A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  A second portee entered the battle. It knocked out a fifth tank, sending a cloud of black smoke high into the sky. That portee was destroyed by fire from the sixth tank; the third portee soon knocked the remaining M13/40 out.

  The tanks being knocked out in quick succession broke the remaining Italian infantry. They started surrendering as the Australians swarmed through the remaining defenses. The Italian line caved in completely; the way to Bardia was open.

  Solomon led his men forward towards the Italian rear area. An Italian soldier, on one of the strongpoints that had been overrun but not cleared, pulled himself out of the ruins. He took over a Breda light machine gun that had been left there. He fired just three rounds before the machine gun jammed. Two hit Joe Solomon in the back, killing him instantly.

  GHQ, Middle East Command, Cairo, Egypt

  “The strongest position on the western side of the perimeter, with the Italians dug in deep along the top of a wadi, tons of wire, MG’s etc, above an ‘unclimable’ slope and the battalion went straight through them on nothing but pluck, pride and ignorance. God bless the buggers.”

  Wavell spoke with something very close to reverential awe. The initial reports from the assault on Bardia were in. They told a very different story from the carefully choreographed plan that had been evolved to counter a resolute defense. The battle had descended into chaos, with multiple assaults breaking through the Italian defenses in a variety of directions. It was truly chaotic; a battle with no discernable shape or form.

  Wavell had little doubt that in years to come, the historians would draw lines on a map and explain how the various attacks were supporting each other. They might even speculate as to what his basic plan had been. Wavell knew the truth, though; his basic plan had been thrown out of the window within minutes of the attack starting. The battle was being shaped by the troops on the ground. Privately, he had no objection to that. In the swirling madhouse that was the assault on Bardia, the Italian defenses were dissolving.

  “We had some problems with 17th Brigade’s assault.”

  Maitland Wilson was having a hard time making up his mind about the formless battle that had developed. On one hand, he gloried in the sheer audacity with which the offensive was shredding the Italian Army. What had been intended as a mere raid for supplies and a spoiling action against a later Italian attack was turning into a major offensive that was ripping apart the Italian position in North Africa. On the other hand, if the Italians got their act together, the situation could swing the other way with frightening speed. “They got pinned down by artillery for a while and took a lot of casualties. The battalion support company eventually got the attack moving and they broke through.”

  Maitland Wilson hesitated for a moment. The next part was difficult. “We’re taking a lot of prisoners, Archie; thousands of them, in fact. We’re getting the problems of false surrenders again, though. That led to a bad do all around at Strongpoint 24. A company of the 2/7th, backed up by a couple of Matildas, were attacking the position when the Italians hoisted the white flag. As the prisoners were rounded up, one shot the company commander dead, then threw down his rifle and climbed out of the position; smiling broadly, by all accounts.

  “The troops didn’t like that, Archie; not at all. They took the law into their own hands. They shot the bugger with a full magazine from a Bren gun, then threw grenades in with the rest of the Italians and bayoneted any survivors.”

  “Just because an Italian will knife you for suggesting he is not a gentleman, doesn’t mean he is one.” Wavell thought carefully. “The Italians put up a white flag and then our troops were fired on when they came forward to take the surrender?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, Archie.” Maitland Wilson was wary.

  “That’s how the official report will put it. The Italians opened fire from under the cover of a white flag and the troops returned fire. Unofficially, make sure the troops involved get the riot act read to them. We can’t have this sort of thing becoming commonplace. It would have been nice to have hanged that Italian for murder; it might put a stop to this false surrender nonsense.” Wavell’s voice hardened while he was speaking.

  “There’s another minor problem. Colonel Godfrey is claiming all the credit for 2/6th Infantry Battalion’s assault. Says he saw the opportunity and took advantage of it. Disgraceful case of a CO seeking to make his mark at the expense of his men. Truth is, he lost control of them and they did the job on their own.”

