Word: islanded
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...wide at its base, 70 miles deep on each side. The German forces had lost so many of their airdromes, roads and railways that supply and communication between their units was seriously impeded. The U.S. and Royal Navies, including many U.S. torpedo boats, dominated the Mediterranean waters around the island; Allied airmen held as absolute air control as could be, short of enemy capitulation. The Italian troops still with the Germans were uncertain allies, now used mostly for labor. Behind them, Italy was crumbling...
...Germans were not fighting to hold the island. To all effects, they had lost it. They were fighting for time to prepare their defenses in northeastern Italy and the Balkans. This singleness of aim was a real military advantage. They did not have to expend their forces to save places for the sake of the places. They were free to conserve their strength at one point, to expend it at another, solely to win time...
...that was changed when the Nazis descended on the island. Batouvas fought just as anyone else might for the Main Street of his home town. When it became obvious that the Nazis were winning, he ceased resistance and returned to his store and house...
...learned to live on one solid meal daily; he began to develop a consummate hatred for Germans and Italians. At first he was just a guerrilla among many hundreds. Then his head for business asserted itself. Today Manolis Batouvas is one of the three main guerrilla leaders on the island. Of course Batouvas is not his real name, just as George Petrakis and Manolis Mantakas are not the names of the other two leaders. The Nazis know their real names and have learned to fear them...
...Nazis have been taking all able-bodied men between 16 and 60 years of age, forcing them to work on the island's defenses, building roads, rolling airfields, making concrete breastworks and pillboxes. The pay is poor, amounting to about two pounds of bread for nine days' work...