The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (34 page)

Approaching the target, they sighted the Italian Submarine Iride (the mother ship for Italian human torpedoes arriving to attack Alexandria) approaching on the surface. Heading straight for her, the flight leader Captain Patch RM released his torpedo, which struck Iride amidships, sinking her.

Having had no opportunity to attack themselves, the other two continued on the mission assigned. As they approached, they discovered the depot ship Monte Gargano with a submarine and a destroyer tied up alongside. Both torpedoes ran true into the ships, the resulting explosions "sinking whole bloody lot". Initially treated with a certain amount of scepticism when they reported sinking four ships with three torpedoes, the crews were quite exuberant when recon photos the next morning verified that all three in harbour had, in fact, sank, though apparently the destroyer and the submarine were only beached.

Chad declared its allegiance to Free France and General de Gaulle. French Equatorial Africa is the latest French colony to support General de Gaulle's Free French. Governor Eboue of Chad, France's first black governor in Africa, said today that he refused to accept capitulation. The other Equatorial territories make similar statements in the following days. Elsewhere in French Africa, recent weeks have seen the replacement of pro-Allied officials with Vichy supporters, although the Ivory Coast rallied to de Gaulle on 26 July. The first colony to back de Gaulle was the New Hebrides in the Pacific on 22 July.

The Vichy French government signed the Matsuoka-Henry Pact and yielded to Japanese. It also acceded to the following demands from the Japanese

(1) An end to shipments of war material to the Chinese nationalists via the Hanoi - Kunming railway

(2) Granting Japanese forces transit rights and access to military facilities in Indochina

(3) The right to station troops in Tokinchina.

In return Japan agreed to recognize continued French sovereignty over Indochina. Vichy reciprocated with formal recognition of Japan's "pre-eminent" role in the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

This action is of considerable worry to the British government, as Japanese troops in FIC pose a threat to the Imperial forces in Malaya; until now, it has been considered that the
sheer distance of the nearest Japanese bases has afforded the British possessions in SE Asia protection.

Much of French Equatorial Africa has joined the Free French cause, but the Vichy government is using its base at Dakar to intervene and pressurise French governors whenever possible. In order to improve this situation it is intended to launch an operation to capture Dakar and hopefully persuade much more of the French African colonies to join the Free French cause. Accordingly
an Anglo-Free French task force under Admiral Cunningham and General DeGaulle departs Liverpool for Dakar, French West Africa. Originally intended as a small force, with hopes that Dakar will surrender, the actions of Dakar so far have made the invasion force more formidable.

In July, Charles de Gaulle had asked Captain Jacques Philippe, Vicomte de Hautecloque (alias Philippe LeClerc) to rally Free French forces in Equatorial Africa. He has been attempting to do so, but is concerned at the resistance he feels will be encountered at Dakar. He has also pointed out a secondary reason for capturing Dakar that is important enough to increase the forces sent there.

In Berlin, Hitler had dismissed the misgivings of his generals and admirals, and had given orders for Operation SeaLion to go ahead. Goering had promised to destroy the fighter defences in the south of England in four days, and the RAF in two to three weeks. The Fuhrer states he will decide on the invasion date during the next fortnight.

For the last week the Luftwaffe has been staging very heavy raids against the airfields and infrastructure of the RAF in the south east. Heavy losses have been incurred by both the RAF and the Luftwaffe, but the action, while damaging to the RAF, is not rendering their bases inoperable. The biggest issue for the RAF is the availability of fighter pilots; the FAA has added two more squadrons in the north, allowing all the RAF fighter squadrons there to be allocated to the critical area, and the RAF is also using pilots from some of the Fairy Battle squadrons(the Battle having been shown to be an ineffective aeroplane). Foreign squadrons are also now part of the RAF's defence.

While the attrition is worrying for the RAF, it is slowly becoming critical for the Luftwaffe. They are losing crews at the rate of 5:1 (bombers carry more men, and many of the RAF pilots who bail out survive to fight again), and it is fast becoming obvious that the light machine gun armament of the light bombers is outmatched by the heavy cannon mounted by the RAF fighters. The armament contest is a bit more even for the fighters, but here the losses are also becoming critical.

The transfer of shipping to the Channel ports is beginning, and plans for a feint attack against the east coast of Britain have been made. But Hitler has still not resolved a bitter dispute between the army and navy over the deployment of the invasion force.
The army had planned a landing on a 200-mile front from Ramsgate to Lyme Regis, throwing into action 1,722 barges, 1,161 motor boats, 470 tugs and 155 transports. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder
says that it is quite impossible for his navy to protect such a vast and widely dispersed force

Raeder, who was made a Grand Admiral by Hitler on 1 April 1939, says that the army should concentrate on a narrow front between Folkestone and Eastbourne, "Complete suicide," General Halder, the chief of staff, responded furiously. The British would hit them with overwhelming force. "I might just as well put the troops through a sausage machine."

The RAF and the FAA are continuing their reconnaissance of the Northern ports and likely staging areas. At the moment, there is no sign of any significant activity involving larger ships to the East, but a stream of barges, tugs, and other small vessels has been noted heading for the Low Countries and the French channel ports. Currently the opinion is that the Germans will go for the cross-channel option, and plans are being made to bomb barge concentrations as soon as they get large enough to make this worthwhile. The RAF, which is currently using its heavier bombers to make small raids into Germany, is being pressured by the Navy (and the Army) to use these as well as other available planes to seed the northern ports and the coastal routes with mines. This is being resisted by the RAF, but the pressure to help defeat the invasion finally makes them change the bombers targets accordingly (the fact that the FAA had already agreed to use its available TBR aircraft in this role may have had something to do with their change in policy)

Long range Focke Wulf Condors start
ed operating from a base near Bordeux in France. The initial encounters show that they are intended to be used to both bomb convoys and vector U-boats onto the convoy or an intercepting position. The Royal Navy currently has four light carriers plus its new escort carrier available to escort convoys; these ships and their escort groups are allocated to what are felt to be the most vulnerable locations.

