Farther south two large enemy columns moved across the open desert south of the long ridge that runs parallel to the sea and could be crossed only at Halfaya—the “Hellfire Pass” which played its part in all our later battles. Each Italian column consisted of many hundreds of vehicles, with tanks, anti-tank guns, and artillery in front, and with lorried infantry in the centre. This formation, which was several times adopted, we called the “Hedgehog”. Our forces fell back before these great numbers, taking every opportunity to harass the enemy, whose movements seemed erratic and indecisive. Graziani afterwards explained that at the last moment he decided to change his plan of an enveloping desert movement and “concentrate all my forces on the left to make a lightning movement along the coast to Sidi Barrani”. Accordingly the great Italian mass moved slowly forward along the coast road by two parallel tracks. They attacked in waves of infantry carried in lorries, sent forward in fifties. The Coldstream Guards fell back skilfully at their convenience from Sollum to successive positions for four days, inflicting severe punishment as they went.
On the 17th the Italian army reached Sidi Barrani. Our casualties were forty killed and wounded, and the enemy’s about ten times as many, including one hundred and fifty vehicles destroyed. Here, with their communications lengthened by sixty miles, the Italians settled down to spend the next three months. They were continually harassed by our small mobile columns, and suffered serious maintenance difficulties. Mussolini at first was “radiant with joy”. As the weeks lengthened into months his satisfaction diminished. It seemed however certain to us in London that in two or three months an Italian army far larger than any we could gather would renew the advance to capture the Delta. And then there were always the Germans who might appear! We could not of course expect the long halt which followed Graziani’s advance. It was reasonable to suppose that a major battle would be fought at Mersa Matruh. The weeks that had already passed had enabled our precious armour to come round the Cape without the time-lag so far causing disadvantage.
When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened. Certainly this is true of my life in September 1940. The Germans were beaten in the Air Battle of Britain. The overseas invasion of Britain was not attempted. In fact, by this date Hitler had already turned his glare upon the East. The Italians did not press their attack upon Egypt. The Tank Brigade sent all round the Cape arrived in good time, not indeed for a defensive battle of Mersa Matruh in September, but for a later operation incomparably more advantageous. We found means to reinforce Malta before any serious attack from the air was made upon it, and no one dared to try a landing upon the island fortress at any time. Thus September passed.
A fresh though not entirely unexpected outrage by Mussolini, with baffling problems and far-reaching consequences to all our harassed affairs, now broke upon the Mediterranean scene.
The Duce took the final decision to attack Greece on October 15, 1940, and before dawn on the 28th the Italian Minister in Athens presented an ultimatum to General Metaxas, the Premier of Greece. Mussolini demanded that the whole of Greece should be opened to Italian troops. At the same time the Italian army in Albania invaded Greece at various points. The Greek Government, whose forces were by no means unready on the frontier, rejected the ultimatum. They also invoked the guarantee given by Mr. Chamberlain on April 13, 1939. This we were bound to honour. By the advice of the War Cabinet, and from his own heart, His Majesty replied to the King of the Hellenes: “Your cause is our cause; we shall be fighting against a common foe.” I responded to the appeal of General Metaxas: “We will give you all the help in our power. We will fight a common foe and we will share a united victory.” This undertaking was during a long story made good.
Apart from a few air squadrons, a British mission, and perhaps some token troops, we had nothing to give; and even these trifles were a painful subtraction from ardent projects already lighting in the Libyan theatre. One salient strategic fact leaped out upon us—CRETE! The Italians must not have it. We must get it first—and at once. It was fortunate that at this moment Mr. Eden was in the Middle East, and that I thus had a ministerial colleague on the spot with whom to deal. I telegraphed to him, and at the invitation of the Greek Government, Suda Bay, the best harbour in Crete, was occupied by our forces a few days later.
The story of Suda Bay is sad. The tragedy was not reached until 1941. I believe I had as much direct control over the conduct of the war as any public man had in any country at this time. The knowledge I possessed, the fidelity and active aid of the War Cabinet, the loyalty of all my colleagues, the ever-growing efficiency of our war machine, all enabled an intense focusing of constitutional authority to be achieved. Yet how far short was the action taken by the Middle East Command of what was ordered and what we all desired! In order to appreciate the limitations of human action, it must be remembered how much was going on in every direction at the same time. Nevertheless it remains astonishing to me that we should have failed to make Suda Bay the amphibious citadel of which all Crete was the fortress.
The Italian invasion of Greece from Albania was another heavy rebuff to Mussolini. The first assault was repulsed with heavy loss, and the Greeks immediately counter-attacked. The Greek army, under General Papagos, showed superior skill in mountain warfare, outmanœuvring and outflanking their enemy. By the end of the year their prowess had forced the Italians thirty miles behind the Albanian frontier along the whole front. For several months twenty-seven Italian divisions were pinned in Albania by sixteen Greek divisions. The remarkable Greek resistance did much to hearten the other Balkan countries and Mussolini’s prestige sank low.
