Back to Battle

by Max Hennessy

  At Gibraltar, Kelly was once again sworn to secrecy and informed there was to be a major landing on the North African coast. The date was governed by the need to help the Russians and to avoid the deterioration in the weather. The Americans were running the affair and Eisenhower, the American general in command, despite a lack of battle experience, was proving enormously popular with the officers beneath him.

  Cunningham was there, too, and it was he who briefed Kelly. He grinned in his usual way, quite unabashed at having summoned him to his side. ‘Sorry about Force T,’ he said. ‘But this other thing came up and when your name was mentioned we had to hold that in abeyance for the time being, because you’re more use here for the moment. This operation’s going to provide the second arm of a pincer that’ll finish the Germans for good and all in North Africa, make the Mediterranean and Malta safe, and provide a springboard into Europe. There’ll be three main landings, at Algiers and Oran inside the Med and at Casablanca on the Moroccan coast. In addition there’ll be a smaller landing at Hellilah to secure the port installations there for further moves eastward.’

  ‘And me, sir?’

  Cunningham smiled. ‘There’s always a snag, isn’t there?’ he said. ‘The assault was originally to have been entirely American but in the end some of the troops are going to have to be British, though we’re keeping ’em well hidden under the American cloak. However, there’s still a fear that the French are going to resist and we’ve laid on a few cloak-and-dagger operations to contact their key men. Mark Clark’s being embarked by submarine to land west of Algiers and you’re for Hellilah.’

  ‘Why me, sir?’

  ‘Because you speak French and so does your secretary, and we have a Frenchman there who says he can do a deal if he meets a man with the right standing. He mentioned your name. Admiral Buzon. Know him?’

  ‘Never heard of him, sir.’

  ‘Well, he’s heard of you and he’s hoping to bring his people in behind us. It’ll be your job to make sure he knows exactly what we want – chief among which are undamaged port installations. We have a French pilot and a Desoutter four-seater, and he’s going to fly you and Boyle to Ain Aflou where there’ll be fuel. From there you’ll go to Amimoun where Admiral Buzon’s car will be waiting for you. Boyle’s to know nothing of all this in advance, by the way. He’s here merely to make sure no linguistic errors creep in. You’ll be flown to your new command as soon as it’s over.’

  The strain placed on Gibraltar’s resources and the organisation of auxiliary craft, tugs, tankers, colliers, ammunition vessels and special personnel by the coming invasion was tremendous, and the staff had established themselves in damp, airless offices under the Rock where Kelly was wheeled into Eisenhower. He was a tall man who explained the seriousness of the task.

  ‘There are a few of our people, I guess,’ he said, ‘who fancy that the French have only to know that the Americans are running the show to welcome us with open arms, and ships have loud-hailers on their bridges ready to make appeals to them.’ He gave an infectious grin. ‘So that they won’t think it’s a Gaullist or an Englishman making the announcement, we’ve picked Americans who speak French with bad accents. I guess we’re hoping it’ll have the same effect as Joshua’s trumpets at Jericho.’

  ‘Probably attract a terrific fire when they hear their language being massacred,’ Cunningham commented.

  Eisenhower smiled and continued. ‘You have four days, and by the time you get back the convoys should be approaching Gibraltar. They’ll need to be assured that it’s not going to be too tough, because most of these guys are pretty green and we haven’t had the time to give them the final polish. You’ll be put on board the United States cruiser, Tyree, for the landing.’

  The French pilot had a familiar look about him and Kelly recognised him as Leduc, the man who’d flown him into Santander in 1937. They left as soon as it was dark and an hour later were picking up Spanish Morocco. It was odd to look down, with the lights from the dials reflected on their faces, and think they were about to land in neutral, if not enemy, territory. Dimly-seen mountains swept back beneath them as they began to descend and, as the machine rattled to a stop on a stony airstrip, faces appeared in the dark alongside and there were muttered words in French. They didn’t leave the machine but they could tell they were at a high altitude from the brisk air. Men were busy on the wings with cans as the tanks were refilled, then there was a bang on the fuselage and a figure appeared in front of the nose to swing the propeller.

