Eastern Approaches (49 page)

On my return to Italy I found the news from Jugoslavia was increasingly disquieting. The enemy’s drive to the coast had developed into a general offensive and Livno and Glamoć had fallen. In the islands the situation was more serious than ever; island after island had been recaptured by the enemy, and it seemed likely to be only a matter of weeks, if not days, before we lost our last foothold there.

This brought my mind back from the general problem to the particular one, and to my old project of establishing a firm base on Vis or one of the other islands before it was too late. I decided that before rejoining Tito in Bosnia I would go across and have a look for myself.

We made the journey this time in a motor-torpedo boat, roaring across the Adriatic in what must have been record time. As we reached the open sea, we met two Hunt Class destroyers, returning from a patrol in enemy waters. They were a fine sight, travelling at full speed, with the sea boiling and seething in their wake. Evidently the Navy were already beginning to devote more attention to these parts.

Our first port of call was Velaluka on the island of Korčula, where we landed the arms and ammunition we had brought with us. The Pelješac peninsula had been evacuated under heavy pressure from the enemy and the whole island was now filled with Partisans from the mainland preparing as best they could to beat off the German landing in force which was bound to follow soon.

From Velaluka we made our way across the island to the town of Korčula, where the brunt of the attack seemed likely to fall. Here the bulk of the defending forces was concentrated, and little remained of the peaceful scene which I remembered from the autumn. Gun positions and strong-points were established everywhere and many of the buildings had already been damaged by enemy shell-fire. From the garden of the little house in which I had lived during my previous visit, we could see the Germans moving about on Pelješac across the water. At the same time they saw us and a salvo of shells came whistling across the straits and landed in the rocks behind the house; the Partisans, with the guns they had taken from the Italians, replied, and we ate our lunch to the accompaniment of an artillery duel.

But it was only too clear that the Partisans had but little prospect of holding out. In the first place the defence of fixed positions was manifestly the wrong role for guerrilla forces, and, in any case, the enemy forces opposing them possessed a crushing superiority both in numbers and armament. And indeed, a few days later, Korčula fell to the Germans.

This applied with equal force to the other islands. Once one had fallen, the others would be likely to follow. Nor would it be sound strategy for the Partisans to devote more than limited resources to opposing the German landings. Indeed, in the long run, it might actually prove to our advantage to allow the Germans to establish garrisons on the islands, for these, from the German point of view, would be useless and costly to maintain, while to us they would offer easy targets for raids, sabotage and harassing operations of all kinds. But, to put this policy into effect, we must have a base and if such a base was to be held, the necessary measures would need to be taken quickly, and outside help would be required.

The more we talked the problem over and the more we studied the
map, the clearer it became that, our base, if there were to be one, would have to be Vis. I decided to go there at once and study the problem on the spot, taking Velebit with me.

Vivian Street, who had remained on the islands while I had gone to Egypt, was there to meet us. It was after midnight when we arrived and, turning off the road at the first gate we came to, I spread out my sleeping-bag on a flat stone and went to sleep. When I woke, the sun was up and, looking round me, I found that I had been sleeping in a graveyard. The priest’s house was nearby, and there we washed and ate our rations. After breakfast we set out to make a thorough reconnaissance of the island.

Vis, like its neighbours, is a craggy, rock-strewn island, with every square yard of arable land under cultivation. Two parallel ranges of hills run the whole length of the island from east to west. Between them lies a long fertile valley, planted at that time with vines and olives. Most of the population is concentrated in the two small towns of Vis and Komiša, of which the first lies at the eastern end and the latter at the western end of the island. Both cluster round the two principal harbours of the island and are little more than fishing villages, though deriving a certain dignity from the crumbling forts and mansions bequeathed to them by the Venetians and those who followed them.

