A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  “Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!”

  The Sikhs sprinted across the remaining few yards of ground and jumped down into the Italian positions, preparing to take them with the bayonet. Instead, they found empty entrenchments and deserted defenses. The artillery fire had pounded some portions of the defenses, the bombing from the aircraft had done more, but the lack of Italian casualties was painfully obvious. The preparation had landed on mostly empty trenches.

  The implications of that were still sinking into Singh’s mind when he heard the renewed whistle of artillery fire. This time, the difference in sound was immediately obvious.

  “INBOUND!”

  The Sikh troops scattered and took cover in the deserted Italian positions. In some cases, the safety they offered was illusory. Foxholes and trenches had been booby-trapped. The resulting explosions beat the arrival of the Italian artillery fire by a few seconds. The light cracks of the inbound shells told Singh that they were only 65mm mountain guns firing a puny 9-pound projectile. The placement of the rounds made up for any lack of power. The Italian gunners droped their shots into the positions just seized by the Indians with almost uncanny accuracy.

  They’ve pre-registered all the positions. The thought ran through Singh’s mind as he scrambled out from the dugout he’d occupied and got as far away from it as he could. Behind him, a pattern of the light shells covered the position he’d just vacated. Fragments whined around his head.

  The artillery bombardment was joined by a crackle of rifle fire, punctuated by brief bursts from machine guns. Singh sneaked a look from the dip he had found himself in. The Italians were advancing quickly across the open ground. His eyes took in the black feathers on their helmets. Bersaglieri. Their rifle fire was accurate and, combined with the precision support from the little 65mm howitzers, they were making the Indian positions too hot to hold.

  The Sikh troops, very reluctantly, started to give ground, dropping back over the ridgeline to the dead ground beyond. There, they were relatively safe from the Italian guns. When the Bersaglieri crossed the crest in pursuit, they were greeted by a barrage of rifle and machine gun fire. Tthat drove them back in turn.

  In the brief pause that followed, Singh collected his surviving men and got them back into reasonable shape. Then the whistles blew. He led them back over the crest into an assault on the Italian line. Once again, the positions just over the crest had been abandoned and lay temptingly open, but the Sikhs had learned from their previous mistakes.

  They kept going.

  This time, without pre-registeration on carefully defined targets, the light Italian mountain guns were much less effective; they were an annoyance more than anything else. The Indian artillery observers had caught up with the infantry. They directed fire from the comparatively heavy 4.5-inch howitzers on to the Bersaglieri positions in the rear. The 35-pound shells had an authority that the 9-pound Italian projectiles lacked; the barrage suppressed the Italian infantry fire long enough for the Indians to close.

  The fight was bitter. The Bersaglieri had no intention of giving ground without making their opponents pay dearly for it. By the time they were driven out of their defenses, Singh’s unit had lost yet more of his men. He doubted the ability of the remainder to advance further without rest and reinforcement. He was slightly surprised to see one of the Bersaglieri officers advancing with a white flag. Surely they are not surrendering now, after the brave and honorable fight they put up?

  It was with an anomalous sense of relief that he got the message from the company headquarters. “There will be a three-hour truce so that the wounded can be collected for care and the dead recovered for burial.”

  A few minutes later, whistles blew on the Indian side to announce the start of the truce. Singh was amused to hear the same message being given on the Italian side by a trumpet fanfare. His men started to lay the Italian bodies out where the Bersaglieri could collect them and get their own wounded ready for carriage back to the battalion lines. Half way through the process, a stretcher team from the Italians turned up and started to pick up the Italian wounded. An Italian officer with them noted the first-aid work carried out on the Italian wounded by the Indians and caught Singh’s eye. Singh himself had seen the Italian medics and stretcher bearers treating the Indian wounded and returned the glance. Two professional soldiers who didn’t even begin to speak each other’s language reached an understanding without any problems. There was a time to fight and a time to give aid and comfort. This was the latter and that it was being respected as such gave honor to them both.

