Altered States -Volume III. Hinge of Fate

Chapter 19

The Allied situation in the Mediterranean theater was far from secure by mid 1940. The twin blows of Italian hostility and the metamorphosis of France from ally to enemy had left the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth allies to stand alone. Most of their strength lay in Egypt under General Archibald Percival Wavell, a tall, broad shouldered, thick necked man who had been in the British Army since the Second Boer War. He had also spent a year as an observer with the Russian Army, and learned the Russian language before serving in the First War. Now he found himself elevated to Commander-in-Chief Middle East, which encompassed all of East Africa, Greece, the Balkans, and Palestine

It was an enormous task considering the fact that Wavell’s force in Egypt was vastly outnumbered by the Italian colonial armies in Africa. By August of 1940 it consisted of the British 7th Armored Division, 4th and 5th Indian Divisions, the 2nd New Zealand Division and mixed forces comprising three British brigades. Plans were underway to reinforce Wavell with a South African Division and a pair of Australian Divisions that were still forming. The R.A.F. could at least muster an assortment of 300 planes, and the Royal Navy at Alexandria had three battleships, four cruisers and 12 destroyers.

Against this force the Italians could boast they had numerous field armies, amounting to over 75 divisions, though most were undermanned and ill equipped. They also had twice as many battleships in theater, good fast cruisers and destroyers, and a robust submarine fleet. Regia Aeronautica had 400 planes in Libya with another 300 in the horn of Africa, and three times as many more in at home aerodromes. The threat Italy represented on paper looked very serious, and this led Wavell to adopt an early policy of cautious containment, like a man staring down a bee hive on his back porch, and wondering whether the first tentative jabs would result in a whirlwind of stinging reprisal.

What the Italians did not have, however, was the will to use the forces they had, and the skill to use them effectively. In spite of its size on paper, the Italian Army proved to have very little sting at all, and even less inclination to swarm on the enemy they clearly outnumbered in every category of arms. In August they began to buzz about at the Egyptian frontier, where small skirmishes and quick cross border raids were the order of the day.

British garrisons on other key Mediterranean outposts such as Malta and Gibraltar, were also ill equipped for the gathering threat of war. As France fell, Malta had only four old Gladiator fighters, still in packing crates as reserve planes for the British carrier HMS Glorious. Of these only three could be kept working, given the names Faith, Hope and Charity. Four Hurricanes arrived in late June, and another seven in July to build the fighter defense there to fourteen planes. They were joined by three Swordfish, a single Skua, one Hudson bomber and two Sunderlands. As Tovey concluded his Faeroe Island conference with the Russians, the carrier Argus was preparing to make a ferry run with twelve more Hurricanes, and three Maryland bombers were also flown in, largely for reconnaissance operations.

There were five battalions assigned to Malta Command along with a mix of artillery, anti-tank and AA guns, and a couple companies of fortress engineers, all gathered into the Malta Infantry Brigade. Gibraltar was equally thin on air power, as the agreement Britain had with Spain forbade offensive bombers there. 202 Squadron flew Swordfish and Sunderlands on anti-submarine patrols. On the ground, the Rock was garrisoned by only three battalions of infantry, two companies of fortress engineers and the 3rd Heavy Artillery Brigade. A fourth battalion, the Black Watch, would arrive in short order.

At sea it seemed that both sides had paused briefly to take stock of their respective situations. The Italians seemed to be half-hearted participants in the war, a member of the Axis more in name than deed. They busied themselves with laying mine barrages off Pantelleria, sub sparing with British ships transiting the Red Sea, and with little result. The bulk of the Italian fleet largely sat in their home ports, while Regia Marina operated with its submarines, using them as transports, mine layers, and mounding defensive patrols in key waterways.

For their part, considering the dire situation at Malta, the British mounted a well named hasty sortie that was again led by the enterprising young carrier commander Christopher Wells. HMS Glorious was still standing in for the Ark Royal, and “Operation Hurry” was teed up to harass and distract the Italians. Escorted by the battleship Valiant, three cruisers and eight destroyers, Wells mounted a quick strike against airfields near Cagliari on Sardinia as cover for CVL Argus, which flew off those twelve much needed Hurricane fighters for Malta, nearly doubling their fighter contingent in one throw.

