14.‘The East African Campaign’, comments by Frank Messervy, n.d. (1950), CAB106/912, TNA.
15.Upcher, ‘The Advance from Kassala to Keren with Gazelle Force’, n.d., Orlebar Papers, 740/7/18, DSA.
16.Lieutenant-General Sir Geoffrey Evans, The Desert and the Jungle (London: William Kimber, 1959), p. 43.
17.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 172.
18.Brigadier W.E.H. Condon (ed.), The Frontier Force Regiment (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1962), pp. 234–237; ‘Terror in Italians’ Town’, Daily Mirror, 27 December 1940.
19.Glover, An Improvised War, p. 177.
20.‘The East African Campaign’, comments by Frank Messervy, n.d. (1950), CAB106/912, TNA.
21.He has subsequently been questionably criticised for a decision that has been portrayed as having ‘delayed a conclusive British victory in Libya’; Sadkovich, ‘Understanding Defeat’, p. 39.
22.Lieutenant-Colonel G.R. Stevens, Fourth Indian Division (Toronto: McLaren and Son, 1948), pp. 29–30.
23.Barnett, The Desert Generals, p. 33; Smart, Biographical Dictionary of British Generals of the Second World War, p. 30; ‘Obituary: Lieutenant-General Sir Noel Beresford-Peirse’, The Times (London), 16 January 1953.
24.Barker, Eritrea 1941, pp. 44–45; Maule, Spearhead General, p. 21; ‘Obituary: Lieutenant-General Sir Lewis Heath’, The Times (London), 12 January 1954.
25.‘Weekly Summary No. 73’, 9 January 1941, WO106/2139, TNA.
26.‘Comments by Lt-General Sir N. Beresford-Peirse, KBE, CB, DSO, Late Commander, 4th Indian Division’, 8 January 1946, CAB106/940, TNA.
27.Ibid.
28.‘Obituary: Gen. Sir Frank Messervy’, The Times (London), 4 February 1974.
29.‘Daily Summary No. 510’, 26 January 1941, WO106/2139, TNA; ibid., ‘Daily Summary No. 512’, 28 January 1941.
30.Fletcher, ‘Lecture on Eritrean Campaign’, n.d., CAB106/921, TNA.
31.Ibid.
32.Interview with Air Vice Marshal Graham Magill, 23 March 1992, IWM Oral History, Reel 2, IWM.
33.Colonel D. Fabin to Barton, 14 September 1944, CAB106/903, TNA.
34.Lieutenant-Colonel E.W.C. Sandes, From Pyramid to Pagoda: The Story of the West Yorkshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s Own) in The War 1939–45 and afterwards (London: F.J. Parsons, 1951), p. 94; Brett-James, Ball of Fire, pp. 18–19; Fletcher, ‘Lecture on Eritrean Campaign’, n.d., CAB106/921, TNA.
35.Brigadier H. Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations in Eritrea and Northern Abyssinia – Jan–May 1941’, n.d., CAB106/947, TNA.
36.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 84; Amedeo Guillet to Platt, 19 August 1974, Orlebar Papers, 740/8/33, SDA. Amedeo Guillet was widely reported to have commanded the cavalry unit, and he survived the encounter and the subsequent campaign and went on to become Italian ambassador in India before eventually dying at the age of 101 at his home in Ireland; ‘Obituary: Amedeo Guillet’, Daily Telegraph (London), 1 July 2010; ‘Obituary: Amedeo Guillet’, The Times (London), 7 July 2010. According to another account, the commander in charge of the cavalry squadron was actually a Captain Santasila who was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal, the Italian version of the Victoria Cross; Ben Coutts, A Scotsman’s War (Edinburgh: The Mercat Press, 1995), p. 31.
37.Upcher, ‘The Advance from Kassala to Keren with Gazelle Force’, n.d., Orlebar Papers, 740/7/22, SDA.
38.Lieutenant-Colonel T.B. Davis, The Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry in the Second World War (Hassocks: Ditchling Press, 1980), pp. 218–219; Maule, Spearhead General, pp. 48–49.
39.Reginald Savory, ‘Action on Mount Cochen – 28–31 January 1941’, n.d. (1941?), CAB106/903, TNA.
40.Savory to Elliott, 27 March 1974, Reginald Savory Papers, 7603–93–46E, NAM.
41.‘East African Campaign – Comments by Colonel Fabin’, 23 May 1945, CAB106/903, TNA.
42.Liddell Hart, The Tanks, p. 293.
43.Mohammed Ibrahim Qureshi, History of the First Punjab Regiment, 1759–1956 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1958), pp. 346–347.
44.‘Daily Summary No. 553’, 12 March 1941, WO106/2139, TNA.
45.Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations . . .’, n.d., CAB106/947, TNA.
