Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  They lasted about three weeks, but two other JU88s, ‘Mickey’ and ‘Minnie’, lived twice as long. They had a special trick. One would come roaring out of the sun in a shallow dive while the other approached from a different direction with its engine throttled back. Finally one of them had three feet shot off the end of its wing and the combination was broken up. The JU88 which did more damage than any dozen dive-bombers was one known as ‘Jimmy’. He specialized in hit-and-run attacks, and would glide in out of the sun with his engine just ticking over, drop his bombs and roar away before the guns had time to get on to him. On August 12th ‘Jimmy’ landed a stick of bombs on an ammunition dump near 9th Division H.Q. For several hours huge clouds of smoke hung over the area and thunderous explosions could be heard in the farthest perimeter posts. ‘Jimmy’, evidently delighted with his success, came back for more; but the dump was composed largely of useless Italian ammunition, which the Ordnance branch was about to dump in the sea. ‘Jimmy’ saved it the trouble.

  However, these nuisance raids did cause more casualties than dive-bombing, primarily because the first warning was usually the bursting bombs. One morning ‘Jimmy’ caught some ack-ack gunners lining up for their cigarette issue. One stick of bombs killed eleven and wounded nearly twice as many. What appeared to be haphazard nuisance bombing was not always so. At one time bombs were being consistently dropped on a patch of open desert where there was no visible target. This was regarded merely as bad bombing until one day Stukas dived deliberately on the area. Investigation revealed a large buried petrol dump which the Italians had forgotten to explode before Tobruk fell.

  The high-level bombing became less effective as the anti-aircraft defences improved, and small ships and lighters were eventually able to unload in the harbour in daylight. The additional supplies these brought were extremely important, because more varied rations were urgently needed, and reserves of petrol, ammunition and food had to be built up to support the eventual British offensive.

  During July there were two most important supply developments. The Navy tried sending in two auxiliary lighters – each carrying 120 tons – every forty-eight hours. At first these arrived one night, unloaded the next and left the following night, but by the middle of the month the ack-ack defences had so subdued the Stukas that Morshead authorized daylight unloading. In the absence of dive-bombers twenty-two lighters, eight small cargo vessels and four schooners landed their cargoes safely during July. These, plus thirty-four trips by destroyers and two by a cruiser, resulted in the delivery of 5076 tons of stores during the month – an increase of more than 50 per cent on the figures for June.

  The troops benefited directly from this improvement. The inward mail for July rose to more than two thousand bags. One ship brought in sufficient meat for seven or eight issues per man. The ration of fresh vegetables and oranges improved so much that the daily dosage of ascorbic tablets could be reduced from two to one. The razor blade allowance was increased from one a fortnight to one a week and, most significant of all, there was one issue of nearly a pint of beer per man.

  In spite of this general improvement, however, a serious petrol situation was only just averted. This was easily the most hazardous cargo shipped to Tobruk, since the tankers which brought it were slow and vulnerable. Because of this, rigid economy was enforced but by mid-June the garrison was using 6000 gallons (about 27 tons) a day, and there was barely a month’s reserve in hand, and less if heavy fighting were to develop.

  In response to Morshead’s urgent request, Middle East dispatched the tanker Pass of Balmaha with 750 tons of petrol for Tobruk on June 22nd. As escort, she had two sloops, H.M.S. Auckland and H.M.A.S. Parramatta. Nearing Tobruk late on the afternoon of June 24th, this vital convoy was attacked by forty-eight Stukas in three formations. The story of what followed is well told in Parramatta’s own account:

  As they worked round in order to dive from the direction of the sun, both Auckland and Parramatta opened with the heaviest barrage their guns could give. The pandemonium was terrific. Added to the bark of gunfire and the continuous staccato of machine-guns was the angry hornet noise of dive-bombers swooping down from every direction; then the hiss of falling bombs, followed, in some cases, by the roar of an explosion. The enemy machines concentrated two-thirds of their attack on Auckland and the remainder on Parramatta and Pass of Balmaha. Auckland was suddenly obscured by thick brown smoke. She had been hit; the whole of the stern section above water had been blown to pieces. With the foremost guns still firing, she managed to continue at about 10 knots with the wheel jammed hard a-port, yet, for some unaccountable reason turning rapidly to starboard. To the amazement, therefore, of Parramatta, the next thing she saw was Auckland emerge from the smoke and head straight at her. Just in time Parramatta managed to put her wheel over to avoid collision, but Auckland presented a pathetic sight, with no stern visible, heeling heavily to port, her available guns still firing at the diving aircraft.

