' \ . V .*.-. ^ A '?v-:2m . THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD WAR II Volume 3 1941-1942 Archbishop Mitty High School Media Cen...
THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
WORLD WAR II Volume 3 1941-1942
Archbishop Mitty High School Media Center
5000
Mitty
Way
San Jose, CA 95129
THE MARSHALL CAVENDISH ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
WORLD WAR II An
objective, chronological
of the Second
and comprehensive history World War.
Authoritative text by Lt. Colonel Eddy Bauer.
Consultant Editor Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr., U.S.A., Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. Editor-in-Chief Brigadier Peter Young, D.S.O.,
M.C., M.A., F.S.A. Formerly head at the Royal Militar\ Academy,
any means electronic or mechanical, including phoiocopying,
recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without
permission from the copyright holders.
Printed in Great Britain by Artisan Press
Bound
in Italy
by L.E.G.O. S.p.a. Vicenza
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main
entry under
title:
The Marshall Cavendish World War II Bibliography:
illustrated encyclopedia of
v.
Includes index.
World War, 1939-1945 - Chronology. I. Bauer, Eddy. III. Young, Peter. James Lawton, 1917IV. Marshall Cavendish Corporation. V. Title: World War VI Title: World War Two. D743.M37 1985 1.
II.
Collins,
940.53'02'02
.
85-151
ISBN 0-85685-948-6
2.
(set)
ISBN 0-85685-951-6 (volume British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Marshall Cavendish Encyclopedia of World 1. I.
World War, 1939-1945— Dictionaries Young, Peter, 1915-
940.53'03'21
D740
Data
War
II.
3)
1
Foreword
Forty years ago the greatest seen
was
reached
war which
the
was a war whose
at its height. It
world has yet ramifications
ends oj the earth and affected in some
to the
another practically all
way
or
inhabitants - quite apart from
its
slaughtering about thirty million of them. Thousands of
contribution
which
of the
and
vanquished,
adventure stories of various
the
in
and
both victorious
is
nearly all were written by people who, though they
may
have been trained historians, had themselves been through
we have
the
pen of a
author, a professional soldier, has
and
cuts through the
light.
to
show
their actions
Lieutenant-Colonel
web with a sharp sword. Here
is
based on deep study, and told by a
professional soldier with an acute, analytical broad,
and
a mist of legends,
individuals have striven
most favourable possible
in the
War
thirty-five years, the story
War had become shrouded in
nations
a
completely uninfluenced by the mythology of any
first class narrative,
All these works bear the signs of bias and prejudice, for
War from
combatant nations. After
the
Bauer
warriors of lowlier rank.
at last
produced the first general history of the Second World
of
through the memoirs of generals,
The
neutral: a Swiss.
1939 - 1945,
books ranging from the official histories
Now
final victory.
masterly account of the whole
authors have given us their views on the events of the years in
to
human sympathy
to
comprehend
mind but
the
problems faced
the
by both sides
the events described, or at least belonged to one or other of the belligerent nations. it
is
However fairminded one may
practically impossible for such an author to be
absolutely impartial. the B. E. F. at
landings,
as
He
Dunkirk, well
as
Normandy and Burma, atmosphere of the
war
conceivably
him
lead
may find that having been with in several raids
campaigns helped very days. to
On
in
much
and a number of Sicily, to
the other
conjure
hand
over-emphasise the
The Second World War
be,
even those is
in
Here
who were
a sense
to
still affects
not born in 1945.
run the risk that
written with the authority of one
up
in his study,
it
may
British
were thi
may
at last is the chance to read the
Italy,
the
it
to be
and
is free
allowed
to
from
(
M
Editor-in-( Ihief
\
ignore
happen again.
its
story
unvarnished truth
who was
deeply interested
the least taint
it
Brigadier Peter M
To all
of bias.
If
you
read only one account of tin history of
Second World War, then
D.S.O.,
every one of us,
should be Colonel
Young
Baw
(*
u u t
Editorial
Board
Brigadier Peter Young studied at Monmouth School and rinit) !ollege, Oxford before becoming 2nd Lieut in In Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regt, British Army in 1939. During World War II he served throughout the Dunkirk campaign and although wounded in 1940 BEF Dunkirk went on with Commando raids on Guernsey, the id iten Islands, Vaagso and Dieppe, the landings in Sicily .mil Italy, 1943, the battle of Termoli, Normandy, the last Arak.m ampaign, commanding no. 3 Commando and the (
I
i
I
i
<
Commando Brigade.
After the war he commanded the Regt Arab Legion before becoming Head of the Sandhurst. He Military History Department at the has written over thirty books on military subjects. He was also Editor in Chief of Pumell's History of the First World War Is)
9th
RMA
Army Historical Research Chamber's Encyclopedia and other academic Journal, public ations. He is also a founder member and Capitaine General! of the Sealed Knot Society of Cavaliers and Roundheads, a British Civil War re-enactment group. .mil contributes regularly to the
Spectator and given talks on the BBC. He is a member of the UK/US Education committee and the Royal Historical Society.
