Special scheme for 348 Mira:
http://hafcphotos.cs.net/photo_viewer_detail.cfm?photoid=175182

Arthur, the Greek RF-4E’s that completed their PDM’s at KEA in Hellinikon, were painted according to TO114, the only difference with the PI II RF-4E’s being the wavy borderline ( see here: http://hafcphotos.cs.net/photo_viewer_detail.cfm?photoid=170098 ).

The rest which have completed their PDM’s in HAI at Tanagra, retained their Luftwaffe scheme and will continue to do so in the future as well… The CO of 348 Mira told me recently when I asked him exactly that question, that over the sea its more effective…

BTW the special painted RF-4E (7519, ex 35+72) from 348 Mira arrived at Fairford yesterday:
http://www.airshows.org.uk/2005/airshows/riat/weds/greek_f4_1.jpg

110 MSV personel worked against time the last weeks in order to be able to complete this special scheme which all Phanton Phans will appreciate… Well done to George and his crew!!! 🙂

I am also in a position to tell you that in September another specially painted Greek Phantom will make its appearance… 😎 😀

The ICMS suite of the Greek Mirages was develloped closely with the French who adopted most of the modifications the PA requested, there is no reason to believe that this won’t happen again… Its just a legal move for political reasons…

Greece To Ask U.S. for Two Arleigh-Burke Destroyers
Posted 06/13/05 09:11
By PERICLES N. ZORZOVILIS, ATHENS
http://www.DefenseNews.com

Less than three years after the retirement of the Themistoclis, the last Charles F. Adams-class guided missile destroyer, the Hellenic Navy is ready to officially request two newer vessels from the U.S. Navy.

Navy officials have prepared and will soon send a letter of request for a pair of used Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers under a government-to-government agreement, said Navy Capt. Stefanos Gikas, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense here. Details about schedule, cost, transfer conditions and weapons would need to be worked out.

“The response of the U.S. administration in the letter of request will be the decisive factor for the implementation of the program,” a high-level Hellenic Navy official said. “What can be said at this initial stage is that the number of the ships should eventually increase to three or four; only at this force level would the introduction of a highly capable and complicated weapon system be worth the initial investment.”

Greece also is asking the United States for four Osprey-class mine-warfare ships and a number of P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. “All these requests will be managed in the framework of the Greek-U.S. Defense and Industrial Cooperation agreement, which governs the military relations of the two allies,” Gikas said.

The destroyers, which carry the Aegis weapons system, are far more capable than anything in Greece’s current fleet. Adm. Panagiotis Chinofotis, chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff, said the Burkes would improve Greek and NATO capabilities by:

• Increasing the interoperability of the Greek military and NATO allies.

• Giving Greece a tactical ballistic missile defense capability, thereby allowing the country to participate more actively in similar allied efforts.

• Strengthening NATO’s southeast region, where hot spots and increasing asymmetric threats have drawn more and more alliance attention over the last decade.

• Helping Greece participate in allied missions overseas.

Chinofotis emphasized that “the transfer will also signal the expansion of the Hellenic-U.S. cooperation in the armaments field and the strengthening of the bonds between the two navies, which are more than 100 years old,” he said.

The transfer of the Burkes also may affect the Hellenic Navy’s effort to buy new frigates, the service’s largest program. A proposal to buy one ship with an option for a second is being included in the preliminary drafts of the next five-year unified armaments procurement plan — known as the 2006-10 EMPAE.

The frigate effort will replace the corvette program that was canceled because of excessive costs in November 2002. Some 588 million euros ($722 million) had been planned for the corvettes in 2006-10.

“The picture will become less obscure when the formal process for the 2006-10 EMPAE starts,” the Navy official said. “Until then, everything is a matter of speculation and alternate options.” But he said Greece was determined to maintain a fleet of 14 major surface combatants.

The Navy now operates four Hydra-class (German MEKO-200HN) and 10 Elli-class (Dutch Standard) multipurpose frigates. Six of the Ellis are getting a midlife upgrade under a 386 million euro contract awarded in 2003 to Thales Naval Nederland, Hengelo, the Netherlands, and Hellenic Shipyards, Skaramanga, Greece. A midlife upgrade for the Hydras will begin in 2010.

.

