by Trevor Royle
The Battle of the Atlantic, as it came to be known, was the most hard-fought and dangerous campaign undertaken by the Allies, and it was one of the costliest in crews and ship losses. By the war’s end 5,150 Allied and neutral merchant ships had been sunk and over 30,000 British Merchant Navy crew members had been lost; added to this figure was the loss of surface warships, especially convoy escorts, and aircraft. It was a heavy price for keeping the sea lanes open, and Churchill was correct in stating that ‘the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril’.
Perhaps the most unusual consignment involving the Clyde ports was the emergency export of Britain’s gold bullion reserves and securities, then worth £2 billion, which were shipped from Gourock to Halifax in Nova Scotia in October 1939, with a second convoy sailing from Greenock the following summer. All the cargo, codenamed ‘Fish’ reached the final destination in what has been described as the biggest financial transaction in history. Another curious consignment was the cargo of the SS Politician, a fast merchant ship belonging to the T. & J. Harrison line which ran aground off Eriskay on 5 February 1941 after Captain Beaconsfield Worthington committed a navigational error while entering the north Atlantic through the Hebrides on a voyage to Jamaica. Amongst its cargo was a consignment of 264,000 bottles of malt whisky, many of which were salvaged by the islanders. The incident was turned into a novel Whisky Galore! (1947) by Compton Mackenzie and later still (1949) a memorable Ealing comedy film.
The use of the Western Approaches for convoy work encouraged the Germans to deploy submarines and long-range Condor aircraft, and from 1940 to 1944 there was a steady enemy presence in Scottish home waters and in the skies above the Western Approaches. Incoming convoys were attacked with grim regularity – seventeen ships of Convoy SC7 were sunk off Rockall in October 1940 – and fishing vessels and other inshore craft were regular victims of enemy attack. In response, a new Coastal Command base opened on Tiree in 1941 to provide air cover, with other aircraft flying out of Oban, Islay and Benbecula. On the Kintyre peninsula the Royal Naval Air Station at Machrihanish became an important training facility, and it was from there that Corsair and Barracuda aircrew trained for the carrier-based attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in April 1944.
Those operations properly belong to the overall Allied direction of the war against Germany but there was one aspect of the convoy system which had a distinctly Scottish contribution – the Arctic Convoys which took much-needed supplies to the Soviet Union and which were considered essential for encouraging the Soviet war effort. Following Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Joseph Stalin put immediate pressure on the United Kingdom to supply him with war matériel to sustain his war effort. The tonnage delivered helped to assuage his demands for the creation of a second front.
In the first operations the convoys assembled at Reykjavik in Iceland but from September 1942 inbound and outbound convoys sailed directly from the deep waters of Loch Ewe. The first of these was PQ18 which left on 2 September and arrived at Archangel nineteen days later. It was also the first to have air cover provided by the carrier HMS Avenger, a converted merchant ship equipped with three Swordfish and six Sea Hurricane aircraft. Although thirteen ships were lost, mainly to German air attack, the convoy was counted a success and gave much-needed experience to the accompanying pilots on board Avenger. Convoy JW51B sailed from Loch Ewe on 22 December 1942 with fourteen merchant ships heavily laden with tanks, aircraft, aviation fuel and ammunition. To meet the possibility of attack, it was protected by a huge escort force which consisted of the destroyers HMS Achates, HMS Orwell, HMS Oribi, HMS Onslow, HMS Obedient and HMS Obdurate; the Flower-class corvettes HMS Rhododendron and HMS Hyderabad; the minesweeper HMS Bramble; and two trawlers, Vizalma and Northern Gem. The overall commander was Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke on board Onslow. Although the threat from German aircraft did not fully materialise, the convoy was threatened by enemy surface ships led by the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and the pocket battleship Lützow, but this was beaten off on 31 December by the British destroyer screen. During the action Onslow was hit and Sherbrooke was badly wounded, although he survived and was awarded the Victoria Cross.