Chris Chant was born in Macclesfield, England and educated at The Kings School, Canterbury and Oriel College, Oxford where he obtained an M.A. in Literae humaniores. In his early career he worked as assistant editor on Pumell's History of the First World War and the History of the Second World War. He was also an editor on the
War One. Since then he has dedicated time to full-time writing, specializing in the
Encyclopedia of World
most of
his
history of military aviation. Included titles
amongst the many
he has written are Ground Attack, Great
Forces,
World War II Aircraft,
How
Battles of Airborne
Weapons Work and recently
Air Forces of the World, Naval Forces of the World. He is at present working on the third book of the trilogy published by Collins, England - Land Forces of the World, plus a
Dictionary of World Aircraft.
Corelli Barnet was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. Between 1945 and 1948 he served in the British Army Intelligence Corps, then took a Masters degree, 1954. After many years as a very successful general and military historian and author Barnet was awarded the Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 1976. In 1977 he was made Keeper of the Archives and a Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge where since 1980 he has been a teaching Fellow in Defense Studies. In 1982 he gave the Winston Churchill
Lieutenant-Colonel Eddy Bauer was born and spent most of his life in Switzerland, where he excelled both in an academic career - as Professor of History and then Rector of Neuchatel University - and as an officer in the Swiss Army. A major interest in modern warfare began from his first hand experience as a news correspondent in the Spanish Civil War. With this practical and academic training he was well qualified for his appointment as head
Memorial Lecture, Switzerland.
outbreak of World War Two, and it was from this neutral and privileged vantage point that he was able to write a detailed impartial account of the war, week by week, for a military diary of a Swiss newspaper. After the war he continued to use his great wealth of experience on the military, political and media aspects of war, regularly
Among
his
many books
receiving high acclaim, Corelli
Barnet has written: The Desert Generals, The Battle of Alamein, Britain and Her Army - for which he won the Royal
and
Society of Literature
and
Award
in 1971. Corelli
Barnet worked
on an epic documentary series for BBC television entitled The Great War and two other notable series, The Lost Peace 1918 -33 and The Commandos. He won the 1964 Screen Writers' Guild Award for the best British television documentary as
an
author
historical
consultant
of the Swiss Second Division's Intelligence Service
at the
contributing to a variety of journals and writing numerous books, including a study of armoured warfare and a history of Secret Services, which was his final and uncompleted
work.
He
died in 1972.
script.
He
is
Elected
a
member
of the Royal Society of Literature
Member of the Royal United
and an
Services Institute.
Dr. John Roberts is a well-known historian educated at Taunton and Keble College, Oxford, where in 1948 he received an M.A. In 1953 he got his D.Phil, and became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. In the same year he went to the United States as a Commonwealth Fund Fellow at Princeton and Yale. He later became a Member of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton (1960 - 61) and visiting professor at the University of South Carolina and Columbia. Merton College, Oxford, appointed him Fellow and tutor in Modern History, then Honorary Fellow in 1980. John Roberts has written and published several major historical works, including Europe 1880 - 1945 and Hutchinson's History of the World. He also edited Pumell's History of the Twentieth Century and the Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern History Since 1967 he has
been joint-editor of the
English Historical Review, contributed to journals such as the
Times Literary Supplement,
the
New
Statesman and the
Brigadier-General James L. Collins Jnr., was commissioned into the United States Army as 2nd Lt. in 1939 after obtaining a B.Sc at the U.S. Military Academy, Vancouver where he received his M.A. before doing postgraduate studies at the Naval War College, the Armed Forces Staff College and the Army War College. Brig. Gen. Collins is a former Chief of Military History, US Dept. of the Army and Commander of the Center for Military History, Washington. He has held a variety of other distinguished posts including Director of the Defense
and Director of the US Commission for and editor on military subjects whose major published works include The Development and Training of the South Vietnamese 1950 - 72 and Allied Participation in Vietnam. He was Chief Editorial Adviser, War in Peace, 1984 a major partwork magazine in England, the Editor of Memoires of my service in the World War George Marshall and contributes regularly to
Language Military.
Institute
He
is
a professional author
professional journals.
Notable Contributors Lt. Col. Martin Blumenson was educated at Bucknell and Harvard Universities. He served with the US Army in Europe during World War II, and later in Korea and
Army
Reserve. Former Senior Historian, at the Army's Office of the Chief of Military History and visiting Professor of Military and Strategic Studies at Arcadia University, he has also held important
subsequently joined the
posts at the
War
War College, The Citadel and the Army Blumenson has been a prolific writer and is
Naval
College.
acknowledged as one of the world's authorities on the Italian campaign. His books include: The US Army in World War II: break out and pursuit, Rommel's last victory, Sicily: whose victory? and Eisenhower.