In 2005…Greece is still the only nation that denies the massacres and ethnic cleansing it carried out. You know…even the USSR appolagized to the Chechens and all the others they did the same thing to…and that was way before 2005. Maybe in Greece where they still pull down the flag of another nation in the middle of a stadium and tear it appart…or kill people in the middle of the street for celebrating the victory of their soccer team against Greece…things are done that way…but in 2005 in Europe people acknoledge their mistakes and pay compensation for them. Considering that 9,000 men, women and children were killed by Zerva’s forces in 1944…I don’t think this was a “voluntary” movement of anyone…nor is it considering the fact that of those few Albanians that were allowed to remain…all of them were of the Orthodox religion while all those expelled were of the Muslim religion. I don’t think this was coincidental or that 9,000 civilains died of a heat stroke.

Reading to what you wrote and the expressions you use is like reading text from a communist instructionist. You conveniently forget to mention that Albania was “declared” a “People’s Repubic” where “popular tribunals” were set up and conveniently condemned to death thousands of people that were considered a “danger” to Hoxha’s communist regime, Albanians and Greeks alike. Inventing “ethnic cleansing” when Greece was under Nazi occupation and the Germans along with their Bulgarian and Camerian collaborators were burning villages and killing civilians, and turning this around and accuse Greeks for this, is not going to cut it.Those who collaborated with the Nazis were killed by the Greek partisans of Zervas who I repeat, was taking orders from Cairo. Zervas partisans were mainly Greek Army officers and soldiers that either took to the mountains or came from Cairo in Greece and were under the orders of the Allied Supreme Headquarters, Middle East and were fighting the Nazis and their collaborators. If you choose to sympathise with the collaborators its your problem. Those who had Nazi affiliations left for Albania for obvious reasons, so take the “heart stroke” argument and try to be more serious instead of writing nonsense and inventing “ethnic cleansing” by a country that was under fascist and nazi occupation… BTW regarding your “invasion” claims in previous pages the UN in May 1947 concluded -after investigation- that Albania along with Yugoslavia and Bulgaria supports the communist guerillas in the Greek civil war, while at that time Albania had no diplomatic relations with the US or Greece.

You’r right…Greece won WW2 as well for everyone else…yes your Spitfires flew over Albania and Yugoslavia…and I suppose all 5 of those you had is what liberated Albania and Yugoslavia. Thank you very much…our hundreds of thousands of Partisans had nothing to do with it…nor did Yugoslav Partisans have anything to do with liberating their own country. It was all of course…becasue of Greece.

Your ignorance rivals your arrogance. The (then Royal) HAF flew missions over Albania and Yugoslavia as the Axis forces were withdrawing, along with RAF and USAAC Squadrons. Posting in a military aviation forum and not knowing the history of air operations over your own country, speaks for itself… Partisans were one thing, organised miltary forces were another, do not confuse their role and importance. Of course this is not good for the “profile” you are trying to build regarding Albania in WW2 but that’s not your fault. Try to be less ironic and better informed next time…

Again…what does YOUR war in Iraq and Zimbabuwe or wherever have anything to do with your arguments to belittle what we did to liberate our own country?? Albania was the ONLY country in Europe in which no Allied soldiers set foot on…and in which we liberated it all on our own. Somehow…that happened miraculously since according to you…we didn’t fight. Well…I’m sure my grandfather would like to hear of that.

“Your war“??? Are you saying that Albania was fighting another war? “Our war” was the Allied Forces War against the Fascists and the Nazis, In Albania, in El Alamein, in Tunisia, in Habbaniyah, In Normandy, in the North Atlantic, in the Indian Ocean, all over the Med, everywhere that duty called we were present,what was yours? Establishing a hard line Stalinist-type regime? BTW Albania was an Italian protectorate from 1939 and the Fascist Italian Armed Forces invaded Greece from Albania on 28th October 1940 when Albania also declared war on Greece and the rest of the Allies. So please stop writing more nonsense. I guess Mussolini’s defeat by Greece inside Albania does not sit well in your stomach 65 years later, and the Italians were invading Greece by a proxy server maybe…Guess what, the Greek Army fought won and died inside Albania against the Fascists, so yes there were many “feet” stepping in Albania my friend. Why are you so anxious to distort reality is beyond me… Does it bother you so much? Probably we the Allies did not fight “your war” eh?

BTW where are these Greek soldiers standing on?



