ON SPARTAN WINGS: The Royal Hellenic Air Force in World War Two

2-199740

Rarely has an air force gone into combat as poorly prepared and outgunned as the Royal Hellenic Air Force (RHAF) had to when Mussolini's Italy dragged Greece into war on 28 October 1940. Without warning, as Italian forces poured over the frontier from Albania, the RHAF's paltry effective lineup of 128 battle worthy aircraft, most of them obsolete, were pitted against the 463 fielded by the Regia Aeronautica, whose pilots had honed their skills in the Spanish Civil War. On the Greek side, aces such as Marinos Mitralexis, with his audacious ramming of an Italian bomber on the fifth day of the war, ensured that morale in the RHAF remained high.

Though the RAF pitched in with whatever help it could provide in machines and manpower, the aerial war was unequal from the beginning. By the end of 1940 the RHAF was seriously depleted, though individual pilots and crews continued to fight valiantly. The end came in April 1941 when Germany rescued Italy. The Luftwaffe blasted out of the sky what remained of the RHAF and whatever RAF units remained.

Until Greece was liberated in October 1944, the RHAF units in the Allied air forces ranged over targets in the Aegean Sea, Italy, and Yugoslavia. After the end of World War II the RHAF was called upon to confront the threat of an attempted communist takeover of Greece and played a major part in overcoming the rebellion and saving the country for the West. Includes 20 b/w photos and 2 maps.