The Grand Alliance (46 page)

Meanwhile our air patrols sighted another enemy force of five cruisers and five destroyers to the northward about a hundred miles from the advancing British fleet. After further air attacks from the
Formidable,
and also from shore bases in Greece and Crete, it became clear that the
Vittorio
Veneto
was damaged and could not make more than fifteen knots. In the evening a third air attack from the
Formidable
found all the enemy ships protecting the injured battleship with their A.A. batteries. Our planes did not seek to penetrate the barrage, but hit the heavy cruiser
Pola,
which was seen to haul out of line and stop. As darkness fell, Admiral Cunningham decided to make a destroyer attack, and also to accept the uncertainties of a night action with his battle fleet, in the hope of destroying the crippled battleship and cruiser before they could gain the cover of their own shore-based aircraft. On the way in the darkness

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he surprised two Italian cruisers, the eight-inch-gun
Fiume
and
Zara,
which were going to the
Pola’s
aid. At close range the
Fiume
was immediately overwhelmed and sunk by fifteen-inch broadsides from the
Warspite
and
Valiant.

The
Zara,
engaged by all three battleships, was soon reduced to a blazing wreck.

Admiral Cunningham then withdrew the fleet to avoid mistaking friends for foes, and left his destroyers to deal with the damaged ship and with the two destroyers which had been with her. They also found and sank the crippled
Pola.
In this fortunate night encounter, with all its chances, the British fleet suffered no loss of any kind. In the morning, as our aircraft could not find the
Vittorio Veneto,
our fleet returned to Alexandria. This timely and welcome victory off Cape Matapan disposed of all challenge to British naval mastery in the Eastern Mediterranean at this critical time.

The expedition to Greece, in its order of embarkation, comprised the British 1st Armoured Brigade, the New Zealand Division, and the 6th Australian Division. These were all fully equipped at the expense of other formations in the Middle East. They were to be followed by the Polish Brigade and the 7th Australian Division. The movement began on March 5. The plan was to hold the Aliakhmon line, which ran from the mouth of the river of that name through Veria and Edessa to the Yugoslav frontier. Our forces were to join the Greek forces deployed on this front, namely, the 12th and 20th Greek Divisions, each of six battalions and three or four batteries, the 19th (Motorised) Division, weak in numbers and training, and about six battalions from Thrace. This army, nominally the equivalent The Grand Alliance

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of seven divisions, was to come under the command of General Wilson.

The Greek troops were far less than the five good divisions General Papagos had originally promised.
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The great majority of the Greek Army, about fifteen divisions, was in Albania, facing Berat and Valona, which they had not been able to capture. They repulsed an Italian offensive launched on March 9. The rest of the Greek Army, three divisions and frontier defence troops, was in Macedonia, whence Papagos declined to withdraw them, and where, after four days’ fighting, when the Germans attacked, they ceased to be a military force. The 19th Greek (Motorised) Division, which joined them, was also destroyed or dispersed.

Our air force in Greece in March numbered only seven squadrons (eighty operational aircraft), and was badly handicapped by the scarcity of landing grounds and inadequate signal communications. Although some small reinforcements were sent in April, the R.A.F. were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the enemy. Two of our squadrons fought on the Albanian front. The remaining five, supported by two Wellington squadrons from Egypt for night operations, had to meet all other needs. They were matched against a German air strength of over eight hundred operational aircraft.

The attack on Southern Yugoslavia and Greece was entrusted to the German Twelfth Army, of fifteen divisions, of which four were armoured. Of these, five divisions, including three armoured, took part in the southward drive towards Athens. The weakness of the Aliakhmon position lay on its left flank, which could be turned by a German advance through Southern Yugoslavia. There had been little contact with the Yugoslav General Staff, whose plan of defence and degree of preparedness were not known to the

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Greeks or ourselves. It was hoped, however, that in the difficult country which the enemy would have to cross the Yugoslavs would at least be able to impose considerable delay on them. This hope was to prove ill-founded. General Papagos did not consider that withdrawal from Albania to meet such a turning movement was a feasible operation.