Albania.In the time of battle…
Athens, Photographic Archive of Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece
© Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece

March in the snow.
Athens, Photographic Archive of Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece
© Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece

17 November 1940. Shooting of artillery at the rising of Kastaniani. VIII Division.
Athens, Photographic Archive of Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece
© Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece

They’re standing in the Albanian battlefield and not in Moscow in a photo opportunity in 2005…

No…certainly we were not among them

Albania as an Italian protectorate had declared war against the Allies. That is History. Partisans and Resistance groups were organised in all countries occupied by the Axis, its nothing new and it does not mean that Albania was not in the Axis side in WW2. Its obvious you don’t like it but its true…

LOL…if you could bother yourself to find an official census from Albania…you might be able to see what those exact figures of this Greek minority are…and you wouldn’t need to rely on any other sources. The census is correct…and everyone says the census is correct…except the Greeks. Oh well…
Quote:

According to the Albanian census of 1989, out of a total population of Albania of 3,182,417 there were 58,785 Greeks.

Taking a Communist era census as gospel is neither wise nor credible. Again the number of Greeks in Albania is downplayed by Albania since decades but now that the European Parliament is involved things are getting iffy…

Thank you for your concern once more. Don’t worry…Albania is a democratic nation and the Greek minority has all the rights it deserves and much more…

When you come to Athens don’t forget to remind me to introduce you to Greeks from Albania who not were imprisoned as political prisoners in Albania. And to Albanians who will tell you about “tortures“…

including the right to practice their own lanaguage wheverer they want, schools in their language, even the use of Greek and Albanian in official signs in areas where the Greek minority lives…as well as representation in local and national government. However…you have to deal with the fact…you are now less than 1% of the total population…and as such you get as much representation.

Remember the elections a few months back when Greeks were beaten up outside polling stations and ballot boxes stolen? Very “democratic” indeed, in the best tradition of Hoxha…

Now…maybe when Greece gets serious about democracy and stops beating and torturing Albanian immigrants and stops forging its EU documents…than maybe you can criticize us on something.

LOL that was funny, thank you!!! If Albanians are so mistreated in Greece then why are they living and working here constantly? Why don’t they go to Germany or the US where they are going to be treated better??? Accusing Greece for torture is not only laughable, its clueless…

Yes history does speak for itself…Greeks established two…or rather took over from the Illyrians two city states…Durrachium and Apollonia…and held them for a couple of centuries until they were expelled by the Illyrians. Thats as much as histroy speaks of the Greek presence in the area. History also speaks of the fact that Greeks in Himara came from Corfu…and speak the Corfu dialect of Greek…and are recent immigrants of no more than a couple of centuries…and that the Greeks near Gjirokastra were invited there by Ali Pasha in the 1800s to settle the land. History speaks of all these things too…you don’t need to go back 3000 years to look for them…just a couple of centuries.

Apollonia? Dyrrachion? Girokaster? Are these Greek names? Hmm…. Where did Achilles come from? Or Kastriotis? And ignoring 3000+ years of History is also not wise or credible either…
http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article?tocId=9363788&query=Epirus&ct=
The Myceneans and the Dorians were not Greeks? Please get serious…

As opposed to the previous Greek ruler of Janina in the 14th century…

What is this obssesion you have with Ali Pasha? Is he some kind of icon in Albanian History? A role model for you? Get over it…

Not even the Cam organizations in Albania have any sort of territorial claim in Cameria. What they demand…the people who were forcibly expelled from their homes 60 years ago…is the return of their rightful property or paying of compensation for the property they lost. No one wants the land back…no matter how much it is ours or not…becasue if we wanted to claim land back we would be claiming 1/3 of Greece which was inhabited exclusivly by Albanians prior to 1912. But no one is!! Albania has no territorial claims in Greece whatsoever…

Even if you had there is nothing you could do about it… BTW the UCK (KLA) has other plans I’m afraid, and destabilising the region is one of them…

Can the same be said of Greece?? So you are preaching peace and tolerance to us who have no claism on you whatsoever…while at the same time Greece has territorial claims and disputes on Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and…well thats pretty much all your neighbours. I don’t think you are in such a position to judge us at all…

We are in NATO and the EU. Get real, try to rebuild your country and stop imagining things. Maybe if we had 50 years of Stalinist hard line totalitarian regime like you did, we could judge things better, right…?

