Operation Demon and the limits of the Greece evacuation

Every available destroyer went directly into Operation Demon, so the battle fleet had no screen until it had to cover the large convoys bound for Egypt. Cunningham believed Italian fleet intervention could have slowed or even broken off the evacuation. A German airborne attack seized the only bridge across the Corinth Canal and forced troops toward different ports. At Kalamata the main lift was abandoned too soon, although Hero, Kandahar, Kimberley, Kingston, and later Isis used their own boats to rescue 324 troops on one night and 255 over the next two. Even so, about 4,000 British troops, 2,000 Palestinian and Cypriot troops, and 1,500 refugees were left behind and forced to surrender. Officers still had to impose order while troop numbers, embarkation points, communications, and political conditions kept changing.