"[2] On April 21, German air reconnaissance reported that the defense lines included only light field fortifications in the initial stage of construction, and that British troops were being evacuated from Salamis Island.

A German battlegroup based on the 6th Mountain Division, under Generalmajor Ferdinand Schörner, attacked at 1130 hours on 24 April, meeting fierce resistance.

Early in the afternoon, the German armored forces were shelled near Lamia by artillery that was able to fire down into the pass from multiple, lightly fortified positions.

[5][full citation needed] The last Allied vehicles were evacuated by midnight, and Thermopylae would not be taken for another three hours, when the Germans led a formal attack on the vacated position.

The absence of the Greek Army, from a battle at a site as significant to the national psyche as Thermopylae, was controversial within Greece, as General Georgios Tsolakoglou had already capitulated.