Not only would it severely affect morale, but the Greek Army was so ill-equipped with transport and communications were so bad that a general withdrawal in the face of the enemy was impossible. He had certainly left the decision till too late. It was in these circumstances that our 1st Armoured Brigade reached the forward area on March 27, where it was joined a few days later by the New Zealand Division.

In the early morning of April 6, German armies invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia. Intensive air attacks were at the same time launched on the Piraeus, where our expeditionary convoys were discharging. That night the port was almost completely wrecked by the blowing-up of the British ship
Clan Fraser
alongside the quay with two hundred tons of T.N.T. on board. Here was a misfortune which made it necessary to divert supplies to other and minor ports. This attack alone cost us and the Greeks eleven ships, aggregating forty-three thousand tons.

Henceforward the maintenance of the Allied armies by sea continued against an increasing scale of air attack, to which no effective counter could be made. The key to the problem at sea was to overcome the enemy’s air bases in Rhodes, but no adequate forces were available for such a task, and meanwhile heavy shipping losses were certain. It was fortunate that the recent Battle of Matapan had, as Admiral

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Cunningham stated in his dispatch, taught the Italian Fleet a lesson which kept them out of action for the rest of the year. Their active intervention during this period would have made the Navy’s task in Greece impossible.

Simultaneously with the ferocious bombardment of Belgrade the converging German armies already poised on the frontiers invaded Yugoslavia from several directions.

The Yugoslav General Staff did not attempt to strike their one deadly blow at the Italian rear. They conceived themselves bound not to abandon Croatia and Slovenia, and were therefore forced to attempt the defence of the whole frontier line. The four Yugoslav army corps in the north were rapidly and irresistibly bent inward by the German armoured columns, supported by Hungarian troops which crossed the Danube and by German and Italian forces advancing towards Zagreb. The main Yugoslav forces were thus driven in confusion southward, and on April 13 German troops entered Belgrade. Meanwhile General List’s Twelfth German Army, assembled in Bulgaria, had swung into Serbia and Macedonia. They had entered Monastir and Yannina on the tenth, and thus prevented any contact between the Yugoslavs and Greeks and broken up the Yugoslav forces in the south.

Confronted by the collapse of Yugoslav resistance, Mr.

Campbell, the British Minister in Belgrade, had left the capital with its garrison. He now sought instructions, which I sent him as follows:

Prime

Minister

to

13 April 41

British

Minister

in

Yugoslavia

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It will not be possible at any time to send British
surface war-ships, or British or American merchant
ships or transports, up the Adriatic north of Valona. The
reason for this is the air, which did not exist effectively
in the last war. The ships would only be sunk, and that
would help no one. All the aircraft we can allot to the
Yugoslav theatre is already at the service of the Yugoslav General Staff through Air Marshal D’Albianc.

There are no more at present, You must remember
Yugoslavs have given us no chance to help them and
refused to make a common plan, but there is no use in
recriminations, and you must use your own judgment
how much of this bad news you impart to them.

2. We do not see why the King or Government
should leave the country, which is vast, mountainous,
and full of armed men. German tanks can no doubt
move along the roads and tracks, but to conquer the
Serbian armies they must bring up infantry. Then will be
the chance to kill them. Surely the young King and the
Ministers should play their part in this. However, if at
any time the King and a few personal attendants are
forced to leave the country and no aeroplanes can be
provided, a British submarine could be sent to Kotor or
some other neighbouring place.

3. Apart from the successful defence of mountain
regions, the only way in which any portion of the
Serbian Army can get in touch with our supplies by land
is through establishing contact with Greeks in Albania
and through Monastir. They could then share in the
defence of Greece and in the common pool of supplies,
and if all fails every effort will be made to evacuate as
many fighting men as possible to islands or to Egypt.

4. You should continue to do your utmost to uphold
the fighting spirit of the Yugoslav Government and
Army, reminding them how the war in Serbia ebbed and
flowed back and forth last time.

But the days of the Yugoslav guerrillas were still to come.

On April 17 Yugoslavia capitulated.
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