The action came to be known as the Battle of the Barents Sea, and it was followed a year later by the Battle of North Cape which saw the German battle-cruiser Scharnhorst sunk by a Royal Navy force led by the battleship HMS Duke of York. The final convoy JW66 left the Clyde on 16 April 1945, and the final inbound wartime convoy RA66 arrived off the Tail of the Bank in time to celebrate the end of the war in Europe on 8 May – a second convoy RA67 arrived at the same destination on 30 May with all ships burning their navigation lights, mirroring the street lights in Gourock and Greenock. Altogether seventy-eight convoys sailed to the Soviet Union through some of the worst sea and weather conditions in the world, around the north cape of Norway and through the Barents Sea to the northern Russian ports. Throughout the voyage they had to face the threat of attack by German submarines, surface ships and bombers, and paid a heavy price for the 4.43 million tons of supplies which reached their destinations – 104 merchant ships, 20 Royal Navy warships, a submarine and two armed whalers were lost in the convoys, with Germany losing 31 submarines.22
Between 1941 and 1943 the poet J. K. Annand served on board the Scapa-based Tribal class destroyer HMS Tartar, and in his recollections he claimed that the convoy experience was ‘very dull and unexciting in a way’ where ‘our worst enemy was the weather’.23 Later, though, the scenes came back to inform his poetry, and his poem ‘Arctic Convoys’ tells the modern reader all there is to know about conditions aboard a Scottish-based destroyer on the Murmansk run.
Caulder the air becomes, and snell the wind.
The waters, splairgin as she dunts her boo,
Blads in a blatter o hailstanes on the brig
And geals on guns and turrets, masts and spars,
Cleedin the iron and steel wi coat o ice.24
In April 2010 thirty surviving Scottish veterans of the convoys were presented with special medals by the Russian government to mark the part they played in the Arctic convoys.
During that same period Scottish soldiers were also taking the war back to Germany and Italy as and when they could, fighting on faraway battle fronts in North Africa, Somaliland, Madagascar, Syria and Burma. All too often those campaigns were not just an offensive necessity but a means of preventing a total Axis victory. Although the fighting in Europe had been ended by the collapse at Dunkirk, and would not be resumed again until the D-Day landings in June 1944, there were several other theatres of war in which Scottish military formations made a signal contribution to the national war effort at a time when Britain was fighting for its life, virtually alone, together with the forces of its Dominions and the free forces of various European powers-in-exile.
The first Scottish unit to see action in the wake of the Dunkirk withdrawal was 2nd Black Watch which had begun the war on internal security duties in Palestine. In May 1940 it left for Suez where it was picked up by the Royal Navy for ‘an unknown destination’ which turned out to be the port of Aden in Yemen. From there the battalion moved into British Somaliland (later Somaliland) which had come under attack from a huge Italian army based in Abyssinia (later Ethiopia) at the beginning of August. Not only did the enemy forces possess overwhelming superiority in armour and air power, but the five defending British and Indian battalions were all under-strength and modestly equipped. The Italians were also helped by the French decision to sign an armistice on 22 June following the collapse of France. This move took their forces of seven battalions in French Somaliland (later Djibouti) out of the defensive equation and made life more difficult for the defending Allied forces.
Reinforcements were rushed into British Somaliland, including 2nd Black Watch, the whole force coming under the command of Major-General A. R. Godwin-Austen, but it was already a lost cause. On 11 August the Italians began their main attack on the Al
lied positions at Tug Argen. Overwhelmed by the superior strength of the opposition, Godwin-Austen ordered the retreat on 13 August to save his forces from a potentially disastrous defeat and possible annihilation. As the units made their way back to the coast to be picked up by the Royal Navy at Berbera, their retreat was covered by 2nd Black Watch. At one stage in the operation a determined bayonet charge led by Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel) David Rose held up the Italian advance through the Barkasan Gap but it was not enough to save the situation. During the fighting retreat the British force lost 38 killed and 222 wounded. Of that number, 7 Black Watch soldiers had been killed and 16 were wounded, one of the latter being Rose who was hit in the shoulder.25
From Berbera the battalion was taken to Egypt where the next imperative was the country’s defence against the possibility of Italian attack. Already in the country was another Highland battalion, 2nd Camerons, which had recently arrived from its last posting in India. On arrival in Egypt the battalion was brigaded with 4/7th Rajputs and 1/6th Rajputana Rifles in 11th (Indian) Infantry Brigade, 4th Indian Division, as part of the hastily organised Western Desert Force which consisted of 4th Indian Division and 7th Armoured Division and which was commanded by Major-General Richard O’Connor, a distinguished Cameronian officer. In the uneasy period before Italy entered the war on 11 June 1940, the Allied forces in Egypt spent the time training for the expected onslaught from Libya where the Italians had deployed 250,000 troops. It was an anxious period as Italy was in a position to threaten Britain’s control of the Mediterranean and its vital lines of communication with India and the Far East.
