Our article about the unknown event in Farmakonisi on Easter 1997, which we published on protothema.gr on Sunday 19/9/2021, not only had a huge impact among our readers, but as usual was published in hundreds of sites, even sports ones... The (then Captain) and now Major General e.a. K. Kolokouris gives us clarifications and additional information about the incident with the Turkish submarine. Last Monday, we were contacted by Andreas Nikolopoulos, who together with Dimitris Verdelis, presents the talk show "Eros Eleftherias" on web tv "Anichnevseis", and we thank him for this.
BY MICHALIS STOUKA
SOURCE:FIRST SUBJECT
By an incredible coincidence, on their show on Saturday 18 / 9 / 2021, they had a guest Major General e. a. today, Konstantinos Kolokouris, who also spoke about the Farmakonisi incident. Andreas Nikolopoulos put us in touch with Mr. Kolokouris. He is a very kind officer, who thanked us for the presentation and the extent we gave to the incident with the Turkish submarine and gave us some clarifications and additional information, which we will quote.
He was also kind enough to write a text himself about how two Turkish slave traders were treated in Farmakonissi a few days before Easter 1997 and the submarine incident. He also sent us some exclusive photos of the capture of the slave traders and illegal immigrants. The Turkish flag held by a marine in one of the photos is the flag pierced by Greek bullets of the smugglers' boat that the Greek commandos took with them when leaving Farmakonisi and returning to Nea Aghialo.
Details emerging for the first time
The manning of the Pharmacy began immediately after the crisis of the Imians. The first to go to the island were commandos of the 2nd Parachute Squadron commanded by the twin brother of Konstantinos Kolokouris, Savva, then Captain, now Lieutenant General e. a. The manning was then assigned to the 32nd Marine Brigade, whose three battalions took turns sending a mixed company to Farmakonisi, which remained there for 40 days.
In the first days of April 1997, a company of marines led by the then Captain K. Kolokouris took over the administration - guarding of the Pharmacy. Most of the men who went to Farmakonissi (about 70) served in the 521st Marine Battalion, while a few men from neighboring island units (Kos, Leros, etc.) also participated. The purpose of the well-equipped marines was to prevent Turkish soldiers and illegal immigrants from approaching the island, to control the island and to monitor the surrounding sea area.
Many rats made life very difficult for the marines. There was no electricity or water on the island. The personnel were fed mainly with dry food, canned food, etc. The marines were housed in individual tents, while for their physical needs... there was the countryside. The island was supplied by air every 3-4 days, weather permitting. In Farmakonissi there were 14 observation posts, which were manned 24 hours a day. As we wrote in the previous article, at 10.10 am on Easter Sunday, April 27, 1997, a Turkish submarine was spotted by lookout 7 in the SE part of the island. Captain Kolokouris was immediately informed, who explained to us that there was NO communication problem, as we had written.
The submarine was sailing towards Tholos Bay, the central bay of the island. It was identified as the submarine S – 350, type 209. The submarine approached Tholos Bay. Captain Kolokouris ordered Marine Mavronas to fire 200 tracer bullets at it, which hit the submarine, while with the help of DEA Nikolaos Andreadis and A/T stream operator Evangelos Iatropoulos, Captain Kolokouris fires a strim missile at the Turkish submarine, but as this is marginally out of range it fails. At the same time, from observation post 3, Marine Vlachos fires homing missiles at the submarine with another machine gun.
Marine Iatropoulos fires another anti-tank missile to no effect as the S-350 was heading towards the Turkish coast having suffered damage to its telecommunication systems and with signs of panic on the part of its crew. In fact, its commander was dismissed a short time later, as he was deemed to have exposed his men to danger. The participation of the Deputy Commander of the Company, then Lieutenant, Kostakis Nikolaos, was important in the whole operation.
Captain Kolokouris is reprimanded by his superiors – A preliminary investigation is ordered against him
The whole event lasted about 20 minutes. Ten minutes later the Brigadier General of Kos contacts Captain Kolokouris and reprimands him furiously, telling him that he is drunk because of Easter and is not there (in Farmakonissi) to be the foreign minister. The Captain had refused the Brigadier General's proposal to send lambs from Kos to roast in Farmakonisi due to Easter, saying that they are there to carry out a mission and not for fun.
The next day, the ASDEN commander visited Farmakonissi, who reprimanded the Captain and informed him that the GES has ordered a preliminary investigation for causing a hot episode with Turkey. In the end, this was not done after the intervention of Akis Tsochatzopoulos(!), later Minister of National Defense. Marines were under orders not to fire on planes and ships, and could only fire on any enemy boarding Farmakonissi with "clear threatening intent." That is, if 4-5 Turks went up smiling and seemingly unarmed to Farmakonisi, they could with a few grenades, destroy the entire garrison of the island!
As for the bullets fired? There were thousands. Much more than the 400, but also significantly less than the 7,500 reported by some sites. In Farmakonissi, there were frequent violations by Turkish ships and mainly by the coast guard. Some even docked in the neighboring Agathonisi. In one case, a vessel of the Turkish Coast Guard attempted to forcefully snatch his fish from a Greek fisherman in the bay of Tholos. The fire received by the Turks from the machine gun of the marines made them flee badly and leave the fish to the fisherman. And here Captain Kolokouris ordered shots to be fired from the machine gun.
The order from his superiors was "write what you see in the outpost's intelligence log". After the incident, Captain Kolokouris did not speak French, as we mistakenly wrote and we apologize, but he got two unfavorable transfers outside the sorties for punishment. The first in the 583rd covert battalion of Konitsa, where for two years (1999-2000), it successfully faced our other good neighbors, the Albanians. The Order, at that time, had 19 outposts on the Greek-Albanian border, however. Today he only has three... When we told him, Mr. Kolokouris was surprised and emphasized the need for more outposts to be manned, as we have repeatedly written. Subsequently, Mr. Kolokouris served twice as commander of the Greek force in Afghanistan and for 11 months as commander of the Greek force in Kosovo.
These are examples of the great value of this particular soldier. He retired as a Colonel with the retirement rank of Brigadier General. Today he is Major General e. a. Of particular interest, however, is an incident with Turkish slave traders and irregular immigrants (illegal immigrants), which happened in Farmakonissi a few days before the incident with the Turkish submarine. Mr. K. Kolokouris had the noble kindness to compile a text with a full description of the events, exclusively for us and the readers of protothema.gr. We thank Mr. Kolokouris very much and we quote the text as is.