Operation Hats
- 30th Aug, Mediterranean Sea

Hats was a very complex operation carried out by the Mediterranean fleet and Force H, with a number of objectives:

To reinforce the eastern fleet with two antiaircraft cruisers, Coventry and Calcutta, the modernised battleship Valiant and the fleet carrier Indefatigable.

To run a supply convoy to Malta

To attack a number of Italian targets in passing, including Rhodes and Cagliari.

Force H left Gibraltar under Admiral Somerville on the 30th August, including the carriers Ark Royal and Indefatigable, and the capital ships Valiant and Hood and with 17 destroyers. On the 31st the squadron encountered two Italian floatplanes, both of which were shot down by the forces CAP. Later that day two destroyers were detached to head north in an attempt to deceive the Italians that Force H was heading for Genoa. The fleet then turned southeast, heading for Cagliari.

At 0325 on the 1st September 18 SeaLance planes ar
med with bombs and escorted by six Goshawks attacked the airfield at Cagliari with high explosive bombs and incendiaries. Significant damage was done to the installations, many of which were set on fire, and a number of planes destroyed on the ground. All the planes returned to the carrier without loss. It was expected that the Regia Aeronautica would respond to this attack, but in fact the rest of that day passed without incident. At 2200 the reinforcements for the eastern fleet headed southeast while the remainder of Force H headed north.

Force H again attacked Cagliari on the night of the 1st, but haze and low cloud obscured the target and little damage was done. At 0800 on the 2nd Somerville headed west towards Gibraltar, expecting again to be attacked, but again there was no sign of the R
egia Aeronautica, which rather disappointed Somerville who had been looking forward to giving them a warm reception.

While this was going on Admiral Cunningham had left Alexandria on the 30th August with Warspite, Malaya
, Implacable, two cruisers and nine destroyers. At 1430 the fleet was sighted by an Italian aircraft, which was shot down a short while later by one of the Goshawks on CAP. Late in the afternoon another shadower was detected, but it managed to evade interception in cloud.

At noon on the 31st the fleet rendezvoused with the 3rd Cruiser squadron (Kent, Gloucester and Liverpool) south west of Cape Matapan, and a convoy of two stores ships and a tanker which would be escorted to Malta. On the afternoon of the 30th the merchant ships had been attacked by the R
egia Aeronautica, but the attackers had been driven off by a flight of Goshawks kept close to them for exactly this purpose, although they failed to shoot down any of the attackers.

At 1600 the fleet altered course to the south to try and make the Italians believe they were immediately returning to Alexandria. However at 1613 one of HMS Implacable
's search planes reported an Italian surface force of two battleships, seven cruisers and some destroyers 180miles west of the force. Cunningham's dilemma was that if he moved to engage at night, it would be easy for the enemy to evade and attack the Malta-bound convoy. A night attack on the battleships was considered, but decided against as the intentions of the enemy were unclear, and by the time a strike could be mounted they could have moved uncomfortably close to the convoy; the last thing Cunningham wanted to do was to torpedo his own merchant ships at night!

The fleet therefore closed the merchant ships to stay with them overnight, hoping to arrange a morning strike on the battleships. Disappointingly though, a RAF flying boat out of Malta spotted the force at the entrance of the Gulf of Taranto and heading home, too far away now for an air strike. The fleet continued west, and at 0900 on the 2nd met the Indefatigable and Valiant. While the fleet cruised some 35 miles south of Malta, the Valiant and the two cruisers entered harbo
ur to offload personnel and equipment. The Regia Aeronautica made two light raids while the ships were unloading, but both times were driven off by Goshawks from the carriers.

On the voyage back to Alexandria Cunningham intended to use his two fleet carriers to strike the airfields of Maritza and Callato on Rhodes. 12 SeaLance carrying bombs, and 12 Cormorants hit each of the targets at 0600, 40 minutes before dawn. Considerable destruction was done to the airfields and their infrastructure. At the same time HMAS Sydney bombarded Scarpanto airfield, her escorting destroyers sinking two torpedo boats . The fleet sailed into Alexandria without further incident on the 3rd.

Churchill was pleased with the success of the mission and the damage done to the Italians, and wanted Cunningham to continue to strike at the Italians during the Autumn. Cunningham pointed out that in order to do this successfully, reconnaissance by land based RAF aircraft was needed, of which at present there was a lack; he requested that when they could be released from the UK, a squadron or part squadron of the long range Whirlwinds would be most useful if based at Malta, as well as shorter ranged planes to fly from North Africa. He also pointed out that the already-proposed Operation Judgment depended on reconnaissance. He was promised 'at least 3' aircraft by the end of September.

Heavy air attacks on Fighter C
ommand's southern airfields continued. While the targeted airfields were damaged, the damage is not serious enough to put them out of action, and the Luftwaffe continued to miss many of the dispersal fields used by the squadrons. Losses of RAF fighters were heavy, but the Luftwaffe losses are considerably worse, and it starting to look as if they will be unable to achieve any sort of air superiority during September, especially as the carcasses of downed Luftwaffe aircraft are now a common sight in the south east of England. More worrying to the RAF was the steady losses of fighter pilots

W
orry as to the success of the air campaign seems to be felt in Germany as well; Hitler postponed the invasion of Britain, scheduled for 15 September, to 21 September, but issued Operational orders covering it.

The German navy continued
to build up its forces of light craft and barges in the Channel ports. These were now the subject of regular night bombing by the RAF's light bombers; the individual attacks are not terribly effective, but the combined total was steadily reducing the number of barges available.