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Day 3 - Small world but don't mention the war

As it was Coronation day I had a coronation chicken sandwich for my lunch although of course being in Greece it had a different name but it was delicious. All other aspects of the coronation and the European Song contest have passed us by I am pleased to say.

Today we drove over to the other side of the island to a nice little harbour called Sami where we got talking to a welsh chap called David in a very small yacht which he lives in all year round. It turned out he came from a village close to Pistyll Rhaeadr, the next valley down from the Ceiriog where we used to live.

When we mentioned that we lived in Bishop’s Castle he said “I fell in love with a little Indian lady who has the chai shop but she would not run away to Kefalonia with me!”

He was a bit taken aback when we said we were Tahiras landlords when we were in the Porch House, it is a very small world. I don’t think Tahira would have liked it here, the boat was very small and there is no garden, she loves gardening.

Yesterday I mentioned that we had not come across any Germans so far on Kefalonia (we actually spotted two today but they are a rarity), in fact all the tourists seem to be British and every local we have met speaks excellent English. Kefalonia used to be British but in 1864 we gave it to the new state of Greece as a goodwill gesture. Presumably it had no strategic or commercial value.

In WWII the Germans took over Greece and their chums, the Italians, annexed Kefalonia with a large garrison who were stationed here. In 1943 when the Italians in Italy surrendered a number of confusing messages were sent to the commander of the Italian troops on the island. They were supposed to lay down their arms but to who? The Germans decided the Italians should ideally join the German army or at least surrender to them but the local Italians decided they would resist. The ensuing battle resulted in the Germans capturing the island with only 300 soldiers lost whilst the Italians lost 1,200. A bit of an embarrassing defeat considering they had over 9,000 troops on the island at the time.
So the Germans now had 8,000 Italian PoWs to deal with, they shot 5,000 and sent another 3,000 off in an undefended or escorted ship to be interned only the ship hit a mine and was sunk and all 3,000 PoWs drowned.

The murder of 8,000 PoWs was a significant war crime but the Allies were not concerned, after all Germans killing their Italian partners was probably regarded as a good outcome. The commander of the German forces responsible died later in the war so could not be called to account and at the Nuremberg trials the number of PoWs killed in Kefalonia was glossed over so the general responsible was only given a 12 year sentence for the massacre. The Italians probably wanted the whole episode forgotten as they did not come out of it well and no one else was interested.
It might all have been forgotten until Louis de Bernières (who despite his name is English) wrote Captains Corelli’s Mandolin which, whilst a novel, is based on the story of the Italian occupation and the subsequent massacre so the story became well known. The Italian Government have built a memorial in near the site of the massacre which is pictured above and the plaque highlighting the numbers killed is shown opposite. 65 officers and 1250 soldiers killed in battle, 155 officers and 5,000 soldiers shot and a further 3,000 drowned.
So the Germans have a bad reputation on Kefalonia, perhaps that is why we have not come across many.

Tomorrow we might have a rest day, perhaps a long lunch in the sunshine, that's what Sundays in Greece are all about.