  Lifting out of the darkness, Leduc turned east and they flew along the edge of the Little Atlas Mountains, navigating by dead reckoning, with all three of them checking to make sure there were no mistakes. Eventually, growing stiff and cold, they saw three lights winking at them from below in the shape of an L, and Leduc tilted the aircraft to sideslip in.

  ‘I hope you can do it,’ Kelly said.

  ‘I’ve been doing it for six months into France,’ Leduc smiled. ‘Dropping agents.’

  As the machine rumbled to a stop, there was a bang on the door and a dark face appeared alongside. As they were led to a car they heard the aeroplane swing round and, as the car drew away, saw it moving off into the darkness.

  Nobody spoke and they drove in silence for an hour over a road that seemed specially designed to shake the liver loose before eventually pulling up at an unlit house. Escorted between a high hedge of aloes on to a veranda, they moved through a door into total darkness. Then, as the door clicked behind them, the light went on.

  Wondering if it were a trap, Kelly stared round him. There were half a dozen men in the room, all obviously French and, judging by the cut of their jibs, all-naval men. As he was still blinking, a door opened and a tall man with a lean face advanced towards them, smiling, his hand held out in greeting.

  Kelly and Boyle exchanged quick glances and smiled back.

  ‘Archie Bumf!’

  ‘Admiral le Comte d’Archy de Boumfre-Bouzon,’ the man who had brought them said indignantly.

  There was an enthusiastic and delighted greeting between the three of them, then wine and food were brought and even before they’d finished it they were getting down to work with directions, distances, lists and numbers.

  ‘True Frenchmen are waiting to welcome the forces of freedom,’ d’Archy announced. ‘There will have to be a fight, of course, because Darlan doesn’t like the British and it will be consonant with honour. But it won’t last long and, here, it will not take place at all. The lighthouse at Pou will be lit and we shall be holding a practice blackout to make the task easier. But you’ll have to be quick and if there’s any resistance it will come from the battery at Mersa-el-Fam where the commander has strange ideas about patriotism. A solitary salvo into the countryside behind should be enough to convince him that resistance would be pointless.’ Papers were pushed across. ‘These are the co-ordinates and we would prefer that the salvo did not land on the battery.’

  Poring over the maps for the rest of the night, they slept during the next day. Leduc was waiting for them at Amimoun the following evening and the journey back to Ain Afrou was without incident. Leduc asked no questions and they refuelled quickly and were soon crossing the narrow strait in a south-east to north-west direction. Gibraltar, brilliantly lit, was impossible to miss and, as they touched down, they were met by a car and rushed up the winding road to the galleries in the Rock.

  ‘I think you’d better get some sleep,’ Kelly was told. ‘A Catalina will be leaving tomorrow to meet Tyree.’

  The Catalina was an American aircraft with a British crew and, squatting in the blisters, they were flown directly north-west. The weather in the Atlantic was deteriorating and there were a few anxious faces. The Eighth Army was still chasing Rommel along the north coast of Africa and British submarines and surface ships were hammering every attempt to carry supplies to him. After three hours, they saw a vast collection of ships plodding doggedly eastwards and the Catalina landed on the water within reach of a dest
royer, which put down a whaler.

  It was difficult putting out an inflated dinghy and climbing into it in the seas that were getting up, and they even began to wonder if they’d make it. But the destroyer gave them a lee and they were soon on board the whaler and heading for Tyree.

  The American admiral greeted them warmly. His name was Charles J Allington and he insisted on Kelly addressing him as ‘Al.’ He was brisk and no-nonsense but was clearly glad to see Kelly. This was his first wartime operation and he was glad to know the reception was to be favourable because the convoy had been shadowed for some time by aircraft.

  ‘Intelligence says we’re believed to be just an extra large convoy for Malta and that the Krauts are massing their aircraft in Sardinia and Sicily,’ he said. ‘I sure hope they’re right.’

  He was faintly awed to be surrounded by so much history. Certainly no waters in the world had seen so many maritime engagements. It was here that Drake had singed the King of Spain’s beard, here that Rodney and Jervis had won their victories, here that Nelson had commanded, here finally that Cunningham had held the waters.