  “Well. If we take him at his word, the assault he ‘planned’ was in defiance of the clear instructions he had received, and against all basic military logic and common sense.” Wavell hesitated, aware of the operational and political implications of the situation. “That’s the trouble with the Australians; they just don’t have the experience to season them. Not yet, anyway. An Indian Army battalion wouldn’t have gone out of control like that. But, they did breach the line; so, we’ll leave Godfrey where he is for a while. Jumbo, I want you to have a word with him and haul him over the coals. Get Iven Mackay to speak with him as well. And his brigade commander. You organize the details, Jumbo; you know the drill.”

  Maitland Wilson smiled grimly. A series of reprimands from evermore senior officers would ensure that Godfrey never lost control of his men again; or, if he did so, he wouldn’t try and seize the credit for their success. Idly, Maitland Wilson wondered what would have happened had the attack been the disaster military logic suggested it should have been. Godfrey would have been quick to blame his junior officers he guessed. Sly, devious and cunning; the man bears considerable watching.

  “I’ll see to it, Archie. 16th and 17th Brigades are through the defenses by now and consolidating. One of the problems is that all the infantry units are severely under strength from detaching PoW guards. Stan Savige’s 17th Brigade is spread out too far to do much more at the moment. 16th Brigade will be launching a night attack once they’ve consolidated, but they’ll be exhausted by tomorrow evening. Iven says we need to move 19th Brigade up to reinforce them both.”

  “He’s the man on the spot. Give him a free hand.”

  Maitland Smith nodded and noted down the order. “Dickie O’Connor says that his flying column is already south of Tobruk; a place called Bir al Ghabi. There’s a maze of camel tracks, but the column is steering west by compass. There’s a major wadi to the west that is causing some concern, but the column is still expected to make it to Beda Fomm within a week. Then the Italians will have nowhere left to go.”

  Swordfish Mark 1 V4373, off Cape Methoni

  The flight of a Swordfish could best be described as stately; its evasive maneuvers could only be called majestic. As Lieutenant James MacFleet was all too aware, those characterizations were hardly complimentary when attacking an enemy battlefleet. Even the light patter of antiaircraft fire coming from the Italian ships seemed to be threatening enough. The volume might be small by British standards, but the closing rate was so slow that the gunners seemed to have plenty of time to correct their aim.

  The Swordfish torpedo bombers from Eagle were approaching in a wide arc as their scouting line closed in on the Italian ships. MacFleet had a good idea of what they were up against now; the news was only marginally reassuring. There were fewer ships in the formation that the Maryland crews had reported. Three battleships, two heavy cruisers and six destroyers. MacFleet’s navigator had already identified the two cruisers as the Trento and Trieste. Older ships than the heavy cruisers reported by the RAF crews, with much less effective antiaircraft batteries. The eleven Italian ships had only a handful of 90mm guns and 13.2 mm machine guns between them. The volume of fire that they generated was unimpressive to anybody who had seen the Royal Navy’s eight-barrelled pompoms at work.

  Another look at the three battleships showed that they had grown only marginally larger as his Swordfish had closed the range. MacFleet had a strange fear that if the Italians turned into the wind, they would actually outrun his Swordfish. Fortunately, with the Britis
h aircraft coming in from ahead of the formation, turning away from him would mean heading towards another group of torpedo bombers. The Swordfish crews had been practicing exactly this kind of attack for almost a decade. They were performing a well-known drill that had been methodically refined and perfected. The only slight differences were that the torpedo hanging under their aircraft were live. So was the ammunition being fired at them.

  “We’ll take the nearest cruiser.” MacFleet yelled the remark into his speaking tube and got a thumbs-up from his navigator. The Italian heavy ships formed a V. The three battleships lead, and the two heavy cruisers brought up the rear. MacFleet felt sorry for the lead battleship. No matter what orders said, there was an irresistible tendency for crews to drop on the first enemy ship they came to. With the torpedo planes coming in from ahead, the battleship at the point of the V would attract most attention. He had a feeling she was the Conte di Cavour, but the four rebuilt Italian battleships were so similar, it was hard to tell the difference between them.

