Lampedusa

Lampedusa is a very small island (ca. 10 km long) off the coast of N. Africa, half-way between Tunisia and Sicily, that belongs to Italy. Lampedusa is in the news because refugees fleeing the turmoil in Tunisia and Libya are using it as a way-station in order to reach Europe. Because of the over-crowding of refugees there they are being transported to Malta and the Italian mainland. But, Lampedusa was in the news back in 1943, it was one of the first parts of "Europe" that was captured by the Allied forces, and thereby hangs a tale.

The day was 12 June, 1943, a reconnaisance aircraft of the RAF was returning to Malta, but there was a malfunction of the engine and the pilot, Flight Sgt. Sydney Cohen, a former cutter from Clapton and and his navigator Les Wright, decided that they must land on the small island below them. As they landed, thinking that they were going to be captured by the Island's Italian and German garrison, they saw that the German U-boat facilities were completely destroyed, partly by Allied bombing and partly by the Germans themselves before they abandoned them. When they landed, a delegation of the Italian garrison approached their plane and surrendered to them, and then the Mayor and his entourage came and surrendered the whole Island. So Sgt. Cohen accepted the surrender in the name of the King of England. This obscure event became a headline story, and Cohen was dubbed "The King of Lampedusa." Soon thereafter, in Dec 1943, a Yiddish writer from Poland named SJ Harendorf produced a play based on the incident entitled "The King of Lampedusa" that became one of the most successsful Yiddish plays in history.

So, Lampedusa, an otherwise obscure and benighted southern extreme of Europe, has once again made it into the annals of history.