Royal Hellenic Navy's Cruiser Force 1925-41

Here is the first part of the story of the Hellenic Empire's participation in World War II. Eventually I will present the ships as they appeared modified to meet the rigors of war. If anyone care to do planes and armored vehicles in the FD-scale, I'd be more than grateful.

As World War II broke out in Europe, the perilous state and position of the Hellenic Empire appeared clearer for outside observers. It had strong footholds in both Europe and Asia Minor, as well a mandate on Crimea. In two recent wars it had swiftly and decisively defeated first the Osmanli Empire (or its successor state) and the, what was internationally often termed as Rump-Turkey (due to the decimated shape of its borders, compared to its intentions as envisioned by Mustapha Kemal Pasha).

However, it had few true friends and no allies, except a politically tumultuous France and a distant Britain. The United States, although very benignly inclined, nevertheless chose to remain aloof and non-committal. Poland was separated by a whole continent and was herself besieged by severe internal and external problems, the most severe, its relations with Germany in the West and the Soviet Union in the East. The Hellenic Empire was on a friendly, or at least non-belligerent, foot with Italy, though both countries vied each other suspiciously, especially across the Epirote Mountains. Bulgaria, who had attempted to play a major role on the Balkans, had been crushed in the Three Weeks’ War of 1935. It had no reason to refrain from hostility at the first opportune moment. Serbia aspired to replace the Hellenic Empire with its own, but had seen the loss of Macedonia instead. Romania was hostile ever since the RHN occupation of Constanta in 1931, an occupation declared illegal by the League of Nations, but quietly supported by the Western Great Powers.
In other words, the Empire found itself in a rather isolated situation. The political unrest, where the army dabbled in politics, but the navy prudently tried to stay away, did nothing to improve the situation. Also the ethnic clashes between population groups increased. The ‘Western’ Greeks (so called since they inhabited the Greek Peninsula, Thessaly and Thrace, grew increasingly resentful towards the ‘Eastern’ or ‘Turkic’ Greeks, i e the Greeks settled in Anatolia, Bithynia and other parts of what was termed the “Liberated and re-united areas”. Also Armenians, constituting upwards of a fifth of the navy’s personnel and 16% of the army’s, grew restless with their perceived discriminated status within the Empire. Needless to say that the remaining Turkish population felt an increasing pressure on them, and faced with more severe repressive measures from an authoritarian government, many chose not only to emigrate to Rump-Turkey but also take up arms in the interior of Anatolia, where several armed clashes occurred during the late 1920s but especially during the 1930s.

The Royal Hellenic Navy was in an excellent shape with 21 cruisers active, consolidated in five fleets, of which three were based in the Mediterranean, one in the Black Seas and one, finally in the Sea of Marmara, for all intents and purposes an auxiliary force for the Black Seas fleet. There were a healthy number of destroyers in service too, most of them less than 10 years old. The submarine arm was expanded and solidified. There were enough auxiliaries, such as fleet oilers, tenders, ammunition carriers, water carriers, tugs etc. The personnel were expertly drilled; especially in the tactics of night fighting. Thus, Hellenic major combatants always carried heavier and a more extensive set of search lights than contemporary vessels. The Naval General Staff, from 1925 known as the Admiralty of the Navy, and headed by Vice Admiral (later, in 1926, Admiral and, in 1930, Admiral of the Fleet; Archinaúarchos) Stephanos Stephanopoulos-Comnenou, with his able and far-sighted Chief-of-Staff, Vice Admiral (later Admiral) Sophocles Dousmanis at his side, was the most efficient military administration of Hellas. It based its training regimen on that of the Royal Navy, even inviting British naval officers to attend and lecture at the Naval Academy. Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Mark Kerr, who in 1913-15 had been C-in-C of the Hellenic navy, was a lifelong friend of Stephanopoulos’ and a frequent guest of honor with the RHN. The famous world cruises every year, except 1928, 1929, and 1935 and 1937-38 and, finally, 1940, served to thoroughly train the officers’ corps in the latest technological progresses as well as giving them an international outlook. The officers’ corps was generally very conservative in their collective political views and staunchly monarchist. Stephanopoulos had fervently supported Venizelos’ Megali Idea-program and he drew inspiration from Lord Fisher’s naval reforms as First Sea Lord to also implement similar reforms in the RHN regarding the NCOs and seamen’s working and living conditions. Pay was successively increased, leave instituted on a more generous level, and religious services were provided for Jews and Armenians, though practicing Muslims in the fleet still had to abide by themselves This lessened the tensions between the lower ranks and the officer corps, though it never alleviated it. However, the tensions were far less aggravated than in the army.
The navy had intimate ties with the Royal Navy from where it derived most of its modern traditions and fighting élan, but it also developed close relations with the US Navy, from which it benefitted hugely in receiving technical support and an ability to place orders in US naval yards, protected by the US Naval Warfare Act of 1866. That is why so many of the RHN cruiser designs so closely resembled US cruiser designs of the period, with their inherent strengths and weaknesses.

