Greece: War Cross 1940, 3rd Class, Large type.
Condition: Good Very Fine.
The War Cross of 1940 was instituted on 11 November in that year in three classes to be awarded for acts of courage in combat during World War II. Italian forces invaded Greece from Albania on 28 October 1940. A Greek counter-attack on 14 November threw the Italians back into Albania. After a winter of stalemate, the Italians launched an unsuccessful attack in March 1941. On 6 April 1941 German forces invaded Greece from Bulgaria. Unable to further resist, Greece was occupied by Italian, German and Bulgarian troops until liberation in October 1944. It has been argued that the tenacity and bravery of Greek resistance crucially delayed the German invasion of Russia in 1941 and thus had a pivotal role in the eventual Axis defeat. This example is of the so-called ‘Large’ type.
