The one brush the Italians had with the Royal Navy had occurred at the Battle of Calabria, called the Battle of Punta Stilo, fought 30 miles east of that point on the toe of Italy’s boot. The Italians had a large army to supply and support in Libya, and they had dispatched a heavily escorted convoy to Benghazi just as the British were organizing a similar operation to send supplies to Malta. Each side had a strong mixed force of cruisers and destroyers, backed up by battleships in what would become one of the largest fleet engagements in the Mediterranean conflict. In the end it came down to the three British battleships, Warspite, Malaya and Royal Sovereign, five light cruisers, the carrier Eagle, and sixteen destroyers, against an equal Italian fleet composed of two battleships, Cavour and Cesare, six heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, and also sixteen destroyers. The British had an edge in battleships and with the planes aboard HMS Eagle, but the Italians had many more cruisers.
The man who might have led the British cruisers, Admiral John Tovey, was not there in this go round, having taken his early appointment to command Home Fleet. The action was scattered and inconclusive on both sides, with Warspite scoring the only hit of note, a long shot fired from a range of nearly 26,000 yards in a duel with the two Italian battleships. The round struck the Cesare aft, setting off a ready store a 37mm AA gun ammunition, and the resulting fire spread below decks to compromise half the ships boilers. It was a hit to match the feat of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst when it encountered HMS Glorious, the shot that still troubled the sleep of Captain Christopher Wells on that ship.
After this the Italian destroyers rushed in to lay down a smoke screen, which the British took to be a cover allowing the Italian battleships to break off. They would claim a moral victory in the action, though the Italians would later say those destroyers were setting up a torpedo attack in the thickening smoke. The cruisers continued to exchange fire, and both sides made unsuccessful destroyer rushes, but the action was largely inconclusive. The Italian air force showed up to attack ships on both sides in a fiasco that saw them trying to bomb their own cruisers. Little damage was done, and both sides turned for the safety of friendly ports. Yet the Italian convoy to Benghazi got through, and they would use that fact to claim a pyrrhic victory. The real effect of the battle, however, was to increase the timidity of the Italian Navy when the threat of a confrontation with the Royal Navy was factored into any plan.
The British were confident they could hold their own and eventually dominate the Italian Navy, and they were hatching a plan to make that a certainty as HMS Hermes slipped quietly through the Suez Canal to join the fleet on the 12th of January. She would join the Eagle for a daring raid against the main Italian base at Taranto, and the Old Stringbags would attempt to torpedo the enemy battleships as they wallowed in port.
Part VI
Sonnenblume
"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general."
― Winston Churchill
Chapter 16
The plan had been called “Hercules” in the history Fedorov knew, but it had emerged in the minds of the German war planners much earlier in this world, and blossomed here in the same energy that was giving life to Rommel’s movement to North Africa. Now it was seen to bloom like the sunflower Rommel’s operation was named for, and so Keitel’s entire plan was folded into Sonnenblume, and would become an essential component of its success. The loss of Gibraltar had indeed put a keen focus on the Mediterranean as the next theater of war. Hitler’s naval liaison officer to the Italians in Rome, Vice Admiral Weichold echoed the sentiment of many others when he wrote his final report on the matter and delivered it directly to the Führer.
“Malta is the stumbling block of Italy’s conduct of the war at sea. If the Italian navy is to fulfill its main function, which is to keep open sea communications with Libya, then—from the purely military standpoint—it must take action immediately and forestall the British by eliminating Malta and capturing Crete. Both of these operations, if carefully prepared and launched without warning, have excellent prospect of success, though the latter would certainly entail a greater degree of risk. I strongly recommend that Malta be given the highest priority, and if not taken by the Italians in December, it should become a primary focus of German military action with the new year.”