  Vickers Wellesley G-George, Over Asmara, Eritrea

  The eighteen Wellesleys were formed into three flights of six and lined up on the Italian Air Force base at Asmara. 47 Squadron had been assigned the base as its primary target, mostly to persuade the Italian Air Force not to come back north. As far as Squadron Leader Sean Mannix was concerned, the absence of Italian fighters was an entirely good thing. His Wellesley had been a remarkable aircraft once; long ranged and capable of carrying what was, for then, a heavy bombload. Now, it was painfully obsolete, slow and very poorly armed. His aircraft’s only real defense was a single .303 Vickers machine gun aft and that had a very limited field of fire. The fact that he and his gunner sat in separate cockpits made coordinating defense very difficult. All in all, it was fortunate that the Italians had moved all their fighters south, where the South African Tomahawks had cut a swathe of destruction through them.

  Mannix peered over the nose, trying to see the airfield that he was supposed to be approaching. It was hard to make out the runway against the prevailing yellow-gray color of the bare African soil. Even black-topped runways quickly adopted the universal khaki color as they absorbed the windblown dust. The airfield was supposed to be south of the town, but he couldn’t see anything.

  It didn’t help that he was his own bomb-aimer. He had to fly the aircraft, search for his target, keep in formation with the other aircraft in his flight and watch out in case any enemy fighters were around. He swept his eyes quickly around the sky before transferring attention back to the ground. That was when he saw two large, square buildings with a long, straight patch of desert in front of them. Hangars, runway, south of the town. This has to be it.

  It took a minor change of course to line up his aircraft on the target. Around him, the other five members of his flight saw the change and adjusted their own path accordingly. Their pilots watched his aircraft with their thumbs on the bomb release. As soon as he dropped, they would do the same. His was the only flight in 47 Squadron trained that way; the other two flights both relied on individual bomb-aiming. There had been long arguments over the technique Mannix had come up with. The other flight commanders pointed out that if he missed badly, everybody would. His counter-argument was that his flight would at least get a nice tight bomb pattern and damage something.

  Underneath him, the hangars he had spotted entered his bombsight. He waited a second, allowing the cross-hairs to pass just over the target. Then he pressed his release. In the streamlined bomb panniers under his wings, the racks released the ten 100-pound bombs contained in each. They hit the bungee-loaded bomb pannier doors, knocking them open and then falling clear to rain down on the target below. The ground around the buildings erupted in a tight pattern of explosions, the buildings vanishing under the clouds of black and red smoke.

  “Fighters; fighters.” The voice from his gunner came over the speaking tube clearly. Mannix looked around and saw a flight of CR.32s descending on the British formation.

  “Everybody, keep it tight.”

  Mannix tried to stay calm. They promised us there wouldn’t be any fighters here. Behind him, he heard chatter; his gunner opened fire on a pair of CR.32s that had picked his flight. The other gunners in his formation did the same. Between them, the display of firepower looked impressive. Mannix was painfully aware of how ineffective it really was. In contrast, the other flights had dispersed as each aircraft made its own run. Now the fighters
had a spread-out series of targets, instead of the compressed mass offered by Mannix’s group. They went for the easiest targets: picking an isolated bomber, diving down and coming up from below, gutting them with their machine guns. Mannix saw one Wellesley break up. Its long wings folded around it as it started to spin down. Another developed a trail of black and orange flame; two parachutes separated from it.

  There was more chattering from his formation. A CR.32 tried an up-and-under attack, but the aircraft were able to cover each other. The fighter pilot obviously decided easy kills were better and left them alone. Mannix’s decision to keep a tight formation paid of in ways he had never expected. By the time the CR.32s pulled away, seven of the 18 Wellesleys had been shot down, not one of them from his flight.