No…maybe they wanted (UCK doesn’t exist anymore…if no one told you) to liberate Albanian land invaded in 1912 and inhabited by Albanians from a force that was trying to exterminate and ethnically cleanse them all. Such thugs they are…

Tell that to the Serbs. No more artillery pieces to “give”? Tsk tsk … I guess Kossovo is not a target for Albanian hot-headed artillery piece users…?

Fantasma…so on the 60th aniversary of the defeat of fascism all the allies celebrate togather…”except Albania”. Really?? Here is an interesting picture…do you know who this man is and where and when this picture was taken and what Putin is giving him?? I think we were there Fantasma…didn’t they air this in Greece??

The Germans were there also. So what? Were the Germans part of the Allied Powers as well? Does that change History? No it does not, its just politics and goodwill after decades of war. As a matter of fact I was with my Grandfarther ( an Albanian front veteran, a Partisan and a member of the Greek Sacred Regiment under SASs Brigadier Turnbull) in the Allied Cemetary in Faliron on Saturday for the Memorial Service of all the Allies that died in Greece during WW2, and no there were no Albanians… Who Putin invites is his choice. Politics and good manners say that everyone is invited, even the Germans. This does not mean there were not part of the Axis then like the Italian protectorate Albania, nor that now we are not allies and partners. Things have changed while Albania was isolated form the rest of the world you know…

So how is it then that you would keep denying that Albania fought as an Ally nation…but instead even say that we were on the other side…when not only Moscow and Washington recognize and value our resistance…but even the Greek government decorates our President for helpful deeds his father did towards the Greek people (albeit after 50 years of a declaration of war over something we never did)??

An invitation to a ceremony does not erase the fact that Albania was an Italian protectorate that declared war against the Allies. Posting a photograph from Moscow cannot distort History and change what countries constituted the Allied Powers… Try reading some first:

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, China, France, Australia, Belgium, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Greece, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Union of South Africa, and the People’s Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, hereinafter referred to as “the Allied and Associated Powers“

Albania was never part of the “Allied and Associated Powers”, it was an Italian Protectorate that declared war against the Allied and Associated Powers! Learn to live with it and stop distoring History…

———————————————————

As a tribute to those who died in WW2 for freedom, this is dedicated to them, writen by an Albanian front veteran, it gave him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979:

The march to the front

Night upon night we would walk without stop, one after the other, like the blind. With difficulty ungluing the feet from the mud, where at times, they sank knee-deep. For more often it was drizzling in the streets outside, as it was drizzling in our soul. And the few times we would stop to relax, we wouldn’t say a word, only grave and taciturn, shining with a small torch, we would share raisins one by one. Or there were times, if convenient, that we would quickly undo our clothes and scratch ourselves with rage for hours on end, till the blood started dripping. For the lice has reached our necks, and this was more unsufferable than tiredness. Then sometimes a whistle was heard in the dark, a sign that we were starting, and again like beasts we were shuffling ahead to gain time, before it dawned and we became the target of airplanes. For God didn’t know of targets and such stuff, and as is his custom, he dawned the light of day always at the same time. Then hidden in the gullies, we were leaning the head towards the heavy side, where no dreams come out. Even the birds were angry with us, because we didn’t pay any attention to their words -and maybe because we made the world ugly without reason.

(Odysseus Elytis, TO AXION ESTI, in: Chatzipatera-Phafaliou, Martyries 1940-1941, Athens, Kedros, 1982, p. 168)

http://hafcphotos.cs.net/photo_viewer_detail.cfm?photoid=138804

If you need a side view colour profile of a Greek Mescalero, or more photos, tell me…

Political discussions are inevitable in threads such as this…but as long as we keep it civil its ok. Fantasma…I think I have the same advice for you regarding learning your history. Do you know Alfred Moisiu? He is the current president of Albania. Do you know he was decorated by the Greek government for the actions of his father? Do you know who his father was? Moisiu was the commander of the Albanian soldiers in the Italian Army at the beggining of the Italian war with Greece. Before you accuse anyone of being “henchmen of the Nazis”…you should read about the actions of this man…

I know very well who he is and I also know that the fact of the decoration speeks for itself about the knowledge of Greeks about History and the fairness of the judgement when it comes to issues like that. Can you claim the opposite is true and that Albanian officials have acted in a similar manner? As for the henchman remark, since I answered to Miroslav its very interesting to see you react like this…

and why not a single Albanian soldier participated in the Italian attack on Greece…and not a single Albanian soldier crossed the border into Greece. Despite the fact that Greece declared war on Albania…a declaration that held until the late 80s…and despite the fact that Greek soldiers occupied large parts of Albanian territory …there was no Albanian involvment in it whatsoever and that is why Moisiu was decorated by the Greek government for his actions…all Albanian soldiers deserted the Italian Army at the beggining of the war and Moisiu with his Albanian soldiers organized the first Partizan units in Albania to fight against the Italian invaders.