The voices and heads were now lining up on the issue of Malta, Raeder, Keitel, Jodl, Halder, Kesselring, and Rommel all in unanimous agreement that it should become the next target, and to this chorus the secret whispers of Ivan Volkov continued urging Hitler to do exactly this were enough to tip the balance. Watch your enemy, Ivan Volkov had whispered. What does he covet? Look how he stubbornly holds on to the island of Malta. He knows the value of that place, even though it is far from Alexandria and can no longer be supported from Gibraltar.
Kesselring was consulted by Hitler and calmly told the Führer that Malta would be far easier to take than Crete, agreeing with Raeder that the opportunity to do so was ripe at this very moment. “Look how easily we took their precious Rock of Gibraltar,” he said. “Malta will fall like a plum, right into our hands with no trouble.”
As further inducement, he produced an old volume containing Napoleon’s plan for the capture of the island in 1798, an item that Hitler found most interesting and persuasive.
For his part, Rommel could see that if the Luftwaffe pursued the Italian strategy of trying to bomb the island into submission, all those planes that might be supporting him in the desert would be tied up for months. Better now than later, he said of the plan when he finally heard that Keitel had formally proposed the operation to Hitler. He even offered to go and lead the attack himself, but yielded to Student as being more versed in airborne operations. It was now unanimous.
In spite of his worries over the threat Crete posed to the oil fields of Ploesti, Hitler was finally convinced to attack Malta first. “Crete can be taken after we conclude operations in the Baltic,” the generals and Admirals assured him. And with his grudging approval, the history of the war had come to its second major point of divergence.
The Germans planned to introduce their air strength first, with the aim of extending the Italian effort there and neutralizing the air defenses of the island. Once the defense had been suppressed, then Student would get his day in the skies, and his Fallschirmjagers would launch their daring attack. Italy would participate by providing shipping necessary to move one full regiment of German mountain troops, augmented by a battalion of the Italian San Marco Marines, a token force to allow Mussolini a scrap of honor in the situation that again saw the Germans taking the primary role from an otherwise inept Italian military.
The Germans had learned some valuable lessons in watching the British operate with their navy. They had finally come to realize the great value and importance of sea power as a guarantor of the lifeline of supply. This had never been necessary before in German operations, which had always been lines of communication on land. Now, however, with Germany contemplating a significant projection of power into the Eastern Mediterranean, a secure supply line by sea was essential. They were finally beginning to perceive the strong connection and relationship that sea power had to operations by the Luftwaffe. In this, the performance of Graf Zeppelin had opened many eyes. If anything, it was lack of adequate shipping that had forced the cancellation of Operation Seelöwe, that and the fact that Goering had not delivered on his promise of defeating the R.A.F. Without dominating the skies over the English Channel, the Royal Navy then became a dangerous counter to any plan to invade England.
This hard lesson was now applied to the situation in the Med, and even Hitler began to see how things had changed after the capture of Gibraltar. The Germans now understood that to fight here, they had to control the airspace first, and then introduce naval forces of sufficient quality and number to hold the formidable power of the Royal Navy at bay. The war at sea would be an essential prerequisite to winning any battle on land. That
was one salient point that arose in all those discussions at OKW with Admiral Raeder.
Admiral Lütjens and Captain Karl Adler aboard the Hindenburg would soon have some most interesting orders, and a formidable fleet would be assembled in the west as the naval covering force for Sonnenblume. It would be a combined operation, the first of the war between the French Navy and the Kriegsmarine. While there was still little love between the two forces, and much resentment against the Germans, the ill will the French sailors held towards the British after Mers-el Kebir and Dakar was more raw. The Germans proposed to bring two powerful ships, first to Gibraltar where they would briefly enjoy the fruits of the recent German victory there, and then into the Mediterranean itself. The entire German battlegroup that had managed to reach French ports would be involved, but it had to again slip past the watch of Admiral Somerville’s Force H.
