IONIAN ISLANDS 1941-3 & CORFU 1923 & 1941-3

In April and May 1941, the seven Ionian Islands in the archipelago by the same name were occupied by Italian forces who remained in charge until 12 September 1943 when the Germans took over and continued the occupation until the Autumn of 1944. By mid-May 1941 Greek stamps with overprints for use in Cephalonia and Ithaca were issued. The basic overprint consisted of four lines inscribed as follows: “ITALIA / Occupagione Militare / Italiana isole / Cefalonia e Itaca”. Shortly after the word “Occupagione” — a misspelling for “Occupazione” — was discovered and later overprint showed the correct spelling. Overprints with the word “isola” instead of the plural “isole” are listed separately by Italian catalogues. Listed under Ithaca are also overprints worded as follows: “occupazione / Militare Italiana / Isole / Cefalonia e Itaca” (notice that the first word is all low case). The issues for Ithaca include amended overprints where the “O” of “Occupazione” is correctly in upper case as it should have been from the beginning. Greek stamps hand overprinted OCCUPAZIONE MILITARE ZANTE I – 5 – XIX” were issued that same year for Zakynthos. Reprints and forgeries of these overprints exist. On 16 August 1941