  All round them were troopships, landing craft, escort vessels and covering warships. There was absolute silence and a severely guarded black-out. As the ships passed through the Strait the sea was calmer and conditions were clearly favourable for a landing. Pilotage parties had reconnoitred the beaches ahead and boats with shaded lights lay stationed offshore to assist navigation. Throughout the voyage the troops had been practising going to their landing craft stations, at first in daylight and then after dark, and everybody had an American-prepared booklet on North Africa which contained a great deal of value, chief among which was the sentence ‘Do not monkey about with Mohammedan women.’

  A cluster of lights appeared on the port bow, sharp against the shadow of the land, which they identified as Talebala.

  ‘There’ll be a black-out at Hellilah,’ Kelly said.

  ‘Fine. What’s our position, Navigator?’

  ‘Seven miles offshore, sir.’

  Allington pulled a face and turned to Kelly. ‘How’s about moving in closer? My orders say seven miles and the US Navy’s strict about following orders, but I guess I wouldn’t like to travel seven miles in the darkness in one of those goddam landing craft. What do you say?’

  Kelly smiled. ‘We have a saying in our Navy,’ he pointed out, ‘that a bit of Nelson’s blind eye never did anybody any harm.’

  Helillah was a lucky landing. They could hear gunfire from further west near Algiers where landing craft and the destroyer, Broke, were sunk and the destroyer, Malcolm, was badly hit in the boiler room, but at Helillah there was only a solitary shot fired at them from the battery at Mersa-el-Fam. A salvo from Tyree into the country behind encouraged the battery commander in the belief that resistance wasn’t worthwhile, and soon after the troops went ashore a rocket soared up to indicate the landing was unopposed.

  The French resistance stiffened the following morning, however, and batteries at Cape Matifu had to be bombarded before they fell into Allied hands and, with a freshening wind, the unloading of stores on to the captured beaches was delayed and landing craft were wrecked. By late afternoon, however, they heard the French were willing to negotiate and the whole coast fell.

  Algiers, where headquarters was set up, was beautiful, row on row of white buildings climbing up the hills above the bay, with the white mosques of the Kasbah gleaming in the morning sunshine to make a wavering reflection in the dark-hued sea. The place was full of round-eyed young soldiers newly out from England and America, flamboyant Algerian cavalrymen, piled-up fruit barrows, black shoeshine boys, Arab women in coloured veils, and street vendors offering necklaces and fly whisks.

  The French were polite, even if not friendly, but the political stew had been unwholesome for so long the suspicion in the air made the place uncomfortable. The French hated the Allies, particularly the British, and there were thousands of refugees, many of them rich from the profits they’d made supplying the Germans. However, Algiers was considered to be part of Metropolitan France and, with the Allies actually on French soil, they finally discovered they were happy about it and set about making them welcome.

  Kelly’s share had not gone unnoticed and Boyle caught a glimpse of a letter from Cunningham to Ramsay, ‘…Ginger Maguire did very well and thoroughly justified his choice…’, but the smell of intrigue and bad feeling among the French was still strong and both Kelly and Boyle were glad when a signal arrived instructing them that their job was done and that they were to report back to the Admiralty.

  Back in England, Kelly was given the choice of leave or going at once to Force T, which had been temporarily commanded by the captain of Chichester. He didn’t hesitate.

  Paddy was at Thakeham as he stopped there to pick up his gear. She’d just received a signal telling her to report to HM Hospital Ship Anarapoora.

  ‘Where is she?’ she asked.

  It took Kelly only a few minutes to find out. ‘Anchored off Lyness. It’s Scapa.’

  He had expected her face to fall. Most people’s faces fell when they heard they were posted to Scapa. But her eyes were dancing.

  ‘Hugh’s due up there,’ she said. ‘I wonder if he pulled some strings.’