The army was overall well drilled and supplied. What was not evident at first glance was the fact that it relied very heavily on the cavalry as the offensive body, instead of investing in armored vehicles and mechanized divisions and brigades. Instead horses and bicycles were used. The standard main tank of the RHA was the small and rather obsolete Italian CV33 light tank or tankette. It had been purchased as part of the deal to build the two Thessalonike-class cruisers, but delivery had been delayed constantly, so, by 1941, there were only 100 of those in service, scattered around the divisions and brigades. The Empire also fielded one motorized brigade each in Anatolia and Thessaly, both woefully under-equipped. In early 1940, a deal was struck with the French government to obtain 200 Renault FT-17 light tanks, 45 Hotchkiss H35, 100 Somua S35 cavalry tanks and several hundred armored personnel carriers, but by 1941, only a fraction had arrived. Those that did arrive, were parceled out to the six cavalry divisions in both the West and the East, and to the two brigades positioned closer to the capital, at Adrianoupolis. Also the acquisition of the heavier Char B1 bis was deferred due to the inability of the General Staff to realize the changed nature of mobile warfare. Only 15 of these heavy tanks were acquired; all went to the Anatolian front where, however, they were committed piecemeal into the ongoing battles.
There were 17 infantry divisions, mainly stationed in Anatolia. Each was about 1,160 men strong, incl. officers. The European side was chiefly defended by the 18 Mountain divisions of General Papagos’ Epirote Military Sector. It was, however, rather under-equipped and badly organized, since its generals were more interested in political plotting. It did, though, perform surprisingly well against the Italian invasion army that infracted upon the Empire on Oct. 29, 1940. In the bitter fighting in the Epirote Mountains the Greek army managed to inflict severe casualties on the Italian army which eventually was put to flight, by November. The RHA was, in fact, able to occupy the remainder of what had been Albania, and hold it firmly under its control, until April, 1941.
In Anatolia, the initial success of the Italian invasion sparked the Turkish response in accordance with the Axis Resolution of May, 1940, which also involved Bulgaria and Serbia (then under a pro-German rule).

On Nov. 1, 1940 the cumbersome machinery of the Turkish army, under Marshal Mehmet Sabri Erçetin set in motion, invading through the Meander valley, into the Anatolian Western Plateau. At first the Hellenic army was rebuffed and compelled to beat a hasty retreat, leaving ordnance behind. However, after the charismatic Lt Gen. Melissinos had assumed command and begun to reorganize the army, it went on an offensive and, for the first time, used its tanks in a truly offensive role, as envisaged by both Liddell Hart and Guderian. The territorial gains were enormous, and, in Jan. 1941, the Turkish army was near a complete collapse.
Erçetin was replaced by the affable but politically pliant Salih Omurtak, who surprised everybody by inspiring his defeated First Army to stand firmly at Adana, repulsing six attempts by the Hellenic army to dislodge it. When general Mehmet Ermin Koral’s Fifth Army joined forces with the First, it appeared as if the Hellenic positions would crumble. However, Gen. Melissinos was able to fight a very skillful rear-guard battle, winning the battle at Mersin, and then being able to swing in a north-west axis towards the Turkish capital, threatening to encircle the two Turkish armies.
On March 24, it was announced from Berlin that the Reich Chancellor and Führer had appointed General der Infanterie, Richard Ruoff, as Commander of the Deutches Türkei- und Asienkorps, and, having been appointed Commander-in-Chief and also chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Army, he arrived in Ankara on March 26, prepared to take up his command.