  He kept weaving his Swordfish, trying to throw off the gunners who were hosing machine-gun fire at him. Every few seconds, there was a thud as one of the machine gun bullets hit his aircraft. That really didn’t concern him too much. The wood and fabric-built Swordfish might seem flimsy, but it was resilient enough to take a lot of punishment.

  “We got one!” The navigator yelled out the news with glee.

  MacFleet sneaked a quick look over to the head of the formation. A great tower of water rose from the stern of the leading Italian battleship. “Right in the arse. That’s got to hurt.”

  MacFleet was surprised how quickly he seemed to be moving as he finally closed in on his target. There was a destroyer between him and his chosen cruiser. Tracer fire streamed from its machine guns. He took a quick look; the midships 4.7-inch twin mount that defined her as a member of the Navigatore class. Another quick glance at the battleships that now seemed terribly close yet were also passing behind him showed that a second tower of water had erupted from the already-injured battleship. He would have held the sight longer, but there was another thud. Something hit his aircraft. This one sounded very different. The deep thud of something important getting hit, not the lighter noise of a bullet passing through wood andfabric.

  The vibration told him his engine was hurt. Oil starting to spray on to his windscreen suggested the hit was bad. MacFleet abandoned the idea of going for the cruiser and decided to settle for a destroyer. After all, the attack is supposed to hit as many ships as possible wasn’t it? And my Swordfish might not stay airborne long enough to get into a drop position on the cruiser.

  A quick check showed he was barely 300 yards from the destroyer and in a near-perfect position just off the bow. Turning away from him would present the destroyer’s broadside to his torpedo; turning into him would mean that closure speed was so high, the torpedo would hit before the destroyer could escape. He corrected the angle slightly and released the torpedo.

  It ran straight and true, hitting the destroyer dead under the midships gun mounting. For a sickening moment, MacFleet thought it had malfunctioned and sunk without exploding. Then the column of water erupted around the destroyer. Only for a second, though. The torpedo hit was perfectly placed to detonate the magazine that fed the midships guns. The destroyer vanished in a black and orange fireball. The blast wave threw the damaged Swordfish out of control and nearly tossed her into the sea. MacFleet only just managed to get her back in hand. He felt sure a wingtip at least had dipped in the water. The aircraft was still flying despite the blast damage and the smoke streaming from its engine.

  “Give us a course for home, Harry.” The voice tube at least was still working.

  “Try 180 for a few minutes. I’ll give you a course as soon as I get a hit from the ‘79.”

  That was the Royal Navy’s secret weapon, a homing beacon that would allow her carrier aircraft to make their way back. For a battered and damaged aircraft, it was a gift beyond price. MacFleet wondered if other navies had similar equipment, but dismissed the thought. He had a damaged aircraft to worry about.

  Admiral’s Bridge, Conte di Cavour, off Cape Methoni

  Admiral Inigo Campioni hauled himself back on to his feet as the Conte di Cavour rocked from the third torpedo hit she had taken. Off to port, a tower of water beside the Guilio Cesare showed that she too had suffered at the hands of the infernal torpedo-bombers that were breaking his fleet apart.

  “Sir, the Nicolo Zeno has blown up!”

  The lookout’s report confused Admiral Campioni. They were under air attack. It was supposed to be impossible to torpedo a destroyer moving at full speed and taking evasive action. He looked across the fleet. A black pyre of smoke told him the report was correct. One of the Swordfish torpedo bombers was on fire as it crossed Campioni’s field of vision. He watched the crew jumping from the open cockpit. They were far too low for their parachutes to open and far too high to stand a real chance of surviving the jump without a parachute. He guessed they’d decided it was better to jump than burn. The Swordfish wallowed for a split second and then it bellied into the water. The pyre it made drifted through the formation of ships and was left behind in their wake.

  “Brave men.” Campioni did not grudge the tribute to the pilots and crews of the old biplanes. He was under no illusions about the weakness of his antiaircraft fire, but flying so slowly into the tracers still needed cold nerve. The British pilots had that; skill, too. His listing, crippled flagship was a clear tribute to that.