The Italian attack began in the middle of September, and they moved quickly into Egyptian territory by capturing Sidi Barrani. In response, O’Connor decided to counter-attack before the Italian advance gathered any momentum, and 2nd Camerons was involved in the first part of the offensive on 22 October against Italian positions at Maktila. The battalion also played a role in the attack on Nibeiwa Camp which resulted in the capture of 2,000 Italians and was the prelude to the retaking of Sidi Barrani on 10 December. Taken by surprise by the determination and ferocity of the British offensive, the Italians quickly capitulated to O’Connor’s much smaller force of 30,000 soldiers.
As a result of this first Allied land victory of the war, 38,000 Italians, 237 artillery pieces and 73 tanks fell into British hands, and the only remaining sign of the Italian presence was at Sollum, Fort Capuzzo and Sidi Omar. Following the easy victory and the lack of any Italian response, General Sir Archibald Wavell, GOC Middle East, decided to move 4th Indian Division from Egypt to East Africa where the Italian commander, the Duke of Aosta, had opened his campaign by invading Sudan. Another formation, 5th (Indian) Division, was sent to reinforce the local garrison which consisted of the Sudan Defence Force and three British infantry battalions, including 2nd Camerons. In the face of these aggressive Allied measures the Duke of Aosta started withdrawing his forces back into Ethiopia through Eritrea, a land of desert plains and high rocky mountains. The main battle of the campaign was fought at Keren where the Italians occupied positions on high ground overlooking the main road through the Ascidira Valley. It was an imposing obstacle of razor-like ridges and peaks which rose to over 6,000 feet, and the initial attacks at the beginning of February failed to make any impression on the Italian defences.
Despite the difficulties, on the first day of the battle, 3 February, the men of 2nd Camerons succeeded in taking their objective which was subsequently renamed Cameron Ridge and was used as a jumping-off point for further attacks. The fighting resumed on 15 March with the overall commander General Sir William Platt issuing a stark warning to his men: ‘It is going to be a bloody battle against both enemy and ground. It will be won by the side that lasts the longest.’ Twelve days later the issue was decided by the grit and determination of the two Indian divisions. Some of the hardest fighting involved 2nd Camerons during the attacks on the enemy positions on Mount Sanchil and Brig’s Peak. The battalion War Diary provides a good idea of the conditions facing the men when they went into the attack: ‘Zero hour arrived and the artillery opened. B and C Companies advanced over the brow of the hill, with D Company following C. A Company, for the moment, was kept back. The enemy put down a hail of mortar and machine-gun defensive fire, but it was quite impossible to see the result on either side owing to dust and smoke, though it was afterwards learnt that a large number of our casualties were sustained during the first two hundred yards of this advance.26
The victory at Keren persuaded the Italians to withdraw from Asmara, and the capture of the port of Massawa on 8 April signalled the end of Italian resistance in Eritrea, but it came at a price. The British suffered 3,767 casualties killed or wounded, and amongst that number were 209 men of 2nd Camerons.
As a result of the successful outcome of the campaign, Wavell was able to return 4th Indian Division to North Africa where Egypt was under a new threat following the arrival of German forces, the Afrika Korps, under the command of General Erwin Rommel. A series of successful assaults had retaken all the ground won by the Allies in the previous year, and Cyrenaica was in danger of falling into Rommel’s hands. By the beginning of April 1941 the vital port of Tobruk was under threat, and Churchill ordered that it had to be held at all costs. His directive also ordered the Western Desert Force to counter-attack and engage all enemy forces between Tripoli and El Agheila, and in so doing to regain ascendancy in Libya. It was easier said than done. Rommel renewed his attack at the beginning of May, and as the Allies withdrew Tobruk was left isolated. Despite offering stout resistance the garrison was forced to surrender on 21 June. Amongst them was 2nd Camerons which continued fighting for a further day before the commanding officer Lieutenant-Colonel C. S. Duncan ordered all able-bodied men to break out and attempt to reach safety in Egypt. For the rest who were unable to escape it was a bitter moment, but Duncan insisted that he and his men should be allowed to march into captivity with pipes playing and all the honours of war. Later in the year, on 20 December, a new 2nd Battalion came into being by redesignating the regiment’s 4th Battalion, a Territorial Army formation which had been reformed after the earlier surrender of 51st (Highland) Division at St Valéry-en-Caux. One other Scottish regiment was involved throughout this stage of the fighting – 2nd Scots Guards which served as part of 22 Guards Brigade and took part in the successful defence of Halfaya Pass in May 1941.
