<P> According to Richter the Italian soldiers were killed after surrendering to the soldiers of the 98th Regiment . He described that the bodies were then thrown into heaps, all shot in the head . Soldiers of the 98th Regiment started removing the boots from the corpses for their own use . Richter mentioned that groups of Italians were taken into quarries and walled gardens near the village of Frangata and executed by machine gun fire . The killing lasted for two hours, during which time the sound of the shooting and the screams of the victims could be heard inside the homes of the village . </P> <P> The bodies of the ca . 5,000 men who were executed were disposed of in a variety of ways . Bodies were cremated in massive wood pyres, which made the air of the island thick with the smell of burning flesh, or moved to ships where they were buried at sea . Others, according to Amos Pampaloni, one of the survivors, were executed in full sight of the Greek population in Argostoli harbour on 23 September 1943 and their bodies were left to rot where they fell, while in smaller streets corpses were decomposing and the stench was insufferable to the point that he could not remain there long enough to take a picture of the carnage . Bodies were thrown into the sea, with rocks tied around them . In addition, the Germans had refused to allow the Acqui soldiers to bury their dead . A chaplain set out to find bodies, discovering bones scattered all over . </P> <P> The few soldiers who were saved were assisted by locals and the ELAS organisation . One of the survivors was taken heavily wounded to a Cephalonian lady's home by a taxi driver and survived the war to live in Lake Como . An additional three thousand of the survivors in German custody drowned, when the ships Sinfra and Ardena, transporting them to POW camps, were sunk in the Adriatic . These losses and similar ones from the Italian Dodecanese garrisons were also the result of German policy, as Hitler had instructed the local German commanders to forgo "all safety precautions" during the transport of prisoners, "regardless of losses". </P> <P> The events in Cephalonia were repeated, to a lesser extent, elsewhere . In Corfu, the 8,000 - strong Italian garrison comprised elements of three divisions, including the Acqui's 18th Regiment . On 24 September, the Germans landed a force on the island (characteristically codenamed "Operation Treason"), and by the next day they were able to induce the Italians to capitulation . </P>

How many german soldiers were executed in ww2