Up for auction a RARE! "Greek General of the Army" Ioaannis Davos Signed 3X5 Card . This item is certified authentic by Todd
Mueller Autographs and comes with their Certificate of Authenticity. ES-6772 Ioannis Davos (Greek: Ιωάννης Ντάβος, 1918 – 15 January
2008) was a Greek Army officer who rose to the rank of full general, and held the posts of Chief of the Hellenic Army General
Staff and of the Armed Forces
High Command. He was born in the village of Agios Georgios in Messenia, in 1918. He entered the Hellenic Army Academy, but
the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War on 28 October 1940 interrupted his
studies: he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and participated in the
campaign, being seriously wounded at the Battle of Trebeshina.
Following the collapse of the Greek army during the German invasion of Greece and
the subsequent occupation, he was active
in the Greek Resistance, forming
armed guerrilla groups in the Triphylia-Olympia area and being again wounded. He was named a lieutenant upon Liberation in
1944, and participated in the subsequent Greek Civil War as a company commander with the rank of
Captain (1946). He was promoted to Major (1951), Lt. Colonel (1956), Colonel
(1967, retroactive to 1960), Brigadier (1970). He commanded the 30th Infantry
Regiment and the 11th Infantry Division,
as well as serving in various staff positions - including two stints in Cyprus,
in 1964-66 as head of the Operations Bureau and in 1969-70 as Chief of Staff of
the Cypriot National Guard -
and teaching in the Supreme War School. In
1973 he was promoted to lieutenant general and sent to command the III Army Corps in Macedonia. During the July
1974 crisis, brought about by the coup against Cypriot president Makarios III sponsored by the then-ruling Greek military regime and
the subsequent Turkish invasion, Davos
thus found himself in command of the most powerful formation in the Hellenic
Army. It was partly the threat of his active intervention that forced the Armed
Forces leadership to topple junta strongman Dimitrios Ioannidis and
surrender power to a civilian government under Konstantinos Karamanlis.
Shortly after, on 19 August 1974, Davos was appointed as Chief of the Hellenic Army General
Staff, from which position he helped ensure the loyalty of the army
to the new regime, which was still under threat by hardline officers. He continued in this post until 13 September
1976, when he was promoted to full General and placed as Chief of the Armed Forces
High Command. He retired on 10 January 1980, and subsequently served
as Deputy Minister for National Defence in January–May 1981. He
died on 15 January 2008. He was married and had three children. |