  Asmara, Italian Eritrea

  “They all escaped?” Colonel Duilio Loris Contadino looked at the destruction and shook his head. The prison on the outskirts of the town had been the center of the attack and the bombers had done appalling damage. The walls had been knocked flat; the baked-mud bricks powdered by the bombs. The walls of the cell blocks had collapsed as well, leaving the cells inside exposed. The occupants of those cells took the opportunity the British bombers had so generously provided and fled. A handful had died from the bombs; the majority of prisoners, almost all leaders of the resistance to the Italian occupation of Eritrea and Ethiopia, had escaped.

  “All of them, except the few we see in the ruins, sir.” Captain Crescenzo Rico surveyed the destruction and whistled. “These must be the very best crews the British had. Just to hit a target like this from so high showed great skill and to get a close pattern like this, all around the prison but so few hits on it is truly remarkable. Our airmen could never do such a thing. And the way the other bombers drew our fighters away from the attack formation. I hope these were the elite British crews; because, if the rest of the British bombers are as skilled and ruthless as this, we will have much to fear.”

  “They were lucky, Captain. We were expecting them to bomb the airfield the other side of town and our fighters were stacked there, waiting for them. By the time the pilots realized the airfield wasn’t their target, it was too late. The bombers had an undisturbed run.” Contadino sighed; privately he was shaken by the attack. How had the British bombers known that the leaders of the bandit forces were held here? Asmara must be saturated with British spies.

  “What of the rest of the town?”

  “The bombs are scattered all over the town. No great damage; a few buildings knocked down here, a road blocked by craters there. It’s annoying more than anything else. If it hadn’t been for those bombs disrupting our efforts to move through the town, we would have been here in time to chase the escapees. As it was, by the time we got here, they had got clean away. This was a very well-planned raid; an accurate main strike and well-executed diversions.”

  Contadino nodded. “We underestimated the British badly. I will seek a meeting with the Duke of Aosta and tell him that he will now have to face a resumption of bandit attacks in this area. I do not think he will be pleased with that information.”

  GHQ, Middle East Command, Cairo, Egypt

  “Bill Slim shapes up well.” Wavell sounded pleased.

  Maitland Wilson agreed. “Fifth Indian Division is pushing forward into Eritrea and advancing on Asmara. If he can just forget that he isn’t commanding a brigade any more and stop running around on the front line, he’ll make a good divisional officer. Fourth Indian Division is hung up on the ridges south of Kassala. We expected that; they’re pinning down the 40th Infantry Division there. Slim’s Indians will be taking the Cacciatori d’Africa in the flank very soon.”

  “We’re taking a hell of a chance moving 4th Indian Infantry down there, Jumbo.” Wavell was flicking at the map with his fingers. “The 6th Australians are as green as grass and I doubt if any of their officers have commanded more than a battalion. Blarney makes a big show, but expecting those men to equal the performance of the Indians is pushing it. I hope we don’t have a disaster in the making.”

  Maitland Wilson stared at the map. “We don’t really have much choice. We know Halifax will call for an armistice as soon as he has enough gains to make securing one politically worthwhile, or plead for one as soon as it looks like we’re losing. We’ve got to grab everything in one go. Once we have momentum on our side, we get freedom of action. If we let momentum slip, we’re going to lose that freedom.”

  “Just how green are the Australians, Jumbo?”

  There was a long pause as Maitland Wilson thought the situation over. “Very, but I’m not entirely sure that it matters. They want to fight. There’s no doubt about that and the treatment of the Canadian division back home got their dander up. On the other hand, they lack experience in combined arms operations and large formation actions. The question is, will they need to do either? If 7th Armoured defeats the Italian armored battle group and spearheads the advance, the Australians following behind will be doing little more than clearing up and taking prisoners. Looked at that way, this may even be the training exercise they need to shake down. Anyway, I say again, Archie; do we have a choice?”

  Wavell shook his head. “No, we do not. We cannot rely on any coherent policy out of London. Between us, Jumbo, I must admit that my position here is about as uncomfortable as it gets. I’m supposed to report to London, but I am an Indian Army officer who is now supposed to report to Calcutta. Well, that’s always been something of a problem, we all know that; but we’ve never had a situation where India is at war and Britain isn’t.”

