Destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge

On the night of 25 to 26 November 1942, Greek resistance fighters and British commandos blew up the railway bridge over the Gorgopotamos River in central Greece, near Lamia. It was one of the most important acts of sabotage in occupied Europe. The bridge was on the main railway line from Thessaloniki to Athens, used by the Germans to send supplies to the port of Piraeus, from where they were shipped to Axis forces in North Africa. The operation was planned by the British Special Operations Executive, led by Brigadier Eddie Myers and Major Chris Woodhouse, who had parachuted into Greece with a small team. They brought together the two main resistance groups, ELAS under Aris Velouchiotis and EDES under Napoleon Zervas, the only time the two organizations cooperated on a major operation. Resistance fighters overwhelmed the Italian garrison guarding the bridge, while British explosives experts destroyed two spans of the bridge. The railway line was cut for several weeks. The operation proved that the Greek resistance could strike powerfully at the occupiers and boosted morale across occupied Europe.