Castlas, Dimitrios

Youth

Dimitrios Caslas, aka Casilas (Καζήλας), was born in 1901 in the village of Puri on Mount Pelion . At the age of 15, he moved to the nearby city of Volos . Working in a bakery, and then in a tavern, he graduated from the evening Volos Trading School.

Military career

Dimitris’s military career began on June 24, 1920, when he joined the 1st Infantry Division in the city of Larisa .

He was transferred from the Ι infantry division on August 1, 1920 to the Asia Minor Smyrna , which had been under Greek control since 1919 (р Smyrna’s division).

In October of the same year, he was transferred to the Smyrna Security Battalion.

January 1, 1922 received the rank of corporal .

In January 1922 he took part in exams to go to the officer corps. Of the 1,200 candidates, 225 were eligible. Kaslas received 97th place and was included in the detachment of reserve officers of Afyonkarahisar .

After which Castlas received the rank of sergeant reserve.

August 10, 1922, after breaking through the front by the Kemalists , was captured. He remained captive until April 1923.

After returning from captivity, on June 3, 1923, at the age of 22, he received the rank of junior reserve lieutenant.

March 18, 1924 joined the ranks of "permanent" army officers, with the rank of ensign, and July 3, 1925 was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant.

In February 1926, Dimitrios Caslas served in the 42th regiment of the Evzones , and since April 1928 in the ΧΙ border sector.

In October 1929, he served in the 13th Infantry Regiment, and since August 1930, again in the 42th Regiment of the Evzones .

June 24, 1931 was promoted to lieutenant.

Three years later, on November 9, 1934, he received the rank of captain.

From April 1, 1936, Kaslas served in the 2nd Infantry Regiment, and two years later, from April 11, 1938, he served in the 5th Infantry Regiment in the city of Trikala .

New Thermosaws - Height 731

With the outbreak of the Greco-Italian war on October 28, 1940, the Greek army repelled the attack of the Italians and transferred hostilities to the territory of Albania. The war found Kaslas in the 5th infantry regiment of Trikala , with the rank of captain and commander of the ΙΙ / 5 battalion.

For the courage shown on the battlefield on December 22, 1940, he received the rank of major.

The peak of the glorious history of the battalion was its participation in repelling the Italian spring offensive in the presence of Mussolini himself from March 9-25, 1941.

The height 731, which was defended by the ΙΙ / 5 battalion, became one of the epicenters of the Italian offensive.

The height was continuously subjected to artillery fire. The Italians attacked the hill 18 times and rolled back ^[1] The losses of the Italians in these attacks were so great that they subsequently called the hill “The Holy Zone” and erected their main monument at the height of the victims of the Italian-Greek war ^[2] .

Both Greek and foreign military historians wrote about the height of 731 and the battles from March 9 to 24, expressing their admiration.

The soldiers called this hill “ Golgotha ”, since the hill was covered with forest at the beginning of the fighting, at the end of the battle the hill remained bald and it became 5 meters lower ^[3] .

Recent history calls this battle "New Thermopylae." In the Greek army, a military march was written devoted to the defense of the height of 731 ^{[4] [5] [6] [7]} .

As a memory of the defense of this height, on one of the marble slabs surrounding the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Athens, number 731 is knocked out.

Resistance

The unsuccessful spring offensive of the Italian army, one of the most significant events of which was the battle for a height of 731, as well as the looming danger of the Greek army occupying the port of Avlon , forced Hitler Germany to intervene.

The German invasion, from the allied Germans of Bulgaria, began on April 6, 1941. The Germans could not immediately break through the line of Greek defense on the Greek-Bulgarian border, but went to the Macedonian capital, the city of Thessaloniki , through the territory of Yugoslavia. The group of divisions of East Macedonia was cut off from the main forces of the Greek army, who fought against the Italians in Albania. German troops went to the rear of the Greek army in Albania. Proponents of "honorable surrender" began to dominate the army command in Albania, on behalf of which General Tsolakoglu signed on April 23, 1941 , in violation of the order of the commander in chief, an act of surrender of the Greek troops. Subsequently, Tsolakoglu became the first Prime Minister of the puppet government of occupied Greece ( 1941 - 1942 ).