Andrew Mollo military uniforms.
soldier, attaining the rank of Brigadier al the early age of 31 and, after serving with Wingate in Burma, returned to command the Special Air Service Brigade in Europe at the
end of World War II. He later raised and commanded the 22nd Air Service Regiment in Malaya. Qualified as a military historian and renowned as an authority on junglewarfare he went on to write such books as Fighting Mad, Prisoners of Hope, Chindits - a long penetration. Slim and in 1979 co-edited Dictionary of Battles,
71
1
5
181
has also assembled one of the largest
author of over a dozen books,
and photographs. He
among them Army
Army Uniforms
is
the
Uniforms of Uniforms of
of World War II and Army Apart from writing Andrew Mollo has worked m film and television, as technical adviser on productions such as Night of the Generals and The Spy who came in from the the SS,
World War
Cold,
Here
I.
and co-directing the -
the
latter
Jacques Nobecourt
He
films Winstanley
and
//
happened
being an imaginary occupation of
England by the Germans is
in
a
World War
II.
well-known French military
studied at the Lycee Saint Louis, Paris and
Caen
University, France. After serving in the 2nd World he worked as editor of foreign affairs for the journal Combat following which he worked on various other newspapers eventually joining Monde as Rome correspondent before becoming its deputy chief. He is also a regular ontributor to journals such as La Stampa and Cornere della Sum. Jacques Nobecourt's published titles include Hitler's
War
c
Last Gamble: the Battle of the Ardennes.
He
received the Prix
Roma
Historia in 1963 and the Prix Citta di
in 1974.
Remy
O.B.E., alias Renault, one of the world's on the French Resistance joined the Free French Forces in London in 1940 under General de Gaulle, and in the same year founded the Notre Dame Brotherhood. Col Remy has written many books spe< lalisingon the Resistance and secret service, including Col.
5.
a military historian specialising in
collections of insignia, militaria
historian.
Brigadier Michael Calvert D.S.O. Nicknamed Mad Mike, he has had a distinguished career as a fighting
is
He
best authorities
Will Fowler Defence.
notable writer on a wide range
a
is
and
military subjects
Educated
at
at
present
is
the
Army
Editor
of foi
Clifton College and Trinity College,
Cambridge he received an M.A. in 1970 before taking a Diploma in Journalism Studies. During his career he has worked for a number of specialist military publishers and the Royal United Services Institute. As an author his most recent books are
f
since
1956
( 1
Churchill's History of English-Speaking People,
The
Explorers
Time-Life series 'The Sea Farers', Purnel/'s History of the Second World War, and History of the 20th Century Richard Humble is author of at least twenty books, Hitler \ High Seas Fleet, Hitler 's (Generals, Japanese High Seas Fleet, Naval Warfare, Battleships and hattlecruisers and United States Saw Fleet Carriers in the
World War
II.
Fraser of North (Jape published in 1983
is
a
highly acclaimed biography of Lord Fraser.
Captain Donald Maclntyre served in the Fleet Air Arm and during World War II in the Royal Navy as a Commander of destroyers and convoy escort groups in the North Atlantic. Since his retirement in 1954 he has written numerous books on Naval history including Narvik, Battle as a pilot
for the Pacific. Aircraft Carriers,
1939-45
and
contributed
The to
'twentieth Century
1977.
the-
Naval
Ley te Gulf Battle
war
against
publications
and Time
I hirty years after:
1974 and Sedan, which was published
in
6 June 1944/6 June 1980.
984).
Richard Humble studied at Oriel College Oxford, specialising in Military and Naval History following which he worked for about eight years in illustrated publishing both as editor and contributor on works including
of
published works include
Falkland* - Land Forces (1982)
Battle oi the
and Royal Marines
Mnnoires of a secret agent of Free France, The Silent Company, Pmtrait of a spy and Ten steps to hope. His most recent
Purnells
Life Books'
of the Atlantic
Hitler.
He
History
World War
also
of the
series in
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, retired Irom US Marine Corps. Born 1921, New Jersey he graduated in 1942 from Lehigh University, going on to attend the Amphibious Warfare School, the National War .ollege and Ohio State University for postgraduate studies. (he
(
In the
meantime Simmons commanded
USMC.
the
2nd Battalion
At the time of Inchon operation and Chosin
Reservoir campaign, he, as major commanded weapons Battalion, 1st Marines. Amongst his man)
company 3rd
decorations are the D.S.M., Silver Star, and Legion
Merit with two gold Brigadier General
of
stars.