  Almost immediately she was hit again by three bombs simultaneously, but she continued firing until the enemy had dropped all their bombs and flown away. When the enemy drew off, she lay stopped, flames and smoke pouring from her decks and the ship listing more heavily to port. As her end was obviously near, orders were given to abandon ship, and boats and rafts were already in the water. Parramatta closed and stopped to windward of the sinking vessel, where she dropped whalers, skiffs, lifebelts and floats. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion in Auckland, which lifted her slowly and steadily about six feet into the air. Her back broke, and she settled down with an increased list to port, and at 1829 hours rolled over and sank. Another attack was obviously developing, and it was impossible for Parramatta to stop and pick up survivors at the time. As she was gathering way the attack came in a deliberate low-level bombing by six Savoias 79. Parramatta and Pass of Balmaha successfully evaded damage, whereupon the aircraft machine-gunned Auckland survivors in the water, but happily did little harm.

  As the sun began to sink towards the horizon – and how anxiously every one watched it! – the sky became alive with aircraft. At first it was hoped that British fighters were among them and attacking the bomber formations, but it was soon discovered that all in sight were hostile. At 1955 the attack developed, and from that moment the air seemed so full of shrieking and diving planes that it was impossible to count them. There was always one formation overhead falling about like leaves and diving in succession, another formation moving forward into position, and a third splitting up and approaching at an angle of 45 degrees. For the best part of an hour and a half attacks continued, until at length, as the sun touched the horizon at 2025, the enemy drew off. Shortly after, to the great relief of every one on Parramatta, we sighted the destroyers Waterhen and Vendetta. We had begun to feel lonely, and the arrival of these destroyers was much appreciated. The work of picking up survivors was quickly carried out, and with 162 on board, Parramatta proceeded towards Alexandria, while Waterhen took Pass of Balmaha in tow and delivered her safely at Tobruk. Thus, another 750 tons of petrol reached its destination.

  Thanks to the consideration of the Italians in leaving their bulk pumping and storage facilities intact, this cargo and a further 150 tons of petrol were safely off-loaded at Tobruk before the end of June. It was fortunate that they were, for on July 9th the bulk petrol pumping plant was put out of action for a month by a direct hit. The enemy had struck a fortnight too late, for by this time Tobruk had seventy days’ supply. Not satisfied with this, however, Morshead had cased petrol shipped in to maintain stocks while the plant was being repaired and one night a small party of Diggers unloaded 50 000 gallons of cased petrol between dark and dawn. Further economy reduced the daily consumption to 4500 gallons, and the petrol crisis was weathered.

  The voyage of Pass of Balmaha was probably the most important individual run ever made to Tobruk, but the main means of general supply was always the destroyer-ferry. This was maintained almost entirely by British and Australian ships of the Tenth Flotill
a. At one time or another the ‘Spud Run’, as the Navy called it, was made by all the Australian destroyers in the Mediterranean – Vendetta, Stuart, Waterhen, Vampire, Voyager, Napier, Nestor and Nizam. Vendetta eventually established a record with twenty-eight trips; Stuart made twenty-two and Waterhen had made nearly as many when she was sunk as a result of German bombing on June 29th. A near-miss holed the engine-room; H.M.S. Defender took her in tow but could not save her, though all the crew was rescued.

  Waterhen’s finest exploit on the Tobruk run was probably her attempt to save the hospital ship Vita, which was deliberately dive-bombed on April 14th. Waterhen tried to tow her, and when that proved impossible, rescued 437 patients, six doctors, six nurses and forty-one sick-berth attendants and took them to Alexandria.