DESERT VICTORY Dec. 1940–Jan. 1941
THE ADVANCE FROM TOBRUK
There was more to follow. Mr. Eden got back home on November 8, and came that evening after the usual raid had begun to see me. He brought with him a carefully-guarded secret which I wished I had known earlier. Nevertheless no harm had been done. Eden unfolded in considerable detail to a select circle, including the C.I.G.S. and General Ismay, the offensive plan which General Wavell and General Wilson had conceived and prepared. No longer were we to await in our fortified lines at Mersa Matruh an Italian assault, for which defensive battle such long and artful preparations had been made. On the contrary, within a month or so we were ourselves to attack.
We were all delighted. I purred like six cats. Here was something worth doing. It was decided there and then, subject to the agreement of the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet, to give immediate sanction and all possible support to this splendid enterprise, In due course the proposals were brought before the War Cabinet. I was ready to state the case or have it stated. But when my colleagues learned that the Generals on the spot and the Chiefs of Staff were in full agreement with me and Mr. Eden, they declared that they did not wish to know the details of the plan, that the fewer who knew them the better, and that they whole-heartedly approved the general policy of the offensive. This was the attitude which the War Cabinet adopted on several important occasions, and I record it here that it may be a model, should similar dangers and difficulties arise in future times.
Although we were still heavily outnumbered on paper by the Italian Fleet, marked improvements had now been made in our Mediterranean strength. During September the Valiant, the armoured-deck aircraft-carrier Illustrious, and two anti-aircraft cruisers had come safely through the Mediterranean to join Admiral Cunningham at Alexandria. Hitherto his ships had always been observed and usually bombed by the greatly superior Italian Air Force. The Illustrious, with her modern fighters and latest Radar equipment, by striking down patrols and assailants gave a new secrecy to our movements. This advantage was timely.
He had long been anxious to strike a blow at the Italian Fleet as they lay in their main base at Taranto. The attack was delivered on November 11 as the climax of a well-concerted series of operations, Taranto lies in t
he heel of Italy three hundred and twenty miles from Malta. Its magnificent harbour was heavily defended against all modern forms of attack. The arrival at Malta of some fast reconnaissance machines enabled us to discern our prey. The Illustrious released her aircraft shortly after dark from a point about a hundred and seventy miles from Taranto. For an hour the battle raged amid fire and destruction among the Italian ships. Despite the heavy flak only two of our aircraft were shot down. The rest flew safely back.
By this single stroke the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean was decisively altered. The air photographs showed that three battleships, one of them the new Littorio, had been torpedoed, and in addition one cruiser was reported hit and much damage inflicted on the dockyard. Half the Italian battle fleet was disabled for at least six months, and the Fleet Air Arm could rejoice at having seized by their gallant exploit one of the rare opportunities presented to them.
An ironic touch is imparted to this event by the fact that on this very day the Italian Air Force at the express wish of Mussolini had taken part in the air attack on Great Britain. An Italian bomber force, escorted by about sixty fighters, attempted to bomb Allied convoys in the Medway. They were intercepted by our fighters, eight bombers and five fighters being shot down. This was their first and last intervention in our domestic affairs. They might have found better employment defending their fleet at Taranto.
For a month or more all the troops to be used in our desert offensive practised the special parts they had to play in the extremely complicated attack. Only a small circle of officers knew the full scope of the plan, and practically nothing was put on paper. On December 6 our lean, bronzed, desert-hardened, and completely mechanised army of about twenty-five thousand men leaped forward more than forty miles, and all next day lay motionless on the desert sand unseen by the Italian Air Force. They swept forward again on December 8, and that evening, for the first time, the troops were told that this was no desert exercise, but the “real thing”. At dawn on the 9th the battle of Sidi Barrani began.
It is not my purpose to describe the complicated and dispersed fighting which occupied the next four days over a region as large as Yorkshire. Everything went smoothly. Fighting continued all through the 10th, and by ten o’clock the Coldstream battalion headquarters signalled that it was impossible to count the prisoners on account of their numbers, but that “there were about five acres of officers and two hundred acres of other ranks”. At home in Downing Street they brought me hour-to-hour signals from the battlefield. It was difficult to understand exactly what was happening, but the general impression was favourable, and I remember being struck by a message from a young officer in a tank of the 7th Armoured Division: “Have arrived at the second B in Buq Buq.” Sidi Barrani was captured on the afternoon of the 10th and by December 15 all enemy troops had been driven from Egypt.
Bardia was our next objective. Within its perimeter, seventeen miles in extent, was the greater part of four more Italian divisions. The defences comprised a continuous anti-tank ditch and wire obstacles with concrete block-houses at intervals, and behind this was a second line of fortifications. The storming of this considerable stronghold required preparation, and to complete this episode of desert victory I shall intrude upon the New Year. The attack opened early on January 3. One Australian battalion, covered by a strong artillery concentration, seized and held a lodgment in the western perimeter. Behind them engineers filled in the anti-tank ditch. Two Australian brigades carried on the attack and swept east and south-eastwards. They sang at that time a song from an American film, which soon became popular also in Britain:
“We’re off to see the Wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz.