Edwin Simmons
USMC (retired),
is
now director of History and Museums at the US Marine Corps Headquarters and holds a similar position for other military foundations. Widely published, he has contributed to numerous books, encyclopedias, magazines and annuals. He was the Managing Editor for The Marine Corps Gazette, and senior editor for the Publishing Group, Mai ine Corps Schools and in 1974 published The United States Marines. He served with distinction in Korea.
Contents of \blume Three
Wavell recovers Abyssinia "Battleaxe": struggle on the Frontier Tobruk and Malta Operation "Crusader"
577 587 604 611
The
raiders return
631
Bismark's agony Russia hits back The Production Race Java Sea & Singapore Bataan & Corregidor America & the U- Boat
644 657 673 687 700
War
Crisis in the Desert
717 730 740 746
"Rommel, Rommel, Rommel!"
757
Malta Survives Breakthrough at Gazala
761
The Channel Dash Desert freelancers: "Popski's Private
Tobruk
Army"
Falls
Eastern Front 1942 Drive to the Caucasus "Second Front Now!"
The Russian Convoys PEDESTAL: The worst Malta Convoy
769 779 793 804 822 836 847
CHAPTER 45
Wavell recovers Abyssinia We
Wavell and Rommel confronting each other along the fortified Tobruk perimeter, defended by the 9th Australian Division, as well as on the EgyptianLibyan front. But before describing the battles which took place in this theatre of war between June 15 and December 31, 1941, we shall look at the campaign which brought Italy's East African empire to an end in its sixth year. On June 10, 1940, Mussolini's empire
colonies of British and French Somaliland. The latter's capital, Djibouti, was linked to Addis Ababa by a narrow gauge railway.
included the old Italian colonies of Eritrea on the Red Sea, Somaliland on the Indian Ocean, and also the ancient empire of Abyssinia, wrested from Emperor Haile Selassie in spite of the League of Nations and its inoperative sanctions. Forming enclaves within this empire were the
King Victor Emmanuel's authority was vested in a Viceroy combining the functions of civil governor and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who had held this position since 1938, was an active and able Viceroy, but was surprised and
left
V The birth of Mussolini 's East African Empire: Marshal Badoglio rides triumphantly into Addis Ababa
Italian strength in
Abyssinia
after the Italian
invasion of 1935-36. But Italy's hold on Abyssinia was never secure.
Determined guerrilla
resistance
made
it
necessary for
Mussolini to tell Hitler that Italy could not safely go to war until Abyssinia had been completely pacified. As with most of his other conditions, however, the Duce failed to stand firm; and when Wavell planned the reconquest of Abyssinia conditions inside the province
were ideal for the invading Allied troops.
A Figurehead of the Allied counterstroke: Emperor Haile Selassie (centred in conference with Brigadier Sandford and Major Orde Wingate (right), who had the job of co-ordinating the Abyssinian partisans in their fight against the Italians.
then soon overtaken by events. Mussolini, in his
memorandum had
to Hitler
on
May
30,
stressed
the necessity of strengthening Abyssinia in order to begin operations on a wider scale in 1943. 1939,
On June 10, 1940, when Mussolini handed their passports to the British and French Ambassadors, the Viceroy had 290,000 troops under his command, including 90,000 metropolitan Italians. The land forces had no more than 24 notoriously unsatisfactory medium and 39 useless light tanks. In General Pietro Pinna's air force the modern equipment consisted of 34 Fiat C.R.42 fighters, already outclassed by even the R.A.F.'s Gloster Gladiator, let alone the Hurricane. In the Red Sea,
Admiral Carlo Balsamo commanded seven destroyers, two torpedo-boats, and eight submarines, but, as has already been pointed out, the last were ill-adapted to operations in tropical climates, and in less than a fortnight, by June 23, 1940, four of them were out of action. From this 578
time onwards, the Italian forces found themselves in a highly critical condition. Artillery shells were in short supply, fuel stocks even more inadequate, and new tyres virtually unobtainable. It was clear that the Duke of Aosta's 7,874 lorries and cars and 307 motorcycles would not be mobile for long. In addition, there were to be serious shortages of flour by the end of November and of olive oil by March 1941.
Wavell organises the Abyssinian guerrillas Kenya and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, thousands of Abyssinian refugees were preparing to return home, armed, to join up with those of their fellow-countrymen, particularly in the Shoa and Amhara provinces, who had never given up the fight. Wavell entrusted the organisation In
and command of the partisans to the young Major Orde Charles Wingate, an outstanding leader whose taste for action had not been impaired by extensive scholarship in Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Hebrew.
Japan agreed to supply the Italians with 2,500 tons of petrol, 6,000 tyres, 1,000 tons of rice, 500 tons of sugar, and 200 tons tually,
oil. But when the merchant ship Yamayuri Maru finally arrived at the Somali port of Kismayu, the British had already been in occupation for several
of olive
days.
