BiA ArmA 3 Campaign - The Battle of Kos

published on: 19/04/2026

Author: W. Jarvis

Historical summary of the Battle of Kos

The Battle for the island of Kos took place during early October of 1943 between a joint British-Italian garrison and German forces attempting to gain control over the island, as part of the larger Dodecanese Islands Campaign.

The island of Kos is one of the many small islands in the Dodecanese archipelago, located close to the Turkish mainland in the Aegean Sea, that had been ruled by Italy since the Italian victory over the Ottoman Empire during the 1911/1912 Italo-Turkish war. Other notable islands within the Dodecanese archipelago include the islands of Rhodes and Leros. The island itself features steep hills and rocky terrain, with pine forests and farmland located inland of the island's many sandy beaches and salt flats. The largest settlement on Kos was Kos town to the east, featuring limited shipping facilities, with a road running through to the town of Cefalo to the west, perhaps the most important feature of the island was the airfield at Antimachia.

With the capitulation of the Kingdom of Italy and the subsequent signing of an Armistice with the Allies on the 3rd of September of 1943 (with a ceasefire officially in effect on the 8th of September), German forces in the Balkans and the Mediterranean, having lost a key ally in the region, had been ordered to capture territory held by their former ally. At the same time, Middle East Command had been ordered by British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to send troops to occupy the Dodecanese island chain, with the intention of using them as a base for aircraft to bomb German positions in the Balkans, as well as to apply direct pressure onto neutral Turkey to join the war on the Allied side.

By early September 1943, the Italian garrison on Kos (10th Regiment, 50th Infantry Division Regina) numbered an estimated 3,500 troops who manned four coastal artillery cannons and a few obsolete anti aircraft guns. When British forces, namely a detachment of the Special Boat Service under Major David Sutherland and elements of the Parachute Regiment, arrived on the 14th of September they found that the Italian garrison was spread thinly throughout the island and defensive preparations were inadequate. No defensive trenches had been dug by the Italian garrison, anti aircraft preparations were poor and the four coastal artillery guns, despite being in dominating positions, were outdated, not entrenched and lacked fire control.

Over the following weeks the Kos garrison would be bolstered by the arrival of British reinforcements by air and sea, with the 1st Battalion, Durham Light Infantry and 2901 / 2909 Squadron, RAF Regiment, fortifying positions throughout the island while support elements, such as the 4th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery RA and 9th Indian Field Company RE, constructed anti aircraft defences around the Antimachia airfield and Kos town. By the end of September, the British contingent on Kos numbered some 1,000 men, however, the construction of trenches and other fortified positions had been frustrated by the stony ground and, despite the arrival of six Spitfires of 7 Squadron SAAF, the island was still acutely vulnerable to air attack, with Luftwaffe He 111 and Ju 88 bombers launching many successful strikes on the island throughout this period. Anti aircraft defences were likewise anemic, with only a few 20mm Hispano cannons and three 40mm Bofors guns available to the defenders, which were ill suited to contesting high level bombing raids.

On the 1st of October 1943, the Kos garrison received communication that a large concentration of German shipping had been observed in the ports of the island of Crete and a convoy had been spotted by RAF aircraft near the island of Melos. Further reports would confirm that a flotilla of 10 vessels was now at sea and making its way towards Kos, this would be the German invasion force tasked with capturing the island.

Soon after the capitulation of the Kingdom of Italy, the commander of the 22. Infanterie-Division stationed on Crete, Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, had been ordered by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) to make preparations to launch seaborne landings to secure the islands of the Dodecanese archipelago from the Italians and prevent them from falling into the hands of the Allies. This effort would become Unternehmen Eisbär (Operation Polar Bear) and would involve a mixed force composed of infantry of the 22. Infanterie-Division as its main striking force, with elite troops of the Brandenburger-Division supporting the offensive. Luftwaffe aircraft had also been diverted from bases in Western Europe to support the offensive.