46.‘Account by J.A.A. Blaikie of the capture of Barentu from the Italians, 2 February 1941’, Orlebar Papers, 740/7/16–17, SDA.
47.Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment 1922–1950 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1952), p. 22; Richard Gale, The Worcestershire Regiment (London: Leo Cooper, 1970), pp. 99–100; Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Geoffrey Betham and Major H.V.R. Geary, The Golden Galley – The Story of the Second Punjab Regiment, 1761–1947 (Oxford: The University Press, 1956), pp. 187–188.
48.‘War Diary – 1st Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers’, 3 February 1941, RFA; ‘The Royal Fusiliers in the Middle East – Events Leading up to the Capture of Agordat’, The Royal Fusiliers Chronicle, December 1941.
49.‘Report by J.A.A. Blaikie on the looting of Barentu between 1–3 February 1941’, 8 February 1941, Orlebar Papers, 740/7/11–15, SDA.
50.Bisheshwar Prasad (ed.), Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War 1939–1945: East African Campaign 1940–41 (Bombay: Combined Inter-Services Historical Section (India and Pakistan), 1963), pp. 48–49.
51.Major Graham, ‘East African Campaign’, 12 July 1941, p. 4, CAB106/390, TNA.
52.‘The East African Campaign’, comments by Frank Messervy, n.d. (1950), CAB106/912, TNA.
53.Wavell to Cunningham, 12 February 1941, Alan Cunningham Papers, 8303–104–7.
54.Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, p. 333; Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 440.
55.Savory to T. Cosgrove, 19 December 1973, Savory Papers, 7603–93–46E, NAM.
8: Triumph in the Mountains: The Battle of Keren
1.‘Weekly Summary No. 80’, 27 February 1941, WO106/2139, TNA.
2.Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, p. 46.
3.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 91.
4.Ibid., p. 118.
5.Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, p. 27.
6.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 109.
7.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 180.
8.Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, p. 39.
9.Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, p. 337.
10.Savory to Elliott, 27 March 1974, Savory Papers, 7603–93–46E, NAM.
11.Ibid.
12.Compton Mackenzie, Eastern Epic: Vol. I, September 1939–March 1943 – Defence (London: Chatto and Windus, 1951), p. 64.
13.Peter Cochrane, Charlie Company: In Service with C Company 2nd Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders 1940–1944 (Stroud: Spellmount [Second Edition], 2007), pp. 53–60.
14.During another attack on the same position four days later, his right foot was blown off and he eventually succumbed to his wounds.
15.Stevens, Fourth Indian Division, pp. 41–42.
16.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture II, p. 18.
17.Louis Scully, ‘1st Battalion, The Worcestershire Regiment in Eritrea’, n.d., The History of the Regiment 1694–1970, The Worcestershire Regiment Museum, Worcester.
18.Savory to Elliott, 27 March 1974, Savory Papers, 7603–93-46E, NAM.
19.Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment 1922–1950, p. 26.
20.Cochrane, Charlie Company, p. 66.
21.Evans, The Desert and the Jungle, p. 39.
22.Cited in ‘Fool’s Day of 1941 in Asmara: The Brits Enter, the Italians Exit’, The Eritrean Newsletter (Issue 34, April 1979).
23.Report by Colonel Fletcher, ‘Keren – The Breakthrough’, CAB106/924, TNA.
24.‘Comments by Major-General T.W. Rees on Chapter C – The Battle of Keren’, n.d., CAB106/912, TNA.
25.Ibid.
26.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture III, p. 13.
27.Steer, Sealed and Delivered, p. 134.
28.Ibid., pp. 133–134.
29.Ibid., p. 100; Wavell, ‘Operations in
East Africa, November 1940 to July 1941’, p. 3573; Captain G.L. Steer, ‘Reform of British Wartime Propaganda (Organisation)’, 5 July 1941, FO898/309, TNA.
30.Nicholas Rankin, Telegram from Guernica (London: Faber and Faber, 2003), pp. 1–6.
31.Steer, Sealed and Delivered, p. 165.
32.Lieutenant-Colonel A.E. Cocksedge to Barton, 22 January 1947, CAB106/906, TNA.
33.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 138.
34.Ibid., p. 142.
35.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture III, p. 20.
36.‘The Battle for Keren – How We Began It’, Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1941.
37.The Abyssinian Campaigns, pp. 44–46; Cochrane, Charlie Company, p. 70.
38.Interview with Reginald Collis, 1 August 1993, Reel 2, 13292, IWM.
39.Condon (ed.), The Frontier Force Regiment, pp. 240–249.
40.Maule, Spearhead General, p. 90.
41.Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment 1922–1950, p. 26.
42.‘The East African Campaign – Comments by Frank Messervy’, n.d. (1950), CAB106/912, TNA.
43.Major A.E. Cocksedge, ‘The Left Flank at Keren’, n.d. (1941?), Savory Papers, 7603–93–46C, NAM.