Italian supply problems
On June
25, 1940,
French Somaliland was
neutralised according to the terms of the Franco-Italian armistice. Colonel de Larminat, arriving from Syria by way of Alexandria and Cairo, failed to win over the garrison to the Free French cause. The port was thus subjected to the tight blockade imposed by the British fleet on the approaches to Italian East Africa. In July, the Duke of Aosta captured, in the course of several skirmishes, Kassala, Gallabat, and Kurmuk in the Sudan, and with little difficulty took the Moyale
Kenya. On August 1, Lieutenant-General Guglielmo Nasi, commanding an expedisalient in
tionary force of five brigades (26 battalions and 21 batteries) began the invasion of British Somaliland. The defending forces were inadequate, and their commander, Major-General A. R. Godwin-Austen, received authority from Cairo to evacuate his troops through Zeila and Berbera. The Italians thus found these ports abandoned on the evening of August 19. In Rome, Marshal Badoglio intended the Duke of Aosta to contribute to the big offensive being prepared by Graziani against Marsa Matruh and Alexandria. The Duke's objective was to be Khartoum at the junction of the two Niles, or Port Sudan on the Red Sea. But the Viceroy maintained that these objectives would be impracticable unless he received, at the outset, 100 aircraft, 10,000 tons of fuel, and 10,000 tyres. Further, he reported to the Supreme Commander at the end of August "In view of my basic and essential mission to maintain the political and territorial security of the Empire-I believe that the only possible course is to play a purely passive and defensive role, to avoid wasting our energy and to conserve our forces for as long as possible."
He was already preparing
a plan, he added, to decentralise his reserves to avoid the situation in the future where, for lack of transport, he would not be able to deploy them to counter Allied initiatives. Even-
The British capture Asmara These circumstances explain how Wavell
was able
to regain the initiative at a time of his own choosing. In the Eritrean sector of this theatre, he organised an expeditionary force commanded by Lieutenant-
General William Piatt. It comprised two divisions: Major-General L. M. Heath's 5th Indian Division, already in the area, and Major-General N. M. BeresfordPeirse's 4th Indian Division, which had left the Western Desert immediately after Sidi Barrani. His forces also included a
V
Abyssinian freedom-fighters. Apart from the partisans in the Shoa and Amhara provinces who had never given in, there were thousands who had fled the country when the Italians invaded and were eager to fight their
way home under
British
leadership.
,\ )
I
^'*'-fo-^lW
<
*&
\
hi i
Khartoum
ANGLO EGYPTIAN
•Obbia
Indian
Ocean
UGANDA Mogadishu February 25
KENYA
ITALIAN
,
ATTACKS
L
•Gobuin Kismayu February 13
Victoria
A How the Italians were driven from Abyssinia in 1941. Prelude to the campaign was the invasion of Somaliland from Kenya, followed up by the full-scale invasion of the Abyssinian
Free French Senegalese battalion and a regiment of the Foreign Legion. From January 15, 1941 the Italian forces, commanded by General Luigi Frusci, retreated towards Agordat and Barentu, to reform
hinterland.
Keren on February 1. Defensively, they were now in a very strong position and General Piatt had to mount a full scale
>
At Kismayu
at
in
Somaliland
the victorious British topple the rods and axes of the Duce's
empire.
operation against this bitterly defended strongpoint. aircraft, to
580
He
also
employed strike
counter which the Italians
ALLIED
ATTACKS
had neither fighters nor anti-aircraft guns. However, by March 24 the operation was over and the British forces were able to push forward to Asmara. In Kenya, Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham, younger brother of the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, had been given the command of a force comprising the 11th and 12th African and the 1st South African Divisions. He had held Kismayu since February 14
i
1
xv/// ft*
•
^4
^ ^V-1* V
.4
^\
v.^
•">/
-»
and on February 19 he broke through Lieutenant-General Pietro Gazzera's line along the Juba. The operation was so successful that six days later his advance guard reached the Somaliland capital,
Mogadishu. From then on, General Cunningham's campaign assumed the character of a motorised raid, combined with an amphibious landing at Berbera on March 16. The victorious army had covered some 950 miles since Gelib; moving through Gabredarre and Jijiga, it broke through the Marda pass (6,200 feet) on March 30, the Djibouti railway at Diredawa and entered Addis Ababa in triumph on April 5. Losing no time, Cunningham moved north, then northeast, to meet General Piatt hastening from intercepted
Asmara. Italian rule in Ethiopia had now collapsed. The British and Allied forces,
partisans and were Sudanese refugees, Kenyan and
including
Archibald General Sir Wavell had the thankless post of C.-in-C, Middle East. With dignity and resolution he set himself to clearing the Italians out of Cyrenaica, sending an expeditionary force to help the Greeks, saving Egypt from invasion by Rommel, and fighting the Abyssinian campaign. At the same time he had to look north-east towards Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq and plan yet another taxing campaign to prevent Axis infiltration
One of Wavell's biggest headaches, however, was Churchill in London, who constantly pestered him for more activity and eventually replaced him with General
there.