We stopped to eat our midday meal at a farm-house, perched on a hill overlooking the smiling vineyards and olive groves of the central valley. The R.A.F. officer whom we had brought with us was in a state of some excitement. He had examined the valley from every angle and had come to the conclusion that it could be converted into a first-class airfield. To the uninitiated this was not so immediately obvious and one’s mind dwelt involuntarily on the destruction which this transformation would involve. But he was the expert and the conclusion which he had reached was clearly of very considerable importance, as Velebit and the other Partisans present were the first to recognize. If Allied fighters could be based here or could even land here to refuel, their range, for operations over Jugoslavia, would immediately be increased by the whole width of the Adriatic.

This discovery constituted another, very cogent argument for the
establishment of a firm base on Vis. The Royal Navy, whose light craft were already operating most successfully against enemy shipping from temporary bases in the islands, though without any real security of tenure, were, we knew, strongly in favour of the idea and would clearly welcome the prospect of occasional fighter support.

But before we could go any further, a garrison had to be found. It was calculated that a force of at least two Brigades would be required to hold the island. The Partisans offered to provide one Brigade, if we would furnish the other. Clearly it was most desirable that we should find one. I left the island wondering where it was to come from.

I had made tentative soundings as to the possibility of British troops taking part in the defence of the islands before leaving Cairo, but without success. Our fighting troops in the Middle East had long since been reduced to a bare minimum and every man who could be spared sent to Italy. Our troops in Italy came under a separate command, 15 Army Group, with whom I had as yet had no direct contact. From what I knew of the military situation in Italy, however, I did not imagine that General Alexander, then commanding 15 Army Group, would have even a Brigade to spare for a side-show like ours.

A first approach to 15 Army Group met with the reply which I had expected, namely, that they wished they could help, but were themselves short of men. Then, by chance, I stumbled on what seemed a possible solution.

Randolph, essentially gregarious by nature, happened to meet in Bari a friend and also a namesake of his, Jack Churchill, then commanding No. 2 Commando, whom he had known at Salerno. Jack Churchill and his brother Tom, who was commanding the Commando Brigade, of which No. 2 Commando formed a part, then asked Randolph and myself to come to a party which they were giving on New Year’s Eve in their mess at Molfetta, up the coast from Bari.

Once there, I soon realized that the Churchill brothers were an outstanding pair. Both were regular soldiers. Jack, the elder, had the dashing and formidable appearance which one generally associates with a Barbary corsair or a condottiere of the Renaissance, an impression which was enhanced by a highly polished and extremely deadly
looking dagger which he was wearing in his Sam Browne belt, while the medal ribbons on his tunic showed that it was not only their dashing appearance that he shared, but their soldierly qualities as well. Tom, the younger brother, who commanded the Brigade, was also an experienced fighting soldier. Half an hour’s conversation with him showed me that he possessed a penetrating intelligence.

Inevitably we talked shop. I asked him what plans he had for his Commandos. He asked me whether I had ever thought of the possibility of harassing operations on the Dalmatian coast and islands. I replied that for some weeks past I had been thinking of little else.

While the party continued to run its somewhat noisy course next door, Tom Churchill and I repaired to his room, where we could look at the maps and talk in peace. I explained to him the situation in the islands, and we discussed its possibilities from an operational point of view. It seemed to me that, if only one Commando or even a smaller detachment could be sent to Vis immediately, we could find plenty for it to do, and the mere fact of its presence would show that we meant business. Tom, who had long felt that the Dalmatian Islands offered great possibilities for his type of troops, was keen on the idea, and, by the time that 1944 had been seen in, it had been agreed that I should go and see General Alexander and put the idea to him personally.

This I did a day or two later. I found the Commander-in-Chief and his Chief of Staff, General John Harding, much more interested in the Jugoslav situation than I had expected. They felt it had a direct bearing on the problems with which they themselves were faced in Italy. This in itself was hopeful. When I broached the subject of the Commandos, they repeated what I had already heard about their shortage of men, but added that the future of the Italian campaign and of the whole war in the Mediterranean was to be discussed at a high-level conference in the immediate future and that, once future plans had been decided, it might after all prove possible to make one or more Commandos available for garrisoning Vis. The conference was to take place at Marrakech in Morocco, where the Prime Minister was convalescing after the severe attack of pneumonia which had struck him down immediately after the Cairo Conference, and General Alexander said that, if I liked, he would give me a lift there in his own aeroplane. The
point could then be put to Mr. Churchill and a decision obtained. Randolph, who welcomed this opportunity of seeing his father, came too.