The Army air force of the Empire consisted mostly of British-built Gloster Gladiators and a number of Hawker Hurricanes. Pilots were trained by British officers and their degree of training was generally very high. Some French-built Morane-Saulnier M. S. 406 were received in 1940, but not nearly enough to cope with the Axis air forces at hand. Also the outmoded Polish-built PZL P. 24 was at hand, although totally outclassed by any of the Axis airplanes. Nevertheless, though the army had refused the formation of an independent air force and failed to grasp the potential of the airplane in a modern war, the pilots of the RHAAF fought doggedly and courageously and made the best of their inferior resources.

The navy possessed 24 Loire-Nieuport 130 floatplanes, used mainly for reconnaissance but also as fighters for the defense of their mother ships. The RHN: s pilots were trained either in Britain or in the U. S. and their valor and skills are widely attested. In addition there were 34 Fairey III flying boats and 12 German-made Dornier Do 22s.

In the first actions of the war, the Adriatic navy, on Oct. 29, 1940 with the cruiser Ipeiros and four destroyers managed to intercept an Italian troop convoy, sinking five ships and capturing the rest, three ships, causing the loss of 13,000 troops for the Italian high command. On the captured vessels, a most valuable cargo was found: 54 Fiat M13/40 light tanks, which served to augment the battered Epirote army.

On Nov 5, the Striking Force of the Aegean Fleet (Sphendoni, Thevai, Athinai and Psara engaged the 1st Italian Cruiser Division under Rear-Adm. Marco Calamai, off Thira. The fight lasted for four hours and ended inconclusively when the Italians broke off action, taking cover in a fog bank, and its own smoke screen. The Italians suffered from the accurate shooting of the Greek vessels; Zara suffering 24 casualties, Fiume 12 and Pola 5, while the Hellenes only suffered 3. Adm. Sakellariou’s attempt at a destroyer charge at the Italians failed due to the unexpected change of weather and visibility. A British observer onboard the Athinai noted that the flagship, Sphendoni, opened fire with her 9.2-in guns at an extreme range of 46,000 yards, scoring her first hits on the Zara at 38,650 yards and blanketing the target at 34,000 yards; none of the ranges for which the Italians could respond effectively.

When the Turks joined the fray, the Hellenic Black Seas fleet was on a high degree of alert. Already on Sept. 4, 1940, its commander, Vice Adm. Argyropoulos had issued battle orders for the eight cruisers and 20 destroyers making up the formation.
When a lucky Turkish dive bomber’s bomb destroyed Argyropoulos' headquarters, at Pera, on Nov. 7, the impetuous and aggressive Vice Adm. Konstantinos Kriezis, a grandson of one of the most famous naval fighters during the Greek War of Independence, assumed command, and implemented a vigorous campaign against the Turkish navy. This he found steaming at high speed off Sinop, on Nov. 27, 1940. The Turkish squadron, consisting of two pocket battleships, the elderly, but modernized battle cruiser Yavuz Selim and four heavy and one light cruiser, in addition to two flotillas of destroyers and six tenders, was under the overall command of Adm. Muzaffer Ciler Koral, an accomplished and able commander.