Auchinleck on June 21, 1941. In July Wavell was appointed C.-in-C. India, where he soon faced a new foe -Japan.
582
Wingate's
now
joined by thousands of Abyssinian deserters from the Duke of Aosta's army.
The Duke
of Aosta
surrenders On May 12, Generals ham met at the foot
Piatt and Cunningof the Amba Alagi
heights. The Duke of Aosta sought refuge at the summit (over 9,300 feet) but without water or ammunition and subjected to heavy bombardment, he had to surrender on May 16 with 7,000 troops. His captors treated him with every military courtesy. He died in Nairobi on March 2, 1942, and Count Ciano wrote of him in his diary: "The Duke of Aosta is dead. With him disappears the noble figure of a prince and an Italian, simple in his ways, broad in outlook, humane in spirit. He did not want this war. He was convinced ;
that the Empire could only hold out for a few months, and, hesides, he hated the Germans. In this conflict, which drenches the world with blood, he feared a German more than a British victory. When he left for Abyssinia in May, 1940, he had a premonition of his fate. He was determined to face it, but was filled with sadness. I communicated the news to the Duce, who expressed his regret laconically."
Last-ditch resistance
He had
to surrender to vastly superior-
forces on
27.
the
Bab al Mandab straits,
all
four arrived
at their destination after a voyage of over 16,000 miles. The colonial sloop Eritrea
and an auxiliary cruiser reached Kobe in Japan via the Sunda Strait without being boarded by the Dutch. Being of limited range, Rear-Admiral Bonetti's
the Galla-Sidamo province, Italian resistance was longer lived. However, more and more hard-pressed. General Gazzera had to seek a truce, on July 4, from the Belgian Major-General Gilliaert, commanding two Congolese regiments. The last Italian to give up the fight was General Nasi in the Gondar area, where he had made literally a last-ditch stand. In
November
view of the worsening situation, the commander of the Italian Red Sea flotilla decided, in early March, to send his four remaining submarines to Bordeaux by the Cape route. Avoiding naval patrols in In
destroyers
this example.
could
not
follow
Rather than scuttle in the
roads off Massawa when the British arrived, they launched a suicide attack
on Port Sudan. Discovered by an R.A.F. patrol at dawn on April 3, two of them were accounted for by bombs before reaching their objective, and the three others scuttled themselves in the Red Sea off the Arabian coast.
A ABritish troops of the Indian Army advance in Eritrea. A A new portent"- Wave gets 11
a gesture of generosity from cartoonist Leslie Illingworth of
London
<
'$
Punch.
Italian prisoners evacuate a
British casualty.
583
« ^i\ ^K^
A The end at Amba Alagi: Mussolini 's Viceroy of A byssinia the Duke of Aosta (second from left,), surrenders to the British. His troops fought with great determination at Keren and Amba Alagi. An honourable and sensitive
commander,
the
Duke
of
Aosta was treated with much respect by the British
;
his troops
were saluted by a guard of
honour when they marched out to lav
down
their arms.
Emperor Haile Selassie restored Although the British authorities restored Haile Selassie to his throne in Addis Ababa, they made considerable efforts to protect Italian colonists, established since 1936, against reprisals. During the summer of 1942, many colonists were repatriated under the terms of the agreement reached, with Switzerland acting as intermediary between the British and Italian
Governments.
The conquest of Abyssinia allowed President Roosevelt to raise the ban on American shipping in the Red Sea, imposed on June 10, 1940. American merchant ships could now unload at Suez supplies sent from the United States to the British Middle East forces. This success also eliminated any threat to the Upper Nile and brought into full operation the
important supply line through Takoradi and Fort Lamy to Khartoum. Prompted by the Governor-General, Felix Eboue, and with what General de Gaulle called "the firm but discreet support" of the 584
Governor of the Belgian Congo, Mr. Ryckmans, French Equatorial Africa and the Cameroons had, in late August 1940, repudiated the Vichy Government and joined the Free French. Colonel Leclerc was involved in these events and set up his H.Q. at Largeau. Seriously wounded as Captain Philippe de Hautecloque on the Somme battlefield, he had later escaped to join General de Gaulle, and adopted the pseudonym Leclerc to prevent reprisals against his family in occupied France. The backbone of this famous commander's army was the Senegalese infantry, a highly mobile force which until January 1943 carried out commando-type operations in the Sahara desert, directed against supplies and installations. Leclerc could also count on the experience and enterprise of a first class team of officers, such as his chief-of-staff, Colonel Ingold, LieutenantColonel d'Ornano, Major Dio, and Captains de Guillebon and Massu. Working with the British desert warfare specialist Major P. A. Clayton, he organised his first raid on Murzuk, capital of Fezzan, and its aerodrome on January 11, 1941. Several Italian aircraft were shot up and destroyed, but this
success cost the life of Lieutenant-Colonel d'Ornano. Several days later Major Clayton's car was bombed and he was taken prisoner. Leclerc's reaction to this incident was to lead his motorised column to attack Fort Et Taj, dominating the Kufrah oasis, first having put out of action the flight control station directing Italian aircraft
between Libya and Abyssinia. On March 1, Captain Colonna surrendered with 12 officers and 320 other ranks. When the tricolour was hoisted the victor declared: "We shall not stop until the French flag is
Metz and Strasbourg!" Patriotic and dedicated as he was, flying over
Leclerc did not allow his crusading spirit to impair his tactical judgement. A good example was his instruction of July 19, which Liddell Hart, Rommel, 1941, Guderian, and other exponents of
mechanised warfare would have
fully
< Another lllingworth cartoon on Wavell's triumph in Abyssinia "This, Your Majesty, was the Italian
V
Empire!"