  Kelly’s first job was to learn something about his ships and the captains serving under him. Chichester was one of the City-class ships, handsome with heavily raked funnels and quite capable of her designed speed of thirty-two knots. She had twelve six-inch guns in four turrets of three guns each, two forward and two aft, eight four-inch ack-ack guns, light weapons, and three torpedo tubes on each side. Her consort, Sarawak, was similar and slightly faster. Henry Pardoe, Kelly’s flag captain and senior staff officer, was a little older than Kelly, somewhat unimaginative but with a solid record and no fear. Cassell, of Sarawak, had been in Kelly’s term at Dartmouth, where he’d been noted for his intelligence and commonsense, and the destroyer captains were equally experienced.

  As the group left harbour for working-up exercises, Kelly was determined that each of the individualists astern of him – and there wasn’t a naval officer born who wasn’t an individualist in some way – would quickly learn that the squadron was to be a solidly-welded unit. All day they carried out gunnery exercises and at night executed movements in the dark. By March they were as trained as time would allow and every captain knew not only what his brother captains would do, he also knew what his admiral expected of him.

  They guessed they were due for Scapa when they’d finished, because Scapa was on the way to Russia and lay across the route of the German heavy ships in the Norwegian fjords, and when, soon afterwards, they were directed to Glasgow to ammunition and store ship, they knew they would soon be off to sea in earnest. As they arrived in the Clyde, Kelly saw Anarapoora lying off Greenock. Immediately, he sent a signal asking Paddy to have dinner with him in Glasgow, and her message came back, warm, enthusiastic and as impertinent as ever.

  ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a handsome flag lieutenant,’ she said. ‘I’d like to bring a friend.’

  The flag lieutenant was a donnish young RNVR with a Cambridge degree, and the two girls were excited and obviously delighted to be seen in the company of an admiral. They were happy enough in Anarapoora, an old Henderson line ship, and, not a bit disturbed about the loneliness of Scapa, were chiefly concerned with the way the Goanese crew felt the cold.

  ‘They’re half-frozen most of the time up there,’ Paddy said. ‘So we spend all our spare time knitting woollen comforts for them. It’s a bit lonely, too, but there’s a depot ship, Dunluce Castle, and destroyers and patrol vessels come in from the North Atlantic for refuelling or a day or two ashore, so we see a bit of life.’

  ‘What about amenities?’

  She gave him her familiar grin. ‘There aren’t any. Just thousands of sex-starved males. Actually, we get an occasional visit to Kirkwall for shopping or dinner at the Royal Hotel where the Fleet Air Arm pilots from Hatston try to pic
k us up. Or an occasional dance at the Church of Scotland hut. They send a signal and there’s a hair-raising journey in a drifter through the darkness. We’re not good dancers but we’re good listeners and the inevitable walletful of photographs is always brought out. It’s the homesickness of the men that touches you most.’

  ‘It was in the last war.’

  ‘I hear we’re going to Rosyth,’ she went on excitedly, and Hugh’s due there, too, in a shore job, so we’ll be able to behave like husband and wife at last. He might even manage to make me pregnant.’

  Scapa didn’t change much. For anyone going on leave, it was still the longest railway ride in Britain and the train, Kelly noticed, was still called ‘The Jellicoe Express’ after the commander-in-chief in the First War who had initiated it. Though to those reservists who remembered the previous war, the place was bursting with welfare facilities and canteens, there was nothing to attract the townsmen now coming into the Navy, nothing to compensate for being set down in this inhospitable outpost, and the situation was not improved by the fact that many of them had only recently been dragged away from desks and factories. There were no pubs, no dance halls and, above all, no girls, and even the fact that the Women’s Royal Naval Service was there operating signals stations made little difference. Scapa was as popular in this war as it had been in the last, yet, when the weather was calm, the colour and cloud effects were as magical as ever; and, when the water was as smooth as glass and the ships were reflected mirror-like in the water, it was possible to believe that it was a nautical valhalla and that the story about the seagulls being the spirits of drowned sailors was true.

  As the winter deepened, they made occasional sorties to sea and eventually were sent to Glasgow again to refuel. Anarapoora was there once more and once more Kelly invited Paddy out to dinner. She seemed full of spirit and quite undeterred by the isolation.