Kriegsmarine naval losses: Cefalonia and Corfu (Sept., 13th

German Kriegsmarine 1935-1945.
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gttf
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Kriegsmarine naval losses: Cefalonia and Corfu (Sept., 13th

Post by gttf »

Hello,
I’m looking for infos concerning the naval losses of Kriegsmarine during the landings at Cefalonia and Corfu (Ionic islands) in september 1943, after the Italian Armistice. As it is well known, the islands became the theater of bitter fighting, with very high human losses, even after the surrender of Italian garrison (Division “Acqui”) to Germans.
The following data have been drawn from “La divisione "Acqui" a Cefalonia. Settembre 1943”, Mursia, Milano, 1993, which gives the italian and german versions of the events, but I would like to know the missing data.
As far as I know, the following german naval losses occurred at Cefalonia, due to coastal batteries:
- landing craft F495 sunk and delle F494 damaged on 13/09/1943
- landing craft F497 damaged on 17/09/1943
The Italian coastal artillery was responsible also of the following losses, but unfortunately, the abovementioned source does not identify these ships and I was not able to find them out in other sources on the same topic; in particular:
- sinking of an unspecified craft, carrying 30 Gebirgsjaeger of I/99 GJR (1. GJDivision), at Corfu, during a failed landing attempt, on 13/09/1943
- sinking of an unspecified craft (maybe a SF or MFP ?) with the loss of almost 200 soldiers of CMIX/966. FestungRegiment (Cefalonia, 17/09/1943).
Germans employed, for the second and successful landing attempt in Corfu, 1 U-jaeger, 2 minesweepers and 4 landing craft (MFP, maybe): of these units, one was sunk and three others damaged by air attacks in the harbour of Igumenizza (albanian coast) after the landing was completed: the books I’ve read on the topics mentioned the complete absence of allied air support to the Italian troops on the islands, so these last successes could be attributed to Italian aircraft (in particular fighter-bombers Re2002 of 5° Stormo Tuffatori).
The website http://www.schiffswrackliste.de gives the MFP F331 (15. LandungsFlottille) sunk at Corfù on 26/9/1943 by airplanes, of unspecified nationality : this should be one of the craft attacked by italian airplanes ?
I would be grateful if someone could clarify the situation.
Thanks in advance and a Happy new Year !!!

Fabrizio
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