The German intelligence soon indicated that the British had further designs on Dakar, and that they had even retained forces in Freetown that could be used in another operation there. So the Germans convinced the French that the place was simply too far away to adequately defend, and that Casablanca was a far better location for their Atlantic Force De Raid. It was only 180 miles south of Gibraltar, protected by German infantry now crossing into Spanish Morocco, and covered easily by German air power.
In spite of its utility as a knife in the gut of the British convoy routes into the South Atlantic, Dakar was another 1500 miles to the south and would have to be supplied by sea, under the constant threat of interdiction by the Royal Navy. The French finally agreed, moving their big ships out of Dakar, along with all the gold they had hidden away in an operation they called “Terme de l’or,” the Gold Run to Casablanca. This left Dakar deliberately open to British attack, and the forces that had been languishing at Lagos and Freetown were soon put to good use in a second attempt to seize that place. In doing this the Axis traded this valuable port, and the threat it represented, in the interest of furthering their own plans.
Admiral Somerville had moved Force H south of Casablanca to cover the seizure of the Cape Verde Islands, and now Dakar. Churchill was clucking when all these operations went off unopposed by the powerful French Navy, which seemed content to sit in its new nest at Casablanca. The British took The Azores, Madiera, the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and Dakar was the icing on that cake. But while that operation was underway, Admiral Lütjens got new orders from Raeder.
On a foggy night in mid January, the boilers were fired up on the big German battleship Hindenburg at Saint Nazaire. It slipped into the fog, soon to be joined by Bismarck, the battlecruiser Kaiser and the light escort carrier Goeben. While the cat was away with Force H to the south, the mice would play. German intelligence covered the move by deliberately producing false battle orders indicating that the ships were to be recalled to German ports. Bletchley Park picked up the messages, decoded them, and the Germans learned an interesting thing that day. The British were reading their Enigma messages, for their Home Fleet began to immediately work up steam, deploying to the Irish Sea in a good blocking position to intercept any German move into the Atlantic or English Channel.
Ivan Volkov had told the Germans the British had unlocked the secret of their Enigma machine, but they did not believe that possible. Now they began to suspect it was true, and made arrangements to introduce an entirely new code. It was a move that would have dramatic consequences, for the information war was one great conflict the British had won early on, and it led them to many other victories on the ground.
Just as Dakar finally fell into British hands, and Churchill was about to make the announcement in the House of Commons, the news came that one of the three French battleships at Casablanca had put to sea with an escort of cruisers and destroyers, and that both the formidable German battleships had turned south, for Gibraltar, where both forces were soon in a fist of threatening steel. French forces at Toulon were put on short notice that fleet action was imminent, and the Italians were asked to perform a service as well by getting up steam in the battleships they had at Taranto.
This activity had yet another major consequence. The British plan for a surprise raid on Taranto was suddenly foiled by the imminent movement of the Italian fleet. Admiral Cunningham was given the news and told instead that he must make the fleet ready to oppose possible enemy operations at sea. The enemy intent was not yet clear, but one thing was—the Italian battleships would not be found as easy targets at Taranto. They were putting out to sea.
All these naval forces were about to maneuver into the Mediterranean, and they would set up a titanic battle that would decide who controlled those vital sea lanes, and by extension, who controlled the whole coast of North Africa—all the way to Alexandria and Suez beyond. Yet even as the British were trying to sort out these naval maneuvers and determine what to do about them, events were to transpire that would figure prominently in what was now to become one of the largest naval battles in history. And as has been the case so many times before, it would be the fate of a singular ship to find itself at the heart of the matter, the battlecruiser Kirov… And Kirov was not alone. Another steel gladiator was gliding stealthily through the sea, unseen, unknown, as the Russians concluded their rendezvous off the Cape of Good Hope.
* * *
The Italians moved with more resolve now, the lead tanks of their newly arrived Ariete Division rattling up the weathered paved road of the Via Balbia, intent on reclaiming lost honor as much as any ground yielded in their bitter retreat from Egypt. This time, however, they were not alone to face the whirlwind advance of the British. This time a tough, professional force was on their right flank, screening them from the sudden appearance of O’Connor’s tanks, the stolid Matildas that had proven so indomitable in the past. Two battalions of medium tanks were in the van, one with M13/40 tanks, the other with M14/41s.