It seemed that neither side had taken the full measure of the other, like two boxers tentatively jabbing and moving about one another in the first round of a prize fight. The British counted the eggs still left in the French navy’s basket, and knew that something had to be done about them. Operation Menace was the result of that brooding, a plan to make a direct challenge to the French African port of Dakar on the Atlantic. There sat the formidable battleship Richelieu, and the even more dangerous new design the powerful Normandie, with twelve 15-inch guns. To make matters worse, this force could be easily supported by the battleship Jean Bart just up the coast at Casablanca, along with a light cruiser, seven destroyers and eighteen submarines.

The Admiralty still regarded this as the most immediate and dire threat to future war operations. Sitting right on the Atlantic, the thought that the French might one day sortie with this entire force and cut the convoy routes south around the Cape of Good Hope was a very real and present danger. Something had to be done about it, and, much like the recent Operation Catapult aimed at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir, Operation Menace was aimed at facing down the best of these ships while they lay at anchor and eliminating the menace they represented to England’s future war effort.

A small convoy of 4200 British Troops and 2700 Free French troops departed from the Clyde, escorted by three cruisers and four destroyers. Along the way the cruiser Fiji was hit by Lieutenant Jenisch on U-32, and the cruiser Australia suffered a near miss, but the force squeaked through to rendezvous with a strong detachment from Force H. The combined force headed for Freetown for provisioning prior to their planned approach to Dakar. There they would offer another ultimatum, and should the French decline, it was Vice Admiral Cunningham’s job to smash the French fleet and land nearly 7000 troops to seize this vital port. If successful it would leave only Casablanca to be accounted for, but the French got wind of the operation, and immediately dispatched naval reinforcements from Toulon.

Three cruisers and three destroyers had been ordered to the colony of Gabon near the Congo, where De Gaulle’s influence had seduced the local authorities there away from the Vichy fold. Instead they were ordered to Dakar, and a battle that was never written in any of the history books Fedorov had in his library was now gathering like the restless late summer clouds that formed off the African coast.

Situated a little over 900 kilometers south of Dakar, Freetown was the capital of Sierra Leone and a valuable British sanctuary on an African coast largely occupied by Vichy France. As such it became a valuable stopping point for outbound convoys and a place to dock and replenish warships serving to escort them.

Captain Christopher Wells was out on the weather deck of HMS Glorious, sailing under fair skies and calm winds. The ship was riding easily, her belly topped off with fuel and a flight of four Swordfish spotted on deck and ready for immediate takeoff. Remembering a day very like this in the Norwegian Sea some months ago, Wells had also posted lookouts on his high main mast even though he might have dispensed with that this go around. Glorious had been alone then, with only two destroyers in escort, and Wells still shuddered to recall those difficult moments when he had struggled to save the ship from a pair of pursuing wolves in Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Now he felt a good deal more secure, surrounded by a family of strong Royal Navy ships that included the battleships Barham and Resolution, heavy cruisers Cornwall and Cumberland arriving from Capetown, and a flotilla of six destroyers fanned out around the bigger ships like a gaggle of geese.

Wells’ good friend Lieutenant Woodfield came out on the weather deck to take up his watch, pleased to see the Captain there.

“Still mixing with the lower ranks, Captain?” he said with a smile. His friend had moved up another rung on the ladder of command while Woodfield remained a Lieutenant.

“Fine day, Woody, and we’re finally ready to settle accounts with the French.”

“Still brooding on that business off Mers-el-Kebir?”

“We never got there. Most of the French fleet slipped right out the back door to Toulon.”

“Not quite, Welly. You notched your belt with a pair of battleships as I recall.”

“Who could forget that,” said Wells, still remembering how he felt when he first received the news that his Swordfish from823 and 825 squadrons, planes sent out by his command, had found and sunk the old WWI era battleships Bretagne and Provence. He had raised his hand against Britain’s former allies, put over 1300 French sailors into the sea, and so enraged the French that they now openly sided with the Axis. It was all his fault, or so he believed for a good long while after that, in spite of Admiral Somerville’s praise for his conduct in the operation and assurance that he would have done the very same thing, distasteful as it was.