  The enemy was well aware of the importance of the destroyer-ferry and did his utmost to stop it by bombing the harbour at night when the ships were in, but the barrage was so effective that no destroyer was ever hit. Night attacks on the harbour could have succeeded only if the dive-bombers had knocked out the guns in daylight. When they failed in this, the dive-bombers tried to intercept the destroyers off Sollum in the late afternoon. From June onwards, as we have seen, R.A.F. fighters escorted the destroyers, and after nine Stukas had been shot down in one action, the enemy was less persistent with these attacks.

  Finally he did gain a limited success. His dive-bombing of the destroyers at sea by night became so accurate that it was too dangerous for them to come in when the moon showed the ships’ wake. Because of this there were only thirty-four destroyer trips in July, but by sending three or four destroyers in each night during the ‘no moon’ period, the number was increased to fifty-eight in August and sufficient supplies and reinforcements continued to reach Tobruk. Even then dive-bombers made the ferry run risky and on several occasions I saw troops coming off a destroyer drenched with spray thrown up by a near-miss.

  Apart from such attacks on ships outside the harbour, the enemy air force during June and most of July relied on the night bombing of Tobruk to stop the destroyer-ferry. Most of these raids were made by single bombers from about 13 000 feet. By putting up a barrage in the oncoming bomber’s path – as revealed by radio location equipment – the ack-ack guns forced as many as half of them to drop their bombs wide of any real target.

  It was not until late in July that any serious threat developed from these night attacks. Then heavier night bombing, together with minelaying attacks and increased shelling by big guns, set new problems. The minelaying was particularly serious and on July 30th the destroyers could not be unloaded and some auxiliary lighters had to turn back. These developments and the renewal of dive-bombing introduced the third phase in the battle to keep the harbour open. It began on August 3rd with the reappearance of the Stukas, and during the next four weeks they made twelve attacks.

  By this time the Navy had added a new weapon to the harbour barrage in the form of three 20-barrel rocket-projectors. Each of these barrels fired a rocket, which burst open some distance above the harbour barrage and released two small white parachutes trailing a considerable length of piano wire with a small bomb on the end. The result was a parachute counterpart of a balloon barrage.

  When enemy pilots first met these rockets over Tobruk on August 10th they took violent avoiding action, but the leaders had already begun their dives before the rockets burst. Most of the eighteen pilots let their bombs go early in obvious panic. One plane crashed; one made for home with a parachute tangled in its rudder like a dog with a tin on its tail; two others were hit by bombs and the ack-ack damaged two more.

  In spite of this, the Stukas continued their attacks throughout August, but their tactics were very different from those of the early days. Then they had dived to 600 feet before releasing their bombs. Now they very seldom came below 3000 and most of them pulled out at 6000. Moreover, instead of diving steeply, the majority made only shallow glides, let their bombs go and then turned for home. Their caution was understandable, for in five out of seven raids in late August the leading plane was shot down.

  The final round in the battle between dive-bomber and ack-ack was fought on September 1st – the second anniversary of the Nazi attack on Poland. To mark the occasion Rommel launched against Tobruk more than 140 planes, 45 of them Stukas.

  From an escarpment about two miles south-west of the harbour, I watched this raid. It began just before noon on a hot, glaring day. When the ack-ack gave the first warning, the black shell-bursts guided our eyes to a formation of a dozen fighters and twin-engined bombers lazing along so high that we could hardly pick out their silver wings. As the ack-ack got on to them the planes swung away to avoid the barrage. Apparently they had intended to pattern-bomb the harbour, but their bombs thudded into the desert about half-way between the town and where we stood. A yellow dust-cloud went up hundreds of feet, and was soon streaked with black smoke and red flame from a blazing fuel dump.

  Before this had cleared away, the guns were going again. Behind the high-level bombers the Stukas were coming in. Two formations, each of about fifteen, were manoeuvring to begin their dives when the harbour barrage began. The air was soon spotted with puffs of smoke from bursting shells and criss-crossed with tracer fire from the Bofors; then above the barrage little white blobs unfolded like flowers in the sun. The rocket guns had hung their deadly parachutes above the bursting shells.