44.‘The Battle for Keren – How We Began It’, Manchester Guardian, 20 March 1941.
45.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 155.
46.A.J. Barker, The West Yorkshire Regiment (London: Leo Cooper, 1974), pp. 60–61; Sandes, From Pyramid to Pagoda, pp. 102–107; Betham and Geary, The Golden Galley, pp. 188–189.
47.Interview with Reginald Collis, 1 August 1993, IWM Oral History, Reel 2, 13292, IWM.
48.Qureshi, History of the First Punjab Regiment, pp. 347–352.
49.‘Our Grip on Keren’, Manchester Guardian, 27 March 1941; ‘Italian Counter-Attacks Fail at Keren’, Manchester Guardian, 19 March 1941.
50.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture III, p. 4.
51.The Royal Fusiliers, ‘War Diary – 1st Battalion, 16 March 1941’, RFA.
52.Captain Philip Searight, ‘Sudan and Eritrea, January–April 1941’, RFA.
53.‘R.A.F.’s Big Part at Keren’, Manchester Guardian, 29 March 1941.
54.Philip Guedalla, Middle East 1940–1942: A Study in Air Power (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1944), p. 109.
55.Ibid., p. 87.
56.The Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 35.
57.Brett-James, Ball of Fire, p. 224.
58.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 180; ‘Last Act in East Africa’, Time, 7 April 1941.
59.Shirreff, Bare Feet and Bandoliers, p. 285.
60.Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 440.
61.‘Part taken by the Free French forces in the Eritrean campaign, 1941’, prepared by Barton, 1 November 1946, CAB106/905, TNA; Jean-Noël Vincent, Les Forces françaises dans la lutte contre l’Axe en Afrique: Les Forces françaises libres en Afrique 1940–1943 (Paris: Ministère de la Défense, 1983), pp. 68–92. The French commander was actually Raoul Magrin-Vernerey who had commanded two battalions of legionnaires at the Battle of Narvik but who now employed a pseudonym to protect his family back in France.
62.G.D. Martineau, A History of the Royal Sussex Regiment (Chichester: Moore and Tillyer, 1955), pp. 240–241.
63.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 163.
64.‘General Wavell’s Keren Visit’, Manchester Guardian, 29 March 1941.
65.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B, TNA.
66.Glover, An Improvised War, p. 120.
67.Sandes, From Pyramid to Pagoda, p. 107.
68.Liddell Hart, The Tanks, p. 294.
69.Fletcher to Barton, 9 July 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.
70.‘Keren – The Breakthrough’, n.d., CAB106/904, TNA.
71.Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations . . .’, 10 June 1941, Charrington Papers, 3/7, LHCMA.
72.Connell, Wavell: Scholar and Soldier, p. 376.
73.Barker, The West Yorkshire Regiment, p. 61; Betham and Geary, The Golden Galley, p. 191.
74.Regimental History of the 6th Royal Battalion (Scinde), 13th Frontier Force Rifles 1934–1947 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1951), pp. 31–32.
75.‘The East African Campaign’, comments by Frank Messervy, n.d. (1950), CAB106/912, TNA. Gazelle was finally disbanded on 14 February 1941 after three months of service, during which time it had achieved a great deal, and Messervy was given command of this brigade. He was eventually promoted to major-general and took charge of 7th Armoured Division in the battle fought in the Western Desert.
76.‘Keren – The Breakthrough’, n.d., CAB106/904, TNA.
77.Sir Arthur Longmore, From Sea to Sky 1910–1945 (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946), p. 272.
78.Rees to Barton, 25 May 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.
79.‘Comments by Major-General D. Russell on Chapter “D” – The Advance to Masawa (sic)’, n.d., CAB106/925, TNA.
80.Ibid., ‘Chapter “E” – Note on Administrative Aspect’, n.d., CAB106/925, TNA.
81.Lieutenant-Colonel J.P. Lawford and Major W.E. Catto (eds), Solah Punjab:The History of the 16th Punjab Regiment (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1967), pp. 137–141.
82.‘Food Shortage in Eritrea’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October 1940.
83.The Abyssinian Campaigns, p. 50.
84.Ibid., pp. 49–50.
85.Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations . . .’, n.d., CAB106/947, TNA; SO1 Kilindini to Admiralty, 22 February 1941, ADM223/681, TNA.
86.Barrie Pitt, The Crucible of War: Vol. I, Wavell’s Command (London: Cassell, 2001), pp. 209–210.
87.‘Massawa’, April 1941, Lieutenant-General Sir Lewis Heath Papers, LMH3, IWM.
88.Vincent, Les Forces françaises dans la lutte contre l’Axe en Afrique, p. 98.