Escorted by court
officials
and
British officers, Emperor Haile Selassie returns to his capital.
> Triumphant
tailpiece to the
Abyssinian campaign: exuberant Scottish roups pose for the camera in the Abyssinian capital. t
V Philippe La lerc, Gaullist commander in central Africa, whose commando-style operations Sahara Desert acre mi aluable in keeping the Axis on t he qui Vive in southern Libya. >> Matilda tanks rumble forward in "liattleaxe". Win ell's ill-fated in the
and
final
offensive in the
Western Desert.
endorsed. Drawing the lesson from the engagements which took place during the Kufrah raid, he expressed the following view on assault tactics: "Wherever possible, attack from an unexpected direction and at an unexpected time. The commander should be well to the fore in order to make prompt decisions. Manoeuvre in wide, sweeping, outflanking movements. The battle should be brief, and if not decisive at one point, switched to another."
A
comment
taken from W. B. Kennedy Shaw's most interesting book Long Range Desert Group, about British patrols in the Sahara. This writer took part in the Kufrah operation and was with Leclerc at Fort Lamy. He remarks: "While we were waiting at Fort Lamy for transport to Cairo, I saw every day dozens of aircraft on the TakoradiKhartoum-Cairo route. I then realised the great service our French allies had rendered in securing this vital line of communication." We have no figures for aircraft movement in this area in 1941. But we know from General Ingold's writings that in 1942 no less than 2,999 British and American aircraft landed at Fort Lamy; while 6,944 Allied aircraft fiew over this African re-routing point on their way to the Libyan front or, through Iraq and Iran, to the Soviet Union. Kennedy Shaw's remarks were thus not without final
justification.
is
The Takoradi-Khartoum
air
route was a vital artery of Brit ish air po wetin the Western Desert theatre.
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A Troops
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Korps move forward on motor-cycle combinations. A > Operation "Battleaxe", the illstarred offensive that was to cost
General Wavell his command.
588
Until Pearl Harbor, developments in the North African campaign depended on the course of the naval/air war in the Mediterranean. This was affected to a great extent by the defensive and offensive capabilities of Malta, which relied on supplies sent from England and Egypt. It was a case of "triphibious" warfare, as Winston Churchill called it. The Italian Navy, whose task was to keep open the sealanes to the forces fighting in Libya and Egypt, was faced, from mid- July 1941, with an increasingly difficult situation. Already at a disadvantage as it lacked any naval airpower worthy of the name, its shortage of oil fuel was now assuming tragic proportions. It had entered the war with reserves of 1,880,000 tons, 600,000 of which had been consumed in the first six months of operations. Monthly consumption was reduced to 75,000 tons. But when it became clear that supplies from Germany would not exceed 50,000 tons a month, this meant, recorded Supermarina,
that it would be impossible "to maintain forces in a state that was already inadequate for waging war". But even these supplies could not be relied on, for when the yearly figures were established it was shown that supplies from Germany amounted to barely 254,000 tons, instead of the 600,000 tons expected. One can understand why, just before El Alamein, the Chief-of-Staff of the
Comando
Supremo, Marshal Cavallero, wrote in his diary on October 1942: "I have two major pre23, occupations-oil and Malta." Thus it is clear that in this and many other respects Operation "Barbarossa" damaged the Axis potential in the Mediterranean. But as we have seen, Hitler did not agree that there was danger in war on two fronts. According to his directive of Italian
December would be
a 120-day Blitzkrieg to lay the Soviet colossus in ruins and to ensure that the bulk of the production of the Maykop, 18, 1940,
sufficient
Grozny, and Baku oil wells would be supplying the needs of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Moscow would be captured in 1942, and then the "tropical" Panzers, already being prepared, could be unleashed on Basra, Mosul, Suez, Alexandria, and Gibraltar, with the Luftwaffe concentrating on Malta.