  As these unfurled, the Stukas began diving – each formation going for a heavy-gun site. Boldly they roared into their dives, but as they got near barrage and parachutes we could see them falter and their steep dives turned into shallow swoops. But some that pulled out early aimed their bombs accurately nevertheless. As these fell, one gun-position was enveloped in dust and smoke, but even while the last of the bombs were hurtling down we could see through the haze the short vivid flashes that told us that the gunners were still fighting back, although (as we found later) one man had been killed and six wounded.

  None of the Stukas tried to dive-bomb the harbour. Apparently the plan was for them to silence the guns, or at least to draw their fire, so that high-level bombers coming in behind them could pattern-bomb undisturbed. This plan miscarried. No more than half the heavy guns were needed to deal with the Stukas; the rest concentrated on breaking up the high-level formations – with such success that only one of these did any damage. It put some sixty bombs in a neat pattern all around one gun-position, but the pits were so well built that not a man was hurt and no equipment was damaged even though some bombs fell within ten yards of the pits.

  In the midst of this, to the west fifteen more dive-bombers were attacking the field guns near Pilastrino. From all over the flat behind us came the staccato chatter of captured 20 mm Bredas. Here the Stukas could afford to dive lower than they dared over the harbour, but the rumble of the last bursting bombs had barely died away before the artillery, determined to show the Germans that dive-bombers could not silence them, had every gun firing.

  Meantime about fifty other planes made half-hearted attacks on the forward troops, well clear of the area defended by the ack-ack guns. Maybe these planes had been intended to attack the harbour and had been discouraged by the barrage; or possibly the attack on the perimeter was part of an over-all blitz. Some of the aircraft, however, finished by bombing and machine-gunning their own troops, much to the satisfaction of the Diggers in the forward posts.

  This was an appropriate ending to Rommel’s last great air assault on Tobruk while the 9th Division was there. He lost very few planes (the A.A. claimed only one shot down and three probables), for most of the pilots made only half-hearted attacks. All Rommel’s 140 aircraft did less damage than had been caused in a surprise sortie a few weeks earlier by ‘Mickey’ and ‘Minnie’. The garrison’s only casualties were the seven ack-ack gunners already mentioned.

  From September 1st onwards day bombing was of small importance. The failure of the mass raid on September 1st closed the third phase of the Battle for the Harbour. Rommel
’s airmen had been beaten in daylight, and during the next two months 75 per cent of the bombing was carried out at night.

  The re-appearance of the dive-bombers in force in the last fortnight in August had coincided with the withdrawal of the first Australians. Warned of this by his spies in Alexandria, Rommel no doubt hoped that intensive dive-bombing of ack-ack guns and harbour just before dark might dislocate embarkation facilities and weaken the defences. But dive-bombing achieved neither, and night bombers in August found the barrage heavier than ever, for there were now ninety-three ack-ack guns in action. Because of this, night raids were even less successful than daylight attacks. Not once did they stop the destroyers coming in, or disorganize their unloading, or damage them while they were there. Night bombers, however, were the only weapon Rommel had left, and his increasing reliance on them was a tacit tribute to the Tobruk anti-aircraft defences. Over the six months’ period the increase was rather remarkable, as this table shows:

  The most serious night attacks were those made by mine-laying bombers from late July onwards. In September mines were dropped almost every night during the weeks when the destroyers were running. The planes glided in from the west at about 3000 feet, following the course of the long narrow channel, dropped their mines on parachutes and made off out to sea clear of the ack-ack. High-level bombers usually came in simultaneously to cover their approach and to draw the ack-ack fire. But radio-location sets picked up the low-flying minelayers, and the moment they approached the harbour hell was let loose. One night when we were making recordings from a gun-pit beside the harbour, there were seven minelaying attacks; in five of these the bombers sheered off when they struck the ack-ack and their mines fell some distance inland. The barrage lasted barely a minute; there was a short, sharp burst of fury as though someone had flashed a jet of fire quickly on and as quickly off.1