  “Britain is at war with Italy; effectively, at any rate.” Maitland Wilson was looking for some ray of sunlight to illuminate the situation.

  “Yes, now. And that brings us back to our initial problem. For how long will Halifax keep up his present position? Anyway, Jumbo, I have another problem. Have you ever heard of an officer called Wingate? Major Orde Wingate?”

  “Heard of him? I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with him. Insufferable, arrogant, conceited man, with excessive religious beliefs. Did well in Palestine, but got convinced he was the messiah come to Earth and ended up part and parcel of the Jewish forces there. Working as much for them as for us. Why? He’s not in Egypt, is he?” Maitland Wilson’s face was so distraught at the possibility, Wavell couldn’t help but laugh.

  “No, he’s in Ethiopia. Bill Platt knew his success in raising and commanding irregular forces in Palestine and brought him out. Anyway, I’ve had a message from our Major Wingate claiming to have organized a jail break in which nearly all the leaders of the Ethiopian anti-Italian groups have escaped. He wants to set up an irregular group in Ethiopia to help drive the Italians out.”

  “That fits the man. He’s obsessed with irregular warfare and deep penetration operations.”

  “They worked in Palestine.”

  “Yes, they did. Give him credit for that, but he was operating in a very friendly environment for what he was doing. He could trust his own people implicitly and they knew exactly who the enemy were. Neither will be true in Ethiopia. Anyway, I have my doubts about his deep penetration operations theories. I think he’s going to try it one day against an enemy who know what they are doing and he’ll get cut to pieces. The problem is that he’ll take a lot of good men down with him.

  Wavell nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a lot to be said there. I’ve got a different question, though; one that strikes right at the heart of this proposed operation of Wingate’s. Do we really want to go around starting up these irregular insurgency groups? It strikes me that the whole idea could backfire very badly.”

  “You mean start something that will return to haunt us?” Maitland Wilson looked thoughtful. “That’s a very real danger. However, there is something else we have to take into consideration. We’re desperately short of troops. We’ve got five front line divisions, one independent brigade and two divisions that are second line. We’ve got the whole lot committed to action right now and we’ve not got a man in r
eserve. Archie, if there’s a crisis now, you’ll have to give me a pistol and tell me to deal with it myself, because I’m the only reserve you’ve got.”

  “I might have to take you up on that, Jumbo. But, I take the point. The two Indian divisions are over-extended in Eritrea already and their attack has barely started. We need that irregular force in Ethiopia or we just won’t have the men to boot the Italians out.”

  11th Infantry (Queen’s Cobra) Division, Sisaket, Thailand

  “Do you know where are we going, Corporal?” The private was deferential, as befitted one speaking to somebody of higher rank.

  “Of course.” Corporal Mongkut had already noticed the differences in the 11th Infantry since he had first been recalled to the colors. Where once men had made hard work of a few kilometers march, now they swung along easily; their steps accompanied by light-hearted banter. Yet, despite the rhythm of the march, they were keeping a wary eye out for a ‘surprise’ planned by their officers. Or, much more likely, the German advisors who had directed their training.

  “Well, where are we going?” After a marked pause, the same private asked Mongkut with carefully faked patience.

  “Why, wherever our officers tell us to go, of course.” Mongkut replied with equally carefully faked innocence. He listened appreciatively to the wry groan of disappointment that went up.

  Mongkut had a shrewd idea where he was. His family came from Rattanburi and he knew the country well. After the train had brought them from Kanchanaburi and unloaded them at the marshalling yard at Sisaket, they had marched east. Combining that with his knowledge of the land, he guessed that the whole regiment was moving towards the Indo-China border; probably close to where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos intersected. There was no logical reason why an entire infantry regiment would be needed up here; not unless something big was about to happen.