Now he was back in the same game, out assigned as primary air cover asset for Operation Menace, the British plan to seize Dakar. They were already three hours out of Freetown, heading north for the showdown that was supposed to play out like the original plan for Mers-el-Kebir. Yet like that plan, the French had again been forewarned of the British moves. Ships out of Toulon had already been dispatched to reinforce Dakar, and had managed to slip past the watch at Gibraltar on a dark night the previous day. Wells got that news only an hour ago, and knew he would soon be tasked to get planes out to look for the Toulon squadron.

“I don’t like it, Woody,” he said. “I look out at those two fat battleships there and should feel at ease, but I have misgivings about this mission. Something tells me the French are on to us.”

“So what if they are? R.A.F. got a look at that squadron that slipped past Gibraltar and it’s only three light cruisers and a few destroyers. They say it put in to Casablanca. That won’t be much help to the French given what I see around us here.”

Woodfield might have been more cautious had he know that the French Squadron had sailed into Casablanca the previous morning to re-provision and sortie again, with one more addition to the fleet that could be very troublesome, the battleship Jean Bart. This force had already slipped through the Canary Islands and was heading south for the Cape Verde Islands where the French were staging their own little operation as part of a much bigger plan that would soon unhinge far more than either man could imagine that fair morning.

The British troop convoy had detached the cruisers Australia and Devonshire to look for the French ships, but they had been unable to find them off Casablanca. These two cruisers were still patrolling far to the north, and slowly working their way down to Dakar.

“So we go for the gold, Wells.” Woodfield was still exuberant. “I’ve heard that bullion reserves for the Bank of France were spirited off to Dakar. That’s reason enough for us to get hold of the place, eh? And that harbor is far superior to our anchorages at Freetown. With it we’ll have a good watch on the convoy routes south, and then it’s on to Casablanca to finish things up.”

“I wish I had your enthusiasm,” said Wells. Yes, Woodfield had the spirit in him this morning, a lieutenant’s dash and bravado. Wait until he wears a Captain’s hat one day and feels the weight of those new stripes on his shoulder boards.

“Just keep a positive attitude, Wells. We’ve sixteen good 15-inch guns out there between those two battleships.”

“Yes well the French will still out gun us. They’ll have twenty!”

“But those ships will be sitting in the harbor-a pair of nice fat geese.”

“That’s what we thought at Mers-el-Kebir. If they’ve sent this squadron from Toulon, then they’ll certainly know what we’re up too here. I wouldn’t keep my ships anchored in port, and I’m not so sure the French will either.”

“Well, we’ve got a man or two there, don’t we? Latest word from the signals traffic is that both French battleships are still sitting in port.”

“At the moment,” Wells cautioned. “We’re still a full day south of them here. Let’s hope we find them there this time tomorrow morning when we’re sitting off Dakar.”

It was going to be a long 24 hours steaming at 18 knots to get the British squadron up north to Dakar. By this time tomorrow Wells expected he would have most of 823 Squadron’s Swordfish in the air, with 825 Squadron spotting on deck to join them. Before that he would have to get a reconnaissance flight up north of their position to look for any sign of that flotilla from Toulon.

Wells passed a sleepless night, up from his bunk twice and pacing on deck with a pipe that he had taken to smoking. The rituals of the habit seemed to calm him a bit, and let him think things through, his thoughts wafting up with the smoke.

Morning came with the signal arriving from Vice Admiral Cunningham aboard HMS Resolution: “Ultimatum to be delivered by wire at 09:00 hrs. Mine laying to begin 09:15, with torpedo squadron ready to receive strike orders at that time.”

Wells was ready. He had dispatched four Swordfish of 823 Squadron north on a wide reconnaissance fan, with four more loaded for the mine laying operation. The last four would join with the twelve planes of 825 Squadron to form his strike element. He was to send one plane in at the crack of dawn to overfly Dakar and report any signs that the French might be trying to get up steam.

The report he received from that little sortie was most disconcerting. The lone Swordfish was up at 05:00 and on its way. Thirty minutes later the word came back that changed everything. There would be no need to issue any ultimatum later that morning. The French fleet was gone.