This week’s pick is the classic World War II commando caper The Guns of Navarone (1961) directed by J. Lee Thompson, and written by acclaimed author Alistair MacLean, (Where Eagles Dare). The film stars Gregory Peck (Capt. Keith Mallory), David Niven (Cpl. John Anthony Miller), Anthony Quinn (Col. Andrea Stavrou), Stanley Baker (Pvt. “Butcher” Brown), Anthony Quayle (Maj. Roy Franklin), James Darren (Pvt. Spiro Pappadimos), and Irene Pappas (Maria Pappadimos).
The film is set during the rather forgotten Dodecanese Campaign from September 8th to November 22nd 1943. As the Germans had smashed southerly through the Balkans into Greece beginning in late 1940, their Italian allies held several of the Greek islands in the south-eastern Aegean Sea and used them for staging areas to help the Germans conquer Greece next. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini referred to the island of Leros as “the Corregidor of the Mediterranean.”
It was also hoped that Germany could cajole neutral Turkey to enter the war as a member of the Axis. The Allies tried several attempts to capture the islands in order to counter the German push through the Balkans into Greece.
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