 After the Battle of Greece in April 1941 and the Allied defeat in the Battle of Crete in May 1941, Greece and its many islands were occupied by the Axis powers.With the defeat of Axis forces in the North African campaign in May 1943, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, who at least as far back as the Gallipoli campaign in World War I had a deep interest in the region, turned his sights on the islands.The British envisaged an operation to capture the Dodecanese and Crete, to deprive the Axis of excellent forward bases in the Mediterranean and to apply pressure on neutral Turkey to join the war.