Unternehmen Eisbär Order of Battle

Kampfgruppe von Saldern (Major Sylvester von Saldern)

Infantry Striking Force - II. Bataillon Grenadierregiment 16, II.Bataillon Grenadierregiment 65, III.Bataillon Grenadierregiment 440
Support Elements - 4. Batterien Artillerieregiment 22, 3. Batterie Flakbataillon 22, 2. Kompanie Pioneerbataillon 22

This unit was tasked with performing a seaborne landing with marinefährprahm landing craft on the south coast at Marmari, near Mount Eremita, in order to capture the gun positions to the south of Platani. Having completed this objective, the unit would then proceed to capture Kos town.

Kampfgruppe Kuhlmann (Hauptmann Armin Kuhlmann)

Fallschirmjäger (Paratrooper) Element - 15.Kompanie, 4. Regiment Brandenburg (Oberleutnant Oschatz)
Seaborne Landing Element - 1.Kompanie, Küstenjäger Abteilung Brandenburg (Hauptmann Kuhlmann)

This unit was tasked with performing an amphibious and parachute landing around Cape Tigani, having secured their positions, a force would move to capture the town of Cefalo while the rest of the unit attacked the Antimachia airfield, supported by any available elements of Kampfgruppe von Saldern.

Unternehmen Eisbär (Operation Polar Bear) would be launched at 04:30 hours on the 3rd of October 1943, the flotilla transporting the invasion force had been harassed by RAF aircraft as it travelled to Kos but no vessels were struck and no Allied naval force contested their route. Facing minimal resistance, Kampfgruppe von Saldern was ashore at Marmari by mid-day while both the seaborne and paratrooper elements of Kampfgruppe Kuhlmann had successfully landed around Cape Tigani. By 13:30 hours, around 1,500 German troops had been deployed onto Kos.

The British defence was frustrated by poor communication, a lack of field fortifications and inadequate ammunition stores, with the first hours of the battle being reported as confused by the 2909 Squadron Diary as a result of German forces attacking from multiple axes from both sea and air. The poor British situation was exacerbated by Luftwaffe bombing runs and dive bombing attacks against the defenders positions. By 18:00, the situation was reported as critical with the remnants of the Kos garrison retreating to either the Antimachia airfield or Kos town in the face of a superior German force of around 4,000 troops, who by this point had deployed field artillery and armoured cars onto the island. With the loss of the Antimachia airfield later that evening, the British position on the island had been reduced to a small area around Kos town by the end of the 3rd of October.

With all 20mm ammunition expended the remnants of the RAF Regiment Squadrons joined the British infantry in the defence of the town for a final stand, however, with ammunition stores depleted and facing a hopeless situation, the Kos town garrison commander, Colonel Kenyon, surrendered the remaining 1,388 British troops to the Germans. Around 11 officers and 100 men did manage to evade being captured, and were brought off the island by elements of the Special Boat Service over several nights following the German landings. The Italian contingent of the Kos garrison, some 3,145 soldiers, would find out that their former allies were not to be as hospitable to them, with the Italian commander, Colonel Felice Leggio, alongside 101 of his officers being executed by the Germans, presumably in reprisals stemming from the Italians ‘switching sides’.

The Battle of Kos had been an undisputed defeat for the British, and a disaster for the wider Dodecanese Islands Campaign, with the Germans capturing the island of Leros a month later and securing the entire Dodecanese archipelago by the end of November. A multitude of factors can be attributed to the British failure to secure the island, from the a lack of ammunition, inadequate defensive preparations and poor anti aircraft defences, however, it had only been a few weeks since British forces had arrived onto an island that lacked any meaningful defensive fortifications and had to be supplied entirely by air and sea. The Kos garrison had to contend with a numerically superior and aggressive Luftwaffe presence, who performed bombing raids on the island in the days prior to the German invasion, with official despatches noting that ‘The enemy's command of the air enabled him so to limit the operations and impair the efficiency of land, sea and air forces that by picking his time he could deploy his comparatively small forces with decisive results’. Furthermore, Crete being in German hands put Kos in a precarious position, as it allowed the Germans to quickly gather and launch an invasion force to recapture the island in only a couple of weeks.