <strong>the</strong>y could not operate by day or night without interference, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> constant
harassment, especially from <strong>the</strong> air, led to psychological pressure on <strong>the</strong> insurgents. Like
most insurgents, ELAS preferred to operate under <strong>the</strong> cover of darkness, but relentless
attacks by day <strong>and</strong> night denied <strong>the</strong>m any respite. ELAS fighters taken prisoner <strong>and</strong>
captured documentation confirmed that <strong>the</strong> Communists’ morale took a steep dive in
<strong>the</strong> last week of December. Whereas morale had generally been high in most sectors in
<strong>the</strong> middle of <strong>the</strong> month, with some fighting in Piraeus being described as “fanatical, to
German proportions,” morale among insurgents recruited locally fell away sharply. These
were Auxiliary ELAS, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir lack of training <strong>and</strong> general experience began to show. The
same sources also confirmed that <strong>the</strong> Communist hierarchy was also extremely concerned
about recruitment <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir ability to sustain operations. Logistics were intermittent
by <strong>the</strong> end of December, thanks in large part to <strong>the</strong> ongoing air interdiction, but <strong>the</strong>
chief concern was <strong>the</strong> casualty rate among <strong>the</strong> insurgents. Although precise figures for
ELAS losses are not known, an estimate done at <strong>the</strong> time by <strong>the</strong> British HQ was that <strong>the</strong>
insurgents were losing ten people to every one British casualty. At <strong>the</strong> time, 212 British
personnel were listed as killed, including two RAF personnel, with forty-two officers <strong>and</strong>
415 o<strong>the</strong>r ranks missing. One post-war estimate suggests that final British casualties
amounted to 237 killed, <strong>and</strong> 2,100 wounded, so it is reasonable to propose that ELAS lost
in <strong>the</strong> region of 2,500-3,000 killed during <strong>the</strong> main fighting of December 1944 to January
1945, out of a maximum total force of 35,000. ELAS had an estimated 11,000 casualties in
total, <strong>and</strong> 13,278 were taken prisoner (although <strong>the</strong> latter figure was felt to be inflated by
civilian suspects who may not have been involved with ELAS). 220
Persistent air power over A<strong>the</strong>ns also had <strong>the</strong> benefit of picking up vital pattern-ofbehaviour
intelligence. Like almost all o<strong>the</strong>r Communist insurgencies, ELAS lapsed into
routines, <strong>and</strong> what was of particular benefit to British Military Intelligence was <strong>the</strong> fact
that <strong>the</strong> Communists also recorded <strong>the</strong>ir activity, tactical <strong>and</strong> operational objectives, <strong>and</strong>
lessons on paper. Captured documentation was, thus, used to corroborate what aerial
reconnaissance had established. These two sources of intelligence were <strong>the</strong>n merged with
human intelligence. This was all-source intelligence analysis at its finest, <strong>and</strong>, by <strong>the</strong> end
of December 1944, British forces often had an hour by hour underst<strong>and</strong>ing of insurgent
movements, <strong>and</strong>, most importantly, could predict <strong>the</strong> insurgents’ next moves. St<strong>and</strong>ing
reconnaissance by Spitfires <strong>and</strong> Beaufighters over <strong>the</strong> centre of A<strong>the</strong>ns was considered
to be “invaluable” in building up a real-time picture of <strong>the</strong> battlespace, however, <strong>and</strong> was
thus regarded by <strong>the</strong> British HQ as <strong>the</strong> most important source of intelligence. It was noted
that aerial reconnaissance could obtain information on any part of <strong>the</strong> battle area within
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<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”