Authors: Anthony G Williams
‘Watch for the barrage balloons!’
The pilot lifted the nose of the plane,
then
settled into a steady run.
Searchlights snapped on, alerted by the noise of the big Hercules radials.
The pilot wove a little to throw off the defenders,
then
hit the bomb release button.
For a few seconds nothing happened,
then
the harbour lit up under brilliant parachute flares, the huge capital ships suddenly standing out in sharp relief.
The Observer checked them quickly.
‘Six of them!
The new
Littorio
and
Vittorio Veneto
are there as well as the older ships; we’ve got the lot!’
The Beaufort banked around the harbour, the crew holding their collective breath in anticipation.
They did not have long to wait.
From high above them, a streak of flame flashed down as the first of the rocket-propelled guided bombs plunged towards the harbour, its flaring motor marking its position for the bomb-aimer. A battleship shuddered as the huge bomb blasted through its armoured deck, detonating within the hull.
Then another, and another, as the squadron of Beauforts methodically pulverised the pride of the Regia Navale.
The night sky filled with the glowing tracers of AA fire as the relentless destruction ground on.
With the battleships burning and sinking in the outer harbour, the circling Observer directed the next attack onto the heavy cruisers; some in the outer harbour; some in the Mar Piccolo.
The bombers were supplemented by low-level torpedo attacks to divert and confuse the furious AA defence.
Finally
came
the oil storage depot and the pipeline jetty.
By the time the Observer decided to leave, the flame and smoke over Taranto marked the funeral pyre of a navy.
The shockwaves from the destruction of the Italian battlefleet reverberated around Italian North Africa for weeks.
Even in Tripoli, the capital of Libya some 800 miles from the front line at Sidi Barrani, a perceptible shudder of unease was felt.
The sentries guarding the harbour defences tensed as they heard the rumble of aero engines just before dawn, but no flares lit, no bombs dropped.
They relaxed with sighs of relief, speculating on the likely destination of the mysterious aeroplanes.
The airfields of the Regia Aeronautica throughout Libya,
As dawn broke, the British aircraft struck.
Hereford attack aircraft, surreptiously gathering for weeks in Malta and Alexandria, roared in at low level, rockets flashing from the wings, 40 mm and 0.5 inch automatic fire hammering from the nose.
The neatly lined-up Italian warplanes were blasted into scrap before the startled airfield defenders were able to respond.
Freed from defensive duties, a wave of Beaufighters from the carriers of the Mediterranean fleet dived in to attack the AA defences of Tripoli; rocketing and machine-gunning them into impotence and clearing the way for the following Beauforts which dive bombed the main land defences with careful precision.
No sooner had the planes departed than a noise like a multitude of speeding trains roared over the bewildered defenders, erupting in devastating explosions as the eighteen 16 inch guns of the battleships
Rodney
and
Nelson
lobbed their one-ton shells onto the stunned Italians from seventeen miles offshore.
Closer to home, a gunnery control officer with the Special Boat Service watched the destruction in awe from his camouflaged hideout, almost forgetting to send corrections to the battleships.
The Italian commanders frantically tried to contact their shore defence batteries but received only sardonic responses from the SBS troops sent in before dawn to capture them.
Troops guarding the outskirts of Tripoli listened to the uproar in shocked amazement, which turned into incredulity as the unmistakable rumble of tracked vehicles gradually drowned out the noise of the bombardment.
The squat shapes of Crusader tanks, put ashore by tank landing craft from a convoy whose purpose had been one of the best kept secrets of the war, roared towards them out of the desert.
They frantically ran to man their defences.
Those defences were not
thorough,
most of the 200,000 Italian troops in North Africa were based closer to Egypt.
Furthermore, the Mk II Crusaders, with three inches of frontal armour and a high-velocity six-pounder
gun,
were virtually impervious to the standard Italian 47 mm anti-tank gun while able to penetrate the thinly-armoured Italian tanks at all battle ranges.
Accompanying the tanks were RAF officers in Covenanter command vehicles, providing forward air control for the circling Beaufighters.
Whenever Italian defences seemed to be stiffening,
a brief call from a FAC brought a pair of fighter-bombers hurtling down to rocket and bomb
the hapless defenders.
The outcome was in no doubt.
The British troops were few in number, but the quality of their equipment, training and experience coupled with the shock effect of complete surprise shattered the Italian defences.
By nightfall, Tripoli was in British hands and the first ships of the Royal Navy were entering the intact harbour.
Italian North Africa had been struck in the heart.
On the same morning eight hundred miles to the east, Lieutenant General Richard O’Connor, Commander of the Western Desert Force, launched the 7th Armoured Division against the Italians at Sidi Barrani.
The Division was fully equipped with Crusader IIs, together with Cromwell close-support tanks and Conqueror SPGs.
Tracks through the defending minefields had been cleared by Centaur ARVs modified for the purpose and armoured units had also been landed behind the Italian lines to create more confusion.
The Desert Air Force joined in the carefully co-ordinated attacks, with the new Brigands, which along with the Herefords formed the core of the Force and had the same shattering effect on the Italians as the Stukas had had on the Poles and French.
Unnerved by the news from Tripoli, the Italians did not hold out for long.
As the infantry divisions mopped up the bulk of the Italian troops in Egypt, the armoured forces ground relentlessly into Libya towards Bardia, supported by tank landing ships hopping around the coast to deliver small tank units where they could do most harm.