Five men were huddled inside each tank, three below in the hull where the driver, radio man, and a machine gunner were positioned, with the commander and main gunner in the turret. Together they shared an armored space a little over seven feet wide and just under eight feet long, crowded with levers machine gun belts and over a hundred rounds of ammunition in the desert heat. It was a place of heat, intense noise, and the smell of battle mixed with the adrenaline of fear. No more than two inches of steel protected them from incoming enemy rounds, and if one penetrated, the explosive fury of the round would set off fuel, ammo and fill the tiny space with choking fumes and fire for any who survived the explosion.
And yet, of all the forces now arrayed in the desert, these men at least had that steel between them and the enemy, and their own heavy weapon in the 47mm main tank gun. An infantryman might have only the bare desert scrub and sand, along with his rifle for protection, so the tankers had a feeling of invulnerability relative to their supporting infantry, and the privilege of having a ride through the desert in their armored chariot, no matter how arduous the venture was.
The force they met on the dark desert road that morning was the British 1st Royal Tank Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division. The regiment was not a strong force that day, largely composed of 18 aging Mark VI light tanks, which were really little more than thinly armored machine gun carriers. There were three Matildas with them, the backbone of the regiment with their heavy armor and much stronger main gun, but only three. The two Italian battalions put 35 tanks each in the field, and behind them the road was crowded with more fighting vehicles as the remainder of the division piled up on the narrow way, an armored snake hissing and snarling its way forward in the pre-dawn light.
The encounter was brief, violent, and then burned out quickly as the Italian 47mm main guns knocked out the three lead Mark VIs. The rest fanned out, rattled out streams of machine gun fire, but were soon withdrawing up the road to a point on a low ridge where the three Matildas waited. They could see they were overmatched, what amounted to a light scout detail against a much stronger armored force. But the odds would soon even up, for there, comi
ng up behind them, was a brigade of the 6th Australian Infantry Division, three battalions ready to dig in and meet the coming onslaught from their sandy slit trenches behind the escarpment. As the men hurried forward, harangued by the yammering calls of their Sergeants, they could also hear the clatter of metal tank treads and the growl of trucks off on their left, out beyond the stony wadis in the desert. Some larger force was moving there, like a panther on the prowl ready to pounce.
It was the opening act of the next phase of what would become a long and bitter struggle in the deserts of Libya and Egypt. O’Connor’s men thought they were renewing the heady offensive that had rudely ejected the Italians from Egypt, and chased them all the way across the wide jutting peninsula of Cyrenaica. The British had taken Tobruk along the way, and reached Benghazi on the west coast of that peninsula, where other troops were fortifying that place. The withdrawal of the 4th Indian Division for duty in Sudan had sapped away all O’Connor’s motorized infantry support until the Australians arrived. Now he was ready to move again, with the promise of more troops coming from far off Egypt, as the British gathered men and equipment from every corner of their empire.
What O’Connor did not know was the character and temperament of the man leading this sudden enemy advance. He was well back when the action began, making ready to move forward to 2nd Armored Division and get the lads moving. When the initial reports came in he set aside his maps and clip boards of reports on anticipated supply deliveries, and huddled with his radio operator, listening to the fighting as it began to take shape and form. It was something he would often do—just listen to a battle, as a man might stand in the quiet hush of an oncoming storm, waiting for the thunder. He would hear things in the seemingly routine radio chatter, in the sound of distant gunfire, the movement of troops and trucks. All these sounds would give him subtle clues, the murmur of an army on the move, feeding that inner sense he had about what was happening on the battlefield, and he did not like what he was hearing that morning.
Three Kings (Kirov Series) Page 14