89.‘Part taken by the Free French forces in the Eritrean campaign, 1941’, prepared by Barton, 1 November 1946, CAB106/905, TNA; Ray Ward, With the Argylls: A Soldier’s Memoir (Edinburgh: Birlinn [Electronic Edition], 2014), Chapter 3.
90.The Abyssinian Campaigns, pp. 50–51.
91.‘Massawa’, April 1941, Heath Papers, LMH3, IWM.
92.Major Graham, ‘East African Campaign’, 12 July 1941, pp. 5–6, CAB106/390, TNA.
93.Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations . . .’, n.d., CAB106/947, TNA; Brett-James, Ball of Fire, p. 99.
94.Roskill, The Navy at War 1939–1945, p. 152.
95.Crosskill, The Two Thousand Mile War, p. 141; Prasad, East African Campaign 1940–41, p. 131.
96.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 183.
97.Crosskill, The Two Thousand Mile War, p. 136.
98.Heath to Barton, 24 August 1946, CAB106/905, TNA.
99.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 174.
100.Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, p. 333.
101.Glover, An Improvised War, p. 178; Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 102; Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East: Vol. I, p. 440.
102.Barker, Eritrea 1941, p. 162.
103.Ibid., p. 122.
104.Evans, The Desert and the Jungle, p. 74.
105.‘Comments by Maj. Gen, D.R. Bateman on the Draft Chapter “C” – The Battle of Keren’, 26 January 1946, CAB106/925, TNA.
106.Raugh, Wavell in the Middle East, p. 181.
107.Platt, The Campaign against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture II, p. 19.
108.Mackenzie, Eastern Epic, p. 64.
109.W.G. Hingston, The Tiger Strikes (Calcutta: J.F. Parr, 1942), p. 92.
110.Charrington, ‘Notes on the Operations . . .’, n.d., CAB106/947, TNA.
111.‘East African Campaigns’, House of Lords Debate, 28 May 1941, Hansard, Vol. 119, cc 297–311.
112.‘The Final Assault on Keren’, Manchester Guardian, 28 March 1941.
113.Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, p. 335.
9: A Third Front: The Patriots
1.Porch, The Path to Victory, p. 136; Foot, SOE, pp. 251–264.
2.Raugh, ‘General Wavell and the Ital
ian East African Campaign’, p. 57.
3.The British scholar Simon Anglim has spent much of his career studying Wingate and produced a series of books and articles that examine the controversial British military officer. For a more detailed discussion, the relevant section in his most important work should be studied; Simon Anglim, Orde Wingate and the British Army, 1933–1944 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010), pp. 101–144.
4.Douglas Dodds-Parker, Setting Europe Ablaze: Some Account of Ungentlemanly Warfare (London: Springwood Books, 1984), pp. 59–73; Shirreff, Bare Feet and Bandoliers, p. 65; Allen, Guerrilla War in Abyssinia, p. 63.
5.Desmond White, ‘A Trying Chindit’, British Medical Journal (Vol. 285, 18–25 Dec. 1982), p. 1779.
6.Talk with Major Anthony Irwin, 13 January 1945, Liddell Hart Papers, LH11/1945/9, LHCMA.
7.Trevor Royle, Orde Wingate: Irregular Soldier (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), pp. 186–187; Wilfred Thesiger, The Life of My Choice (London: Collins, 1987), p. 321.
8.Foot, SOE, pp. 255–256; Christopher Sykes, Orde Wingate (London: Collins, 1959), p. 248.
9.Dodds-Parker, Setting Europe Ablaze, p. 57.
10.Glover, An Improvised War, p. 150; Foot, SOE, p. 255.
11.‘An Epic of Abyssinia’, Great Britain and the East, 20 February 1941.
12.Foot, SOE, p. 256.
13.Interview with Reginald Collis, 1 August 1993, IWM Oral History, Reel 2, IWM.
14.M.O.1 (Records), ‘East Africa . . .’, n.d., WO106/2337B, TNA.
15.Platt, The Campaign Against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture I, pp. 8–9; Glover, An Improvised War, p. 62.
16.Sbacchi, ‘Haile Selassie and the Italians 1941–1943’, p. 28.
17.Platt, The Campaign Against Italian East Africa 1940/41, Lecture I, p. 14.
18.Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 81; Mockler, Haile Selassie’s War, p. 312.
19.M.R.D. Foot, ‘Obituary: Lt-Col. Tony Simonds’, Independent (London), 26 January 1999.
20.Foot, SOE, p. 258; Angelo Del Boca [trans. Antony Shugaar], The Negus: The Life and Death of the Last King of Kings (Addis Ababa: Arada Books, 2012), p. 202.
21.Del Boca, The Negus, p. 205.
22.Foot, SOE, pp. 260–262.
23.Jeff Pearce, Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia’s Victory over Mussolini’s Invasion, 1935–1941 (New York: Skyhorse Publishing [Electronic Edition], 2014), Chapter 23.
The First Victory Page 34