While these events were unfolding during the spring of 1941, 2nd Black Watch moved from Berbera to Egypt where it was transported immediately to Crete whose defence was considered to be vital to Britain’s interests in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. The island’s defence became even more imperative when the Germans moved rapidly into Yugoslavia and then into Greece, forcing the retreat of all British and Commonwealth troops. Many of these were shipped to Crete but they arrived without their equipment, including artillery and ammunition which had been left behind in Greece. By the end of April there were 30,000 troops on Crete under the command of General Bernard Freyburg, a New Zealander whose plan centred on the need to defend the key points – the airfields at Heraklion, Retimo and Maleme and the main port at Suda Bay. The 2nd Black Watch was part of 14 Brigade which was entrusted with the defence of the Heraklion sector in the north of the island, including its vital airfield. The German attack began on 19 May 1941, and by the end of the day 5,000 German airborne troops had landed on Crete, either by parachute or by gliders towed by Junkers 52 transport aircraft.
For a while the defenders put up spirited resistance – the Germans had underestimated the size of the British garrison – but the lack of air cover soon became apparent. On 21 May the airfield at Maleme fell into German hands, and four days later Freyburg informed Wavell that ‘our situation here is hopeless’. Fearing another calamity, Churchill agreed to a withdrawal, and the evacuation began on the night of 28/29 May. In the Heraklion sector 2nd Black Watch covered the brigade’s retreat to the harbour and the Royal Navy ships, including the crui
sers HMS Dido and HMS Orion which were waiting offshore ready to take the men. During the operation they lost one of their company commanders, Major Alastair Hamilton, who had vowed earlier that ‘the Black Watch leaves Crete when the snow leaves Mount Ida’. Six destroyers conveyed the men from the mole to the cruisers, but while this was happening there was a near-disaster when the steering gear on the destroyer HMS Imperial jammed and she started slewing around. On board were a number of Black Watch soldiers who managed to escape by leaping on another destroyer, HMS Hotspur, which had turned back to offer assistance. Worse followed the next morning when the retreating ships were attacked by German bombers as they struggled towards Alexandria. Both Dido and Orion received direct hits and casualties were high on both ships – 260 killed and 280 wounded on Orion and over a hundred on Dido, many of them killed when a bomb exploded in the canteen which was packed with troops. Of those killed, 103 were 2nd Black Watch. When the convoy reached Alexandria a Black Watch piper climbed onto the bridge of HMS Dido and played the battalion in as the ships made their way into the harbour and safety. A searchlight picked him up in its beam and, as many survivors remembered, it was a moment when grown men wept.
During this same period perhaps the most bizarre and least heralded campaign was the fighting against Vichy French forces on the island of Madagascar, which involved three Scottish battalions: 1st and 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers and 6th Seaforth Highlanders. Initially, the governor of the island had thrown in his lot with the Free French forces under the command of General Charles de Gaulle, but he changed his mind and resigned his post after the destruction of the French fleet by the Royal Navy at Mers-el-Kebir in July 1940. The operation had been ordered by Churchill to prevent the French warships being used by the Germans during the proposed invasion of Britain, and it sharply divided French opinion after it became clear that 1,300 sailors and marines had been killed in the bombardment. Following the governor’s resignation he was replaced by a representative of the Vichy government, General Armand Leon Annet. That altered the strategic balance in the region, as the Vichy government collaborated with the Germans, and in March 1942 the British received intelligence that Germany had persuaded Japan to occupy Madagascar as a means of gaining naval superiority in the Indian Ocean, a move that would threaten strategic supply routes. To prevent that happening a British invasion force, Force 121, was put together under the command of Major-General Robert Sturges, Royal Marines, consisting of 17 and 29 Brigades (with 13 Brigade as a strategic reserve) and No 5 Commando. (At the time the force was bound for India before being diverted to take part in the operation, which was codenamed Ironclad.) In the first major amphibious operation of the conflict and the first offensive landings since Gallipoli in 1915, Sturges’s primary task was to capture the northern naval base at Diégo Suarez with support from a naval task force under the command of Rear-Admiral Neville Syfret. Both the infantry brigades contained Scots Fusiliers – the 1st Battalion served in 29 Brigade while the 2nd Battalion was brigaded in 17 Brigade with 2nd Northamptonshire Regiment and 6th Seaforth Highlanders.
