On 25 September, 2024, eighty years after the liberation of the Greek island of Kythera from the Nazis – the first part of the Hellenic homeland to be freed – the Greek Minister of National Defence Nikos Dendias, accompanied by General Dimitris Houpis, the Chief of the General Staff of the Greek Armed Force, together with other dignitaries, took part in an official ceremony to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Kythera.

80 years after the picturesque bay in Kapsali was dotted with allied ships and landing craft, the serene azure waters of Kythera presented a more tranquil scene as the minister and other dignitaries laid wreaths at the port’s Liberation Monument after a memorial service.
As part of the events, Mr. Dendias also attended the presentation of an honorary plaque by the Mayor of Kythera to the 101-year-old resistance fighter Emmanuel Daponte, declaring that he had been very honoured to have had the opportunity to shake the hand of Mr. Daponte, a survivor of this historic moment of the liberation of Kythera.
He also visited the fast patrol boat HS Ndegiannis and concluded his visit with a pilgrimage and guided tour to the Holy Monastery of Panagia Myrtidiotissa.
During his speech, Nikos Dendias paid tribute to the determination of the locals and the partisan forces:
“It is my great pleasure and my great honour to be here today in Kythera, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of their liberation. On September 4, 1944, the German forces left the island. Stories of glory were written by the forces of the National Resistance in the villages of Kythera and on September 25, the Minister of Reconstruction of the Government of National Unity, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, arrived here, as well as the destroyer “Themistoklis” with the Greek Sacred Regiment, thus sealing the liberation of Kythera.”
The Defence Minister, himself a Corfiote by birth, pointed out that whilst it was his first visit to Kythera it had created a sense of familiarity for him because of his own Heptanisian origins. But he also reminded his audience that the island is located at a point where the Ionian, Aegean and Cretan seas meet – an extremely strategic point for Greece and an extremely strategic point for the Eastern Mediterranean.
Mr Dendias also reiterated the Greek Government’s firm position on the importance of the Greek islands and maintaining an active presence on Greece’s small islands as a means safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty and sovereign rights at sea in accordance with international law.
The Defence Minister also quipped that, although the days of exiling Greek politicians have long gone, given that some dissidents during the Cold War had been sent to Kythera, “if at some point I have to be exiled, I would beg to be sent here to Kythera”.
The liberation of Kythera itself in 1944 was dramatic and widely reported as the tide against the Nazis was finally turning.
In what is arguably the most iconic photograph taken on Kythera during World War II, on 15 September 1944 a young Emmanuel Sophios (who was later to etch his name in Kytherian landscape photography) crawled up a small hill overlooking the Bay of Kapsali and took a photo of the British and allied landing craft, recording for posterity the liberation of the first part of Greece from Nazi occupation.
The Allied command had established a strikeforce called Foxforce, consisting of the Scottish No. 9 Commando group; M Squadron captained by the Danish-born war hero, Anders Lassen; members of the British Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), a reconnaissance and raiding unit, and some units of the Raiding Support Regiment with 75 mm guns and mortars. Foxforce also included elements of the SBS (Special Boat Section) and later some Sappers and 350 men of the Greek Sacred Regiment. Lt Col Ronnie Tod was in overall command.

On 9 September an SBS reconnaissance patrol that had landed on Kythera by parachute with the mission to destroy a German radar station, reported that the Germans had abandoned the island, so the Royal Navy decided to use Kythera as a forward base for operations along the Greek coast. Foxforce was assigned to defend this new naval base. Foxforce went ashore on Kythera on the evening of 15 September 1944.
The story of this particular military venture is also graphically retold in a movie reel ‘Return to Greece’ shot by the British Army Film & Photographic Unit (British Pathé) whose cameraman was on board one of the vessels that entered Kapsali.
Vignettes from that newsreel are particularly striking as they show the landing craft in Kapsali, the Allied troops receiving a warm welcome as well as ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army) partisans marching through the streets of Hora. The film was first shown in Greek cinemas on October 16, 1944, two days after the German evacuation from Athens.
The naval flotilla was led by a Canadian armed merchant cruiser (but converted to landing ship infantry carrier), the HMCS Prince David. According to Lassen’s diary, when the Foxforce forces landed at Kapsali the most fervent of the locals threw themselves into the water with their clothes on and swam out to the ship. People hung out of windows, and church bells pealed such was the rapturous reception.
A young Emanuel Comino, who would later become a prominent member of the Greek-Australian community in Sydney, was on Kythera at the time and his memory of that day is undiminished by the passage of time:
“I remember standing on the beach at Kapsali watching the British and Greek warships and landing barges coming into the harbour. The barges landed on the beach and out came British and Greek soldiers hugging each other. I remember Greek soldiers kissing the ground, with tears in their eyes and shouting homa elliniko (‘Greek soil’). They were kissing old women, crying Manoula mou, Manoula mou (‘My mother! My mother!’).”

According to a BBC correspondent, British commando troops went ashore in assault craft in the last light of the day. They received a warm welcome from the inhabitants, who came by donkey and on foot to the shore to greet them and informed them that a few earlier they had watched 150 Germans destroy their radio location station and prepare to leave. The BBC correspondent reported that the German garrison of Kythera had led an unhappy existence:
“The men of the island fought them with stolen weapons; they burnt the boats in which the Germans were planning to get away; and even while the enemy waited on the beach the islanders shot at them.”
Eighty years later we honour the bravery and valour of those soldiers and citizens who fought so valiantly for the defence of Greece and its eventual liberation from German Nazi and fascist oppression.
George Vardas is the Arts and Culture Editor and a proud Kytherian.