Following the Italian surrender in September 1943, thousands of soldiers from the division were executed on the islands during Operation Achse, in what became known as the "Cephallonia massacre". One of the largest prisoner of war massacres of the war,[5][6] and one of the largest-scale German atrocities to be committed by Wehrmacht troops,[7] this event provided the historical background to the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which later became a Hollywood film.[8][9][10]