The flight to Morocco in the Commander-in-Chief’s aeroplane was a comfortable one. We landed briefly at Algiers, and then set out across the Sahara. General Alexander, I noticed, was reading a German grammar. General Harding had gone to sleep. I followed his example. When I woke, we were over what I took to be the Atlas Mountains, and already starting to come down.

The air over Marrakech aerodrome seemed full of Flying Fortresses and Liberators landing or taking off, for it was a staging-point on the supply route from America to the Mediterranean. Lined up on the ground were numerous aircraft of varying degrees of magnificence, belonging to the various British and American generals, admirals and air-marshals who were attending the conference. General Wilson was among them and Mark Chapman Walker, his Military Assistant, came to meet us. As we were getting into one of the immense American staff cars, which were to take us to our destination, Mark told me that General Wilson had been appointed Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean theatre, in succession to General Eisenhower. He added that I was to remain directly responsible to him, as I had been when he was Commander-in-Chief Middle East. I was glad to hear that this association, always a happy one as far as I was concerned, was to continue.

The Prime Minister was installed in an agreeable villa in the Moorish style on the outskirts of Marrakech. He was wearing a bright blue boiler-suit, and, considering how ill he had been a week or two before, appeared remarkably well. It soon became abundantly clear that he had lost none of his old energy or resilience.

I took no part in the formal meetings of the conference. Indeed I made a special point of not being told more about the proceedings than was absolutely necessary, for in a few days’ time I was due to be dropped back into an enemy-occupied country, where the possibility of being taken prisoner could never be excluded, and, with the Gestapo’s methods of interrogation as good as they were known to be,
it was inadvisable for anyone who ran any risk of falling into their hands to know more about the future conduct of the war than was absolutely necessary. The project under discussion was, I gathered, an ‘aquatic hook’ which was to be carried out on the west coast of Italy, not far from Rome, with the object of breaking the deadlock which had set in in the Italian campaign. The operation in question was to become famous not long after as the Anzio landing, but, at that time, my chief concern was to discover how it would affect the employment of Tom Churchill’s Commando Brigade.

On this point I eventually succeeded in obtaining the assurance I needed. Even if the whole Brigade could not be made available immediately, a token force would be sent to Vis at once and other troops would follow later.

Soon the conference, having made their plans for an aquatic hook, dispersed, leaving Mr. Churchill to convalesce in peace, though it was a peace that was continually interrupted by the arrival of dispatches and telegrams requiring immediate decisions. He now turned his attention once again to Jugoslav affairs.

We had just heard that Jajce had fallen to the Germans and that Tito was again on the move. The Partisans, Mr. Churchill felt, needed some encouragement in their time of trouble, and he accordingly sat down and wrote a personal letter to Tito, congratulating him on his past achievements and holding out the hope of future help. This he entrusted to me, with instructions to deliver it personally without delay. In order to expedite my return, he lent me his own aircraft for the first part of the journey, and Randolph and I were soon soaring above the Atlas Mountains on our way to Bari.

At Bari we found that, although the enemy offensive was still in progress, the military situation was sufficiently stable for it to be possible to fix a map-reference to which we could be dropped. The point chosen was near Bosanski Petrovac, in Bosnia. At this time of year the weather over Jugoslavia was so bad that weeks might pass without there being an opportunity for a night drop, and by then the military situation might again have deteriorated. I was in a hurry to get back and it was accordingly decided that we should go in at once by day
with a fighter escort. For this purpose we were allotted a Dakota troop-carrying aircraft and an escort of a dozen Thunderbolts. With me came Randolph, Sergeant Duncan, my new wireless operator, Sergeant Campbell, another signaller, Corporal Iles, and Slim Farish, who had just returned from a lightning visit to the United States.