Caslas was transferred to the city of Volos on May 2, 1941.

During the triple, German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation, Kaslas did not remain to serve the Quisling government.

Initially, he joined the EDES organization. Encouraged by the British and with their financial support, EDES began to send detachments to the regions where the detachments organized by the Communists of the People's Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS) had long been operating. The EDES detachment, in which Caslas was a member, was disarmed by the ELAS forces in the Farsala region and its participants were invited to join the ELAS. Caslas accepted the offer and was appointed commander of the 52nd ELAS Infantry Regiment.

The 52nd regiment successfully operated in the Lamia - Karpenisi - Karditsa region .

December 1944 Events and Link

On November 30, 1944, the 52nd Regiment received orders to head to Attica , where a clash was brewing between the ELAS forces and the British troops by their Greek allies.

When the December battles began, 52 regiment was located in Fili , 14 km northwest of the center of Athens.

The regiment survived the battle with British tanks.

After the Varkiz agreement , among the thousands of officers collaborating with ELAS, Major Dimitris Caslas was exiled from 1945 to 1948 to the islands of Serifos - Ikaria - Santorin ^[8] , after which he was demobilized in 1948, but as a hero of the Greek-Italian war promoted to lieutenant colonel.

Throughout this period, Castlas remained a supporter of the Communist Party of Greece .

Recent years

After his liberation and demobilization, Caslas worked on all kinds of jobs.

Died February 22, 1966 from a stroke.

After the official recognition of the National Resistance in 1985, Dimitrios Caslas, posthumously, was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

Dimitrios Caslas was awarded: the Greek Cross of courage , the Greek military cross of the 3rd degree, the silver cross of the Order of the Savior , the Order for military merit of the 4th degree.

The Dimitrios G. Caslas Archive was created after processing and archiving the materials left by Caslas. Most of the archive is dedicated to the activities of the ΙΙ battalion of the 5th Infantry Division, which defended a height of 731.

The archive also covers the first years of Caslas’s life, his participation in the Asia Minor campaign, in the ELAS partisan army, the persecution that followed, and the last years of his life ^[9] .

• Αλέξανδρος Γ. Καπανιάρης, Δημήτριος Κασλάς: Η στρατιωτική διαδρομή, ο άνθρωπος, η εποχή, Νομαρχιακή Αυτοδιοίκηση Μαγνησίας, Νομαρχιακή Αυτοδιοίκηση Τρικάλων, Δήμος Ζαγοράς, Δήμος Καρδίτσας, Βόλος 2009.
• Ντοκιμαντέρ, «Στην κόψη της Ιστορίας- ταγματάρχης Δημήτρης Κασλάς», Παραγωγή: Νομαρχιακή Αυτοδιοίκηση Μαγνησίας, Νομαρχιακή Αυτοδιοίκηση Τρικάλων, Δήμος Ζαγοράς, Σενάριο - Σκηνοθεσία: Γιώργος Λάγδαρης, Κώστας Ανέστης, Έρευνα, Τεκμηρίωση, Κείμενα: Αλέξανδρος Καπανιάρης, Βόλος 2009.
• Θ. Α. Νημάς , "Προλεγόμενα" στο Δημητρίου Γ. Κασλά «Πολεμική δράση του ΙΙ τάγματος του 5ου Συντάγματος Πεζικού (Τρικάλων) κατά τον Ελληνοϊταλικό Πόλεμο 1940-41 (Ανέκδοτες Πολεμικές Σημειώσεις)» Τρικαλινά 21 (2001).
• Μόνιμοι αξιωματικοί στον Ε.Λ.Α.Σ. Οκειοθελώς ή εξ ανάγκης. Νότια και Κεντρική Ελλάδα. Μνήμες και αρχειακά τεκμήρια.
• Αρχεία της Διεύθυνσης Ιστορίας Στρατού του ΓΕΣ.