Read the text by George Leontsinis, Professor Emeritus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, on the sinking of the British warship HMS Gloucester and the 722 crew members who died at the hands of the Nazi air force on 22 May 1941, during the Battle of Crete, in the sea between Kythera and Crete.
Of the 807 crew members, only 85 were rescued in Kythera, where the locals in Kapsali requested and received permission from the Germans to offer assistance to the castaways before they were taken to prison camps.
The son of the dead captain of HMS Gloucester visited Kythera in the late 90s. He wanted to know more about the bombing. He was three years old when his father was killed. In 2001, the captain's son organised a memorial service in Kapsali, in collaboration with the British Navy. Both survivors and relatives of the slain soldiers attended this impressive and moving ceremony. Six surviving soldiers laid wreaths at the spot where HMS Gloucester lies at the bottom of the sea.
Biography
Georgios Leontsinis is Professor Emeritus of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Professor of Modern Greek and European History and Professor of History Teaching. He has taught for many years at the Department of History of the Ionian University, the Department of Primary Education of the University of Thessaly, the Hellenic Open University, the Harokopeion University and, as Visiting Professor, at universities in Cyprus, Malta, Albania, Australia, China and Norway. He completed his secondary education in Kythera and studied at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens, where he received successively the degrees of Classical Philology and History-Archaeology. He completed postgraduate studies in England (University of East Anglia, School of Modern Languages and European History) on a scholarship from the State Scholarship Foundation, leading to a Ph.D. in Modern Greek and European History. His dissertation The Island of Kythera: A Social History, 1700-1863 has been published in English by the Saripoleion Foundation of the University of Athens. He conducted postdoctoral research in the field of modern Greek and European history at the University of London, Holloway and Bedford New College, Department of History, as a Visiting Scholar. He has organized international and national conferences and has participated in conferences and seminars. He has published more than 100 scientific studies to date in Greek and international scientific journals and edited volumes. He has published fifteen (15) books on topics related to modern Greek and European history and history teaching and has edited twelve (12) volumes of international and national conference proceedings. In 2012, at a scientific event organized in his honor by the Pedagogical Department of Primary Education of the University of Athens, he was awarded a special volume entitled History Care by the Rector of the University of Athens. He is one of the founding members and current President of the Society for the Theory, Research and Teaching of History.