We hear he is a Whiz of a Wiz,
If ever a Wiz there was.”
This tune always reminds me of these buoyant days. By the afternoon of the 4th, British tanks—“Matildas”, as they were named—supported by infantry, entered Bardia, and by the 5th all the defenders had surrendered. 45,000 prisoners and 462 guns were taken.
By next day, January 6, Tobruk in its turn had been isolated. It was not possible to launch the assault till January 21. By early next morning all resistance ceased. The prisoners amounted to nearly 30,000 with 236 guns. The Desert Army had in six weeks advanced over two hundred miles of waterless and foodless space, had taken by assault two strongly fortified seaports with permanent air and marine defences, and captured 113,000 prisoners and over 700 guns. The great Italian Army which had invaded and hoped to conquer Egypt scarcely existed as a military force, and only the imperious difficulties of distance and supplies delayed an indefinite British advance to the west.
As the end of the year approached both its lights and its shadows stood out harshly on the picture. We were alive. We had beaten the German Air Force. There had been no invasion of the Island. The Army at home was now very powerful. London had stood triumphant through all her ordeals. Everything connected with our air mastery over our own Island was improving fast. The smear of Communists who obeyed their Moscow orders gibbered about a Capitalist-Imperialist War. But the factories hummed and the whole British nation toiled night and day, uplifted by a surge of relief and pride. Victory sparkled in the Libyan desert, and across the Atlantic the Great Republic drew ever nearer to her duty and our aid.
We may, I am sure, rate this tremendous year as the most splendid, as it was the most deadly, year in our long English and British story. It was a great, quaintly-organised England that had destroyed the Spanish Armada. A strong flame of conviction and resolve carried us through the twenty-five years’ conflict which William III and Marlborough waged against Louis XIV. There was a famous period with Chatham. There was the long struggle against Napoleon, in which our survival was secured through the domination of the seas by the British Navy under the classic leadership of Nelson and his associates. A million Britons died in the first World War. But nothing surpasses 1940. By the end of that year this small and ancient Island, with its devoted Commonwealth, Dominions, and attachments under every sky, had proved itself capable of bearing the whole impact and weight of world destiny. We had not flinched or wavered. We had not failed. The soul of the British people and race had proved invincible. The citadel of the Commonwealth and Empire could not be stormed. Alone, but upborne by every generous heart-beat of mankind, we had defied the tyrant in the height of his triumph.
All our latent strength was now alive. The air terror had been measured. The Island was intangible, inviolate. Henceforward we too would have weapons with which to fight. Henceforward we too would be a highly organised war machine. We had shown the world that we could hold our own. There were two sides to the question of Hitler’s world domination. Britain, whom so many had counted out, was still in the ring, far stronger than she had ever been, and gathering strength with every day. Time had once again come over to our side. And not only to our national side. The United States was arming fast and drawing ever nearer to the conflict. Soviet Russia, who with callous miscalculation had adjudged us worthless at the outbreak of the war, and had bought from Germany fleeting immunity and a share of the booty, had also become much stronger and had secured advanced positions for her own defence. Japan seemed for the moment to be overawed by the evident prospect of a prolonged world war, and, anxiously watching Russia and the United States, meditated profoundly what it would be wise and profitable to do.
And now this Britain, and its far-spread association of states and dependencies, which had seemed on the verge of ruin, whose very heart was about to be pierced, had been for fifteen months concentrated upon the war problem, training its men and devoting all its infinitely-varied vitalities to the struggle. With a gasp of astonishment and relief the smaller neutrals and the subjugated states saw that the stars still shone in the sky. Hope, and within it passion, burned anew in the hearts of hundreds of millions of men. The good cause would triumph. Right would not be trampled down. The flag of Freedom, which in this fateful hour was the Union Jack, would still fl
y in all the winds that blew.
But I and my faithful colleagues who brooded with accurate information at the summit of the scene had no lack of cares. The shadow of the U-boat blockade already cast its chill upon us. All our plans depended upon the defeat of this menace. The Battle of France was lost. The Battle of Britain was won. The Battle of the Atlantic had now to be fought.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WIDENING WAR
WITH the New Year more intimate contacts developed with President Roosevelt. I had already sent him the compliments of the season, and on January 10, 1941, a gentleman arrived to see me at Downing Street with the highest credentials. Telegrams had been received from Washington stating that he was the closest confidant and personal agent of the President. I therefore arranged that he should be met by Mr. Brendan Bracken on his arrival at Poole Airport, and that we should lunch together alone the next day. Thus I met Harry Hopkins, that extraordinary man, who played, and was to play, a sometimes decisive part in the whole movement of the war. His was a soul that flamed out of a frail and failing body. He was a crumbling lighthouse from which there shone the beams that led great fleets to harbour. He had also a gift of sardonic humour. I always enjoyed his company, especially when things went ill. He could also be very disagreeable and say hard and sour things. My experiences were teaching me to be able to do this too, if need be.
The Second World War Page 51