Simultaneously, heavy reconnaissance elements equipped with Humber armoured cars sped across the
The Humbers had considerably better speed, range and reliability than tanks, but could still match the best of the Italian tanks in a straight fight.
Overhead, the aircraft of the Desert Air Force hung in the air like a raised sword, chopping down at the smallest sign of resistance.
Over the course of the next week, amphibious landings at Benghazi and Tobruk met with little resistance.
Some of the Italian units fought with bitter determination, but the spirit of their army had been broken by the crushing superiority of the British strategy, tactics and equipment.
The obliteration of Italian North Africa took just ten days.
‘Hardly surprising, really.
Even in my time, O’Connor inflicted a spectacular defeat on the Italians and might well have mopped them up before Rommel could arrive on the scene if Churchill hadn’t insisted on diverting forces to help Greece.
This time, the Italians were facing nineteen-forty-five level forces infinitely more capable than the Desert Army and Air force had been in my time.
Rather like the French facing the Wehrmacht, only more so.’
Don found it hard to feel the same sense of elation as his friends in the Ops Room, knowing only too well what lay ahead.
‘Cheer up, for once!’ Taylor was still beaming with delight at the stunning success of the Army.
‘It isn’t often we have something like this to celebrate!’
‘I’d feel happier if we had better news from the Western Approaches.
Those electroboats are arriving in numbers now, and they’re every bit as dangerous as we feared.
On top of the mining and bombing of ports, things are beginning to get tight.’
‘We’re learning fast how to deal with them,’ claimed Johnson.
‘It’s largely a matter of developing the right tactics through experience.’
‘And we’re hitting back!’
Morgan was also determined to keep the mood of celebration.
‘The new radio navigation aids and Pathfinder tactics are really bringing results.
The Gelsenkirchen oil refinery was obliterated the night before last.’
Taylor leaned forward, smiling at Don.
‘So what’s likely to happen now?
Do we throw the Italians out of Greece or Ethiopia next?’
Don considered for a moment.
‘That’s going to be up to Churchill, but I’m afraid he’s so pro-Greek it’s going to be difficult to deflect him, despite the fact that Chamberlain was persuaded not to give his guarantee to the Greeks last year.’
Mary looked at him penetratingly.
‘I have a feeling you have something else in mind.’
‘Right.
We are now sharing a frontier with the French in Tunisia.
They’ve stayed loyal to the Vichy government, as has most of the French Empire.
We are also keeping the best ships in the French Navy bottled up at Oran, under pain of destruction if they try to move.
But de Gaulle has already taken charge in some of the African colonies.
If he can lead a Free French force from Libya into Tunisia to persuade the government there to join
him, that
could start a domino effect which would give us the French Empire and much of her fleet without a shot being fired.’
Mary thought about it.
‘That’s way ahead of schedule, isn’t it?
French Africa isn’t supposed to be taken over until after the Americans land in 1942.
How will Hitler react to that?’
‘Invade the rest of France.
He only kept the Vichy government in being to keep the French Empire loyal to it and therefore out of the war.
I think I’d better see Churchill.’
Very much later, Don staggered into their apartment and collapsed into an armchair, hand reaching blindly out as Mary put a glass of Scotch into it.
‘Where does the old man get his stamina from?’
He groaned.
Mary perched on the arm of the chair and ruffled his hair.
‘Did you win?’
Don smiled crookedly.
‘An honourable draw.
De Gaulle can have an armoured regiment with support troops and three squadrons of Free French Spitfires provided that most of the rest goes to Greece.’
‘Is that safe?
To take so much out of
Africa
?’
‘Ought to be.
Malta should be OK now, there’s no reason for the Axis to attack it any more as they no longer have trade routes with Africa to protect.
The Italians still have an army in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, but it’s cut off and can do no harm to us there, we can mop it up at our leisure.’
‘What do you think the chances are?’
Don took a long sip of whisky.
‘Very hard to judge.
The Germans made mincemeat of us in Greece last
time,
even took Crete which was unforgivable.
Our forces are immensely more effective now, but the Wehrmacht is just as good, if not better.
We only beat them in Norway because we committed far more forces, particularly armoured divisions.
It was just a small sideshow to the Germans, who were concentrating on France.
And this time the Germans will have overland communications and supply routes, while we’ll be dependent on the sea.’
‘You sound really worried.’
He sighed.
‘Combat analysis after the war showed that a hundred German troops were as good as a hundred and twenty of any other
nation’s
.
That’s still likely to be the case.
It’s not going to be easy.’
Winter 1940–41
General Ubaldo Soddu, the overall commander of the Italian forces in Albania, was not happy.
Tasked by Mussolini with the subjugation of Greece, he had duly marched his divisions over the border in October, only to see them repulsed and pushed well back into Albania by the astonishingly aggressive Greek Army.
Italian superiority in numbers, tanks, transport and aircraft were counting for nothing in the mountainous terrain.
They could hold the lowlands all right, but to make progress they had to clear the Greeks from the mountains, and that was proving far more difficult than anyone had imagined.
Worse still, the British were sending increasing numbers of aircraft to harrass his troops, as well as nasty little portable anti-tank guns.
Still, the reinforcements on the way by sea should help.