The success
of Operation "Tiger'
:
The
arrival in Africa of the 15th Panzer Division in the latter part of April caused alarm in G.H.Q. Cairo and in the British War Cabinet. General Wavell expected a strong force of German infantry to move up the line, and on April 20 he signalled to the C.I.G.S., Sir John Dill: "I have just received disquieting intelligence. I was expecting another German colonial division, which disembarked at Tripoli early this month, to appear in the fighting line about the end of the month. Certain units have already been identified. I have just been informed that latest evidence indicates this is not a colonial but an armoured division. If so, the situation is indeed serious, since an armoured division contains over 400
tanks, of which 138 are medium. If the enemy can arrange supply it will take a lot of stopping."
now known
that Wavell overestimated considerably the strength of the Panzer division in the spring of 1941. Instead of the three or four tank battalions at the disposal of the large armoured units in action in the Balkans at this time, the 15th Panzer Division had only two, which comprised 168 tanks and 30 reconnaissance vehicles. It must be recognised, however, that this distinguished soldier was basing his assessment on reports not only from the British Intelligence service but also from its French, Belgian, and Swiss counterparts. These sources gave the Panzer strength as 488, including 122 heavy tanks. In any case, once he had "digested" the information, Wavell informed Dill that he attached the highest priority to immediate reinforcement of his armoured strength. He had in reserve sufficient personnel to man six armoured regiments, and was insistent that the tanks he needed should be delivered before the 15th Panzer Division was in position and ready for action. Churchill overruled the objections of the C.I.G.S., who was reluctant to weaken the home front while there was still a possibility of a German invasion, excluded the Cape route in view of the urgency of the problem, and insisted that the First Lord of the Admiralty order delivery by the Mediterranean route. At the same time, the battleship Queen Elizabeth and the cruisers Fiji and Naiad were transferred from home waters It
is
V Wrecked shipping in Benghazi, the key Axis supply-port in
western Cyrenaica, which was shot up by three British destroyers and the light cruiser Ajax on the night of May 7-8. "They had great success," wrote Admiral
Cunningham, who ordered the bombardment, "for after bombarding the harbour area they later met a convoy of two merchant ships. One. carrying motor transport and ammunition,
blew up, and the second ran ashore and was left well ablaze after several explosions I afterwards heard lurid tales of motor-lorries hurtling through
the air right over the destroyers.
"
Two hundred and
ninety-
had various weaknesses. Wavell was
tanks and 53 Hurricane fighters were loaded aboard five fast 15-knot merchant
therefore urged to attack with minimum delay, and to relieve the tired garrison of Tobruk. He had under his command XIII Corps, under Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Beresford-Peirse, including the 4th Indian Division (Major-General F. W. Messervy), the 7th Armoured Division
to Alexandria. five
ships.
This convoy was escorted by Force H between Gibraltar and Cape Bon. During the night of May 7-8 one merchant ship struck a mine in the dangerous Sicilian Narrows, but the next day, 55 miles south of Malta, the convoy was taken over by Admiral Cunningham who, while he was about it, shelled Benghazi and sent three tankers and four supply ships to Malta. A few days later, the four remaining ships unloaded at Alexandria 43 Hurricanes and 238 tanks -135 Matildas, 82 cruisers, and 21 Mark VI's, small 5^-ton machines of relatively little value in battle. Apparently, the transfer of X Fliegerkorps from Sicily to Rommel in Africa had contributed considerably to the success of this daring operation -"Tiger" as it was named by Churchill. v On the British side: a fox-hole of the lih Indian Division, facing the Av\ position of Halfaya. The Great Libyan Escarpment, which dominated the frontier battles oj summer 1941, looms in the background. These nun are watching a shell bursting in the background, on the left.
Rommel maintains
(Major-General
Michael
O'Moore
wheeled armoured cars, which have guns and are faster. This makes reconnaissance difficult. Our Infantry tanks are really too slow for a battle in desert, and have been suffering considerable casualties from the fire of the powerful enemy anti-tank guns. Our cruisers have little advantage
his
power or speed over German medium tanks. Technical breakdowns are still too numerous. We shall not be able to accept battle with perfect confidence in spite of numerical inferiority, as we could against Italians. Above factors in
advantage The War Cabinet had learned from intercepts of "Enigma" signals that Rommel
— --—•-•-
«_
1 -*—
Sir
Creagh), and the 22nd Guards Brigade (Brigadier J. Marriot). However, recent engagements at Halfaya Pass had made him aware of a number of "black spots". In a message to the C.I.G.S. on May 28 he said: "Our armoured cars are too lightly armoured to resist the fire of enemy fighter aircraft, and, having no gun, are powerless against the German eight-