Here the terms “soldier” “militia” “irregular” “paramilitary” etc, are very well connected to each other and what the Italian controlled Albania did, is very well known also… You make it sound as if Greece was the aggressor and “invaded” Albania!!! 😮 Please try to be serious when discussing History, especially WW2…

Greece wasn’t the only country that fought or suffered in WW2…Albania lost 100,000 civilians and 20,000 partizans in the war. And it also cost the Axis 27,000 dead soldiers and 60,000 Italian prisoners.

Greece was the only country in the region to enter in a war against the Axis, and the only one fighting on the side of Britain when everybody else had been conquerred… We also fought a civil war right after WW2 with Stalin, Tito, Hoxha, the UK and the US being strongly involved…

But as in every war there are collaborators…remember both Greece and Albania were occupied countries and both had puppet pro-Nazi governments.

The official Greek goverment had escaped in Cairo and thousands of Greek armed forces personel followed it as well to exile at the side of the allies. Expatriates enlisted after the declaration of war and continued to fight along with the veterans of the Albanian and Macedonian theaters, in North Africa, Italy Yugoslavia and Greece, up to 1945.

Before you accuse anyone…remember there was a puppet Greek pro-Nazi government, and that Napoleon Zerva was one of their collaborators before he turned on the supposed “Albanian collaborators”.

Zervas was not a collaborator but a partisan, most of his partisans were Greek army personel and he took his orders from the Allied HQ in Cairo, being part of the armed resistance against the Nazis and their henchmen…

And Miroslav is right on one point at least…following WW2 Greece did carry out ethnic cleansing against the Albanians in Cameria…5,000 killed and 150,000-200,000 expelled from their homes towards Albania. This was carried out by Napoleon Zerva on grounds that the Albanians in Cameria had collabroated with the Germans…a fact which has no basis at all…

Wrong again. Those Albanians that decided to collaborate with the Nazis by burning villages killing civilians etc, decided to return to Albania when the war was coming to an end. Not surprising at all given their barbaric behaviour…

and even if it did…Napoleon Zerva and about 30,000 other Greeks who served in the pro-Nazi puppet government should also have been targeted…no?

Again your facts are dead wrong. Zervas was a Partisan, fighting against the Nazis and their henchmen (collaborators included), taking orders from Cairo and the Legal Greek Goverment, fighting with British and Americans.

Nor was this the first time such actions were carried out against the Albanians in Greece (who lived in lands occupied since 1912 and in which Albanians made up 95% of the population)…nor would it be the last. Nor did Greece stop in Cameria either…as in 1949 they attempted once more to occupy Southern Albania…but this time for the first time in 500 years we had an army capable of stopping any foreign aggression…and we did with tragic results for the Greek soldiers.

Here we go again with your imaginary invasion. Stop confusing the Greek civil war with “invasion” of Albania. The state of war that existed until the 80’s was in paper only. By inventing victories and dreaming of possible F-16 purchases you just show immaturity… As for 1912, the Greeks treated the Albanians that then collaborated with the Turks, without prejudice and the payback came with the Fascist-Nazi siding of the Albanians in 1940…

So lets not throw accusations around…becasue even through Greece had a declaration of war on Albania until the 80s…eventually even the Greek government was forced to admitt it was wrong and decorate the very man they claimed was resposnsible for this war.

That’s what you have been doing: throwing accusations. Please stop telling us that those who fought against the Fascists and the Nazis of the Axis were “wrong”!!! 😮 Its not only stupid, its laughable…!!! :p

Trying to save face 50 years later by posting nonsense, is not going to help Albania at all I’m afraid… Getting serious about peace will…

That’s all I had to say, I agree with you Kapedani about the tangent comment…

Hellenic Air Force 343 “Star” Mira (Squadron) retirement scheme, 2001 Mikra Macedonia.