Kriezis had at his disposal six heavy or light cruisers, his flag flying in the 8-in cruiser Olympia. The battle opened up with a long-range fire by the Turks, who sighted their Greek opponents first, steaming at 24 knots speed, course SSE-to-E bearing south. The range as plotted from the Olympia’s main range finder was 36, 800 yards. No hits were registered, though Ciler’s 11-in armed pocket battleships of modified Deutschland-type were able to straddle the foremost units of the Hellenic force, the cruisers Olympia and Doxa at 1234 hrs, but received, in turn, a withering broadside from the latter, which knocked out the battleship Kilid-i bahri’s main fire control system. At 1245, Kriezis gave orders for independent action, whereby his flagship followed by Doxa, Philadelpheia and the little nimble Ellis, which had managed to creep up on the leeward side of the Hellenic battle line veered four points to the South while Rear Adm. Toumbazis’ Second Division, led by the Serrai, and consisting of Anatolia, Thessaloniki (flag) and Augousta veered to the North, thus creating a pincer movement. Having freed his units to find their targets independently and fire as they pleased when obtaining the range, the Olympia and Doxa increased speed to 28 knots at 1253, then to 30 knots at 1300 while constantly firing at the Turkish target vessels, including their flagship, Barbaros. At 1302, Adm. Ciler was struck by shrapnel and incapacitated. The command devolved to his flag captain, Rear Adm. Mehmed Cittin Ecergülbey, who, however, lacked the instruments to closely follow the battle. As a result, the Greek vessels could calmly select their targets as they moved around and across the statically moving line of Turkish vessels, in principle herding it to its own destruction. In spite of the desperate pleads of Barbaros’ captain, Mustapha Cevdet Yasgan, who was a most courageous officer, Ecergülbey refused to release his ships for independent action, stolidly being convinced that the fleet tactics thus far employed would succeed!
It was in fact the Hellenes who gradually gained the upper hand. At 1414 the cruiser Fatih sank after a fatal magazine explosion. At 1425, the flagship, Barbaros, burning fiercely and having had all her turrets disabled broke off action, with a 6 degree list. The old battle cruiser Yavuz, unable to match the speed of the Hellenic cruisers was firing in a desultory fashion, her turret gun crews unable to cope with the fleeting targets and the extreme range of 33,000 yards.
However, Adm. Kriezis decreased the range rapidly now. At 1448 it was 17,000 yards and the 8-in and 9.2-in guns of the Hellenic cruisers found their targets with every salvo. At 1449, Kriezis gave orders to Commodore Pavlos Voutsaras’ destroyers to close in for the kill. The 12 destroyers accompanying the Black Seas Fleet crossed the lines and closed to 5,000 yards before releasing their deadly fish. Two found the heavy cruiser Gaziantep and sank her. The light cruiser Kemalreis also was hit by a salvo of three torpedoes and sank in less than 9 minutes. The Turkish fleet flagship, Barbaros was hit by one torpedo which cleaved off her stem, causing the flooding of four compartments with 4,500 tons of water. Later she was scuttled by her own crew, the severely wounded Adm. Ciler having been transferred to a destroyer. Finally the steamer Yilmas was hit by a torpedo and sank in shallow water, where her captain managed to steer her with a desperate effort. Yilmas was a hospital ship and had been busy attempting to pick up survivors from the sea.
After this calamity, the Turkish fleet beat a hasty retreat under cover of a smoke screen. One battleship, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and a transport had been sunk at the cost of one destroyer sunk and two damaged to the Greeks. None of the participating heavy cruisers suffered any significant damage. Casualties were as follows: Hellenes: 12 dead, 42 wounded, Turks: 1,083 dead, 768 wounded, 1,600 prisoners of war, 54 missing.

The following day, as the crippled Turkish squadron limped into Sinope’s harbor, it was resolved to blow up the ships that could not be repaired in time for departure and then abandon the port. Ciler eventually recovered, and since he was incapacitated before the catastrophic events occurred, he was acquitted at the court martial, in Feb. 1941. Ecergülbey, however, was dismissed from the service, and a further tribunal found him criminally guilty of having maintained the line-of-battle order, in spite of the Greek superiority of fire. He was sentenced to be shot onboard the deck of Ciler’s new flagship, the battleship Turgutreis. The sentence was carried out on April 24, 1941.

For his outstanding bravado in engaging a superior force and defeating it so decisively, Kriezis was promoted to the rank of full Admiral. He was also conferred the Imperial Order of St Constantine 1st class and elevated to a Count.
During the remainder of the year, the Hellenic fleet in the Black Seas was employed in shore bombardment and commerce warfare, mopping up, virtually, the whole Turkish merchant fleet in the Euxine basin. It also covered crucial troop transports in Paphlagonia, Northern Phrygia, and Bithynia, in support of the current operations in Anatolia.

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