  “Sir, Guilio Cesare has been hit again. She’s signalling she is out of control.”

  Campioni looked aft towards where Guilio Cesare was starting to circle helplessly. Another ship with a torpedo in the screws. The British pilots aren’t just hitting my ships; they’re putting the torpedoes where they will hurt the most. Damn them. There was a light rattle as machine gun fire struck the bridge. One of the Swordfish had actually had the gall to strafe him as it passed. The single Lewis gun was unlikely to do any real damage. It would take the foulest of foul luck for it to hurt anybody, but it was the thought behind it that counted. He felt the ship shudder slightly under his feet. Campioni thought she had been hit again, but it was the echoes of a distant blow.

  “It’s over, sir.” His flag Lieutenant sounded relieved. “We have taken three hits, Guilio Cesare two, Trento two, Trieste one and Nicolo Zeno one. The destroyer has gone and Trento is sinking fast. “

  Nine hits out of 15 torpedoes. Just who were those pilots? “How many aircraft did we shoot down?”

  “Three sir, with two more seen flying away badly damaged. Andrea Doria is trying to get Guilio Cesare under tow.”

  “What about us?” Campioni was shocked at how much damage the small formation of bombers had wrought on his fleet.

  “Sir, the damage control crews report that the torpedo protection system has failed completely. All three torpedoes hit the same side and they cannot stop the flooding. We can limit the list if we counterflood but doing so will mean our remaining machinery room will be lost. We’re sinking, sir.” The damage control officer sounded hopeless and defeated. “All we can do is to buy the time needed to get the crew off the ship. The destroyers can pick us up.”

  Campioni could feel his ship was going down. The rolling motion under his feet was getting consistently more sluggish. She was rolling reluctantly, but each successive recovery from the rolls was even more reluctant. The list at the end of each was just that little bit worse. Soon, she wouldn’t stop the roll and she would capsize.

  “Make it so. Get the men off. Make sure the crew in the engine and boiler rooms know what is to happen. What about Trieste?”

  The Flag Officer took over the reports again. “She’s dead in the water now, but Captain Avila reports she should be able to make five knots in a quarter of an hour and fifteen within the hour. He requests permission to head for port since it is proving hard to stop the flooding.”

  That should not surprise anybody. The Trent
os were built so lightly that they get shaken up by their own guns, let alone torpedo hits. “Tell him to proceed at his own speed and at his own discretion. Andrea Doria is to take Guilio Cesare under tow and make for Taranto. I will transfer my flag to her. With five destroyers left in operational condition and those crowded with survivors, our part in this is over.”

  Campioni looked at his mauled fleet again and shook his head, thinking of the crew he had seen jump from their burning Swordfish. God help me, I would be honored to shake the hands of those men.

  Goofers Gallery, HMS Eagle, At Sea, Off Gavdos

  “Here comes another one!”

  The chorus of cheers from the bridge of the carrier marked the appearance of another Swordfish returning from the strike. The first few aircraft back were already below, sitting in the hangar while they were repaired, rearmed and refuelled. The day was still early and there was the possibility of launching another mission. It all depended on what the pilots had to report.

  The Swordfish making its approach was in serious trouble. It was streaming thick black smoke from its engine and its progress was unsteady. On Eagle’s flight deck, emergency crews were getting ready to deal with the crash landing that seemed all too probable. The aircraft seemed to slip sideways and lurch down; then it recovered. It shook some more as it crossed the turbulence behind the carrier deck. Again, it seemed to falter, but the pilot caught it just in time. Then, his aircraft dropped on to the flight deck. Its arrester hook snagged a wire. The Swordfish came to a halt, quickly surrounded by emergency crews. They doused the smoking engine with foam. A cheer went up from the watchers lining Goofer’s Gallery as the pilot jumped down. It turned to a roar of appreciative laughter; he knelt down and kissed the deck.

  “V4373. That’s Jim MacFleet Take him off the strike list, he won’t be able to fly that kite again today.”