Mission Impossible: The Destruction of the Asopos Viaduct

Article by Stephen Woodward. Edited by Zara Barua. Additional Research by Andrew Sheperdson.

Due to my general lack of familiarity with economic history I bring you a deviation from the theme, hopefully this will act as a nice aside for any who find economics a slightly dry topic! This is a story of derring do, a somewhat incredible adventure tale, one of many small operations typical of the Second World War that have slipped from common recognition, one that struck a key blow against the Axis war machine.

In September 1942, the battle for North Africa was at its height and Middle East command needed a way to hinder the axis forces in the arena. The majority of German supplies had been sent via the Greek port of Piraeus, down the country’s one major railway line through the Attic Mountains. Middle East command therefore identified sabotage of the axis supply route through Greece as a priority. SOE (Special Operations Executive) tasked with disrupting the flow of supplies, parachuted a small party of British soldiers into central Greece to rendezvous with local resistance fighters with the aim of blowing up the Gorgapotamos river viaduct in what was known as Operation Harling. This was achieved by a massed attack from both sides of the valley the viaduct spanned, in coordination with several hundred resistance fighters from both the republican EDES and semi-communist ELAS resistance groups. The small and somewhat inept Italian garrison guarding the vital structure was simply overwhelmed. The attack put the railway out of use for two months. However this viaduct is not, as any observant reader will note, the topic of this article. 

The success of Operation Harling meant that the British officers were instructed by SOE to stay put and co-ordinate resistance efforts in the wild central mountains of Greece. The reconstruction of the Gorgapotamos viaduct and resumption of freight services along the line in January 1943 meant a new effort was needed to once again hinder Axis supplies. The head of what became known as the British Military Mission to Greece, Eddie Myers, therefore identified the Asopos river viaduct as the next easiest target. The Asopos viaduct, however, was a whole different kettle of fish to the one over the Gorgapotamos. The viaduct itself carried a single track line emerging from one vertical cliff face to another on three steel spans. There was only one open approach to the base of the spans, which was heavily guarded by slightly less inept Germans and constantly swept by search lights. The other end of the valley was a razor sharp gorge several miles long, at some points only one-foot wide, peppered with waterfalls and strewn with rocks. The Germans therefore thought this geographical nightmare a sufficient obstruction to any would-be attacker and did not see sense in posting guards on it.

The strategic difficulties that a sabotage operation entailed are therefore evident, how to destroy a bridge to which the only suitable approach was heavily and professionally guarded. The plan Myers devised involved an attack through the tunnels at both ends by the local ELAS resistance force, whilst British officers would then lay timed charges on the centre of the bridge. However, the communists wouldn’t play ball, the regional leader of ELAS could not secure approval from ELAS central council (EAM) in Athens in time, nor did he see value in the operation. He instead proposed mining both ends of a tunnel further north, then blowing the charges at both ends when a train was travelling in the middle. With no possibility of cooperation from the Greek resistance, Myers set about another plan. He assembled six British engineers headed by one Donald Stott, who were tasked with the impossible, approaching the viaduct down the one-foot wide gorge to enact its destruction.

The journey down the gorge took several days with the engineers having to make camp at night in the cramped conditions, wade through often waste-high freezing water then blister their hands using ropes to haul their material up and over waterfalls, all the while ensuring the explosive charges stayed dry. On the night of the actual attack the engineers arrived at the bridge to discover the Germans had been kind enough to cut neat holes through the surrounding barbed wire and leave a ladder up to the main girders. Whilst the engineers laid their charges, a single German guard who approached on his patrol, was swiftly crept upon and with a blow to the head knocked hundreds of feet into the raging waters below. In the deep of the night at 2.15am the charges were blown and the steel spans toppled into the valley. The whole operation had been executed without a single shot fired.

The Germans had had forty soldiers with six heavy machine guns at the opposing end of the valley that night. So certain were their commanders that no-one could possibly have attacked the viaduct from the gorge that they labelled its destruction to treachery from within and had the entire garrison shot. To add further insult to injury, when the Germans eventually completed the bridge two months later (only through the use of Polish and Greek forced labour) it once more fell into the gorge the moment the first train passed over it, engine and all, a bridge too far perhaps? This knocked out the service on the line for a further two months. All of the six engineers were honoured as a result, with Stott even put up for the Victoria Cross (although this was denied due to the lack of gunfire, somewhat fortunately, as he was later to be dishonoured by proposing negotiations to the Gestapo in wartime Athens to coordinate a joint attack against the communist resistance). Meanwhile, ELAS’ operation had not been as successful in damaging the enemy war effort; the train they mass attacked and mined only blocked its tunnel for a mere two weeks. So we see the daring actions of the few severely hindered German supply lines at the height of the war, being far more effective than the attempts by the far larger party that ELAS’ operation had been composed of. To top it all it makes for a jolly entertaining tale.

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