“Take Malta as soon as possible,” he said. “Take it before the British realize what they already have in hand, and start sending reinforcements there. Then give me everything you can, Keitel. Give me the tanks and supplies, and I promise you—I will give you Egypt in return.”
Yes, he thought. I will give them Egypt, and after that, I will carry the war on my shoulders all the way to the Caspian Sea. He could see it all now, and he knew it was more than possible. Then they will have all the oil they might ever need, he thought, but to do that I will need the supplies and fuel Keitel speaks of first. The 5th Light Division is hardly enough to get started, but I will not know that until I am on the ground in Libya. If I find myself begging for table scraps, starved of men, fuel, and material, then things might not turn out to the Führer’s liking. But I do know one thing—Hitler loves a good victory, doesn’t he? So that is exactly what he will get.
* * *
Keitel had his answer from Rommel, and now he knew that there would not be objection or difficulties on his end of things if his own plan went forward. He had Jodl and Raeder in his corner, and Kesselring too. Now he wanted to sound out the mind of yet one other key officer before he face the real challenge of trying to persuade Hitler. That man was Franz Halder, the Chief of the OKH General Staff at that time.
Keitel had taken Rommel’s advice to heart, at least on one matter, the importance of Malta to any future effort to supply an army in North Africa. So now he sought to raise the matter with Halder, and the two men went round and round with it before a decision was reached.
“Crete would seem to be a more inviting target,” said Halder, Chief of the OKH General Staff at that time. He removed his cap, tucking it under his arm as he ran a hand over his short cropped hair, which he wore in Hindenburg style after the famous German Chancellor, a half inch thick brush on top, and shorter on the sides. His eyes played over the map behind the round wire frame spectacles he wore, his face serious as he considered the situation.
“We are not in a position to attack Crete at the moment.”
“That will change soon enough. We’ll finish up in Greece in another month, and from there we can make the jump easily with Student’s 7th Flieger Division and the 22nd Luftland Air Landing Division. Throw in a mountain regiment by sea and that should be all it takes to do the job.”
“Yes, yes, I have seen the plans, but we must look at the bigger picture, Halder. We’ve sent Rommel to Africa with the 5th Light Division, and I have plans to send him at least two more divisions, five if we can find the shipping. How do you propose that we keep them supplied?”
“You’ve been talking to Raeder?”
Keitel gave him a disparaging look. “What has that to do with anything? I am well aware of his views concerning the Mediterranean strategy, but at the moment this is purely a consideration of logistics—a matter for the army. If we put men in the deserts of Libya and Egypt, then they will have to be supplied. We have one good port at the moment—Tripoli—and Malta sits right astride the sea lanes we must use to get there.”
“Rommel had no trouble landing his troops,” Halder put in.
“That is because the British have yet to build up their air defenses on Malta, but you know they will, particularly if we do begin a stronger buildup of forces in North Africa.”
Halder folded his arms, not entirely convinced that Rommel should even be there. “You are aware of the Führer’s plans regarding Operation Barbarossa?”
“Of course I am, but that is six months off—perhaps even a year if I can talk some sense into the man. For my part, I believe we would be foolish to attack Russia anytime soon, if at all.”
“You forget the oil, Keitel. Volkov has plenty, but we need a way to get our hands on it. The fields of Ploesti in Romania will only take us so far—and that is another reason we should take Crete. If we leave it to the British they will build up defenses there as well, and from Crete their bombers can reach Ploesti. Yet, if we have that island, we can use it to bomb Alexandria.”
“Volkov?” Keitel darkened at the mention of the man’s name. “Yes, Ivan Volkov, always whispering in the Fuhrer’s ear with those intelligence messages he keeps sending us. If he were not correct so often I would just as soon choke the man. There is something about him that I do not trust.”
Both Halder and Keitel had met the man in a brief session in 1939 just before the war. It was there that Volkov had asserted Germany would easily defeat the British and French in France, and it had happened almost exactly as he said it would. He had warned the Germans that the British would try to intervene in Norway, picking the exact time and place, and he had been correct again. His latest whispers had been warnings to the French concerning the British plans to attack their fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. That intelligence had enabled Admiral Gensoul to put to sea just before the British fleet sortied from Gibraltar. And he had also warned about Operation Menace aimed at Dakar, and the recently concluded Operation Compass.
“Well,” said Keitel. “Now that you mention Volkov, I suppose you are aware of the information he has sent us on this very question.” He reached into his uniform coat pocket and produced a folded paper.
“Listen to this,” he said quietly, “the latest intelligence briefing from the man they call the Prophet. “It is quite startling, all things considered.” He looked up at Halder, a glint in his eye, like a man who was about to spring a well laid trap. “Tell me, Keitel. Does he agree with your assessment?”
“That and more,” said Keitel. He has gone so far as to make a specific request that we do exactly what I now propose.” He read from the paper now, eyes alight: “Take Malta no later than the spring of 1941. If you fail to do so your operations in North Africa will be doomed to failure. To facilitate this. I will personally make a request to Hitler that any operation against Soviet Russia is held in abeyance on the precondition that Malta first falls under German control, and you have had time to build up a strong force in North Africa and to consider other measures aimed at the Middle East.” He looked up at Halder now, smiling. “That is quite an endorsement of my plan.”
“He wants to postpone the invasion of Soviet Russia?” Halder was very surprised. “I find that hard to believe.”
“That is because he wants to put his house in order before we deal with Sergei Kirov. He has trouble with the Siberians.”
“Karpov? I thought that had been settled at Omsk.”
“Apparently not, as we have seen. Volkov launched his eastern offensive right after those talks, so they must have failed to reach an accord, in spite of the news we received earlier.” Keitel folded the briefing paper and quietly tucked it away in his pocket.
“Interesting…” said Halder. “Now Sergei Kirov has taken advantage of the situation by attacking across the Don into the Caucasus.” He tapped the map with a pencil as he spoke. “The oil, Keitel. That is what these operations are all about.”
“Agreed,” said Keitel. “So Volkov now has a major offensive to deal with on his southern flank, while he squabbles with this Vladimir Karpov and his Siberians in the east.”
“Where did this man come from?” said Halder, voicing the same question in Keitel’s mind. He was a mysterious figure that had arisen in the far east, and though he did not know why, Keitel had a strange feeling of presentiment about the man.
Chapter 15
“This Karpov seems to have appeared out of thin air. We have little intelligence on him. He certainly was not involved in the early revolution. I have made inquiries and, in spite of some considerable effort to learn more, we have found nothing substantial on the man. In fact, we have found nothing much at all—no birth records, no service history. It is as if the man simply fell from the sky or grew up like a mushroom after a good rain storm.”
“No doubt there are quite a few others like him over there,” said Keitel, “but we must not concern ourselves with that at the moment. Let the Russians have their squabble. We have our own fish to fry here, and the war i
s heading to the Mediterranean now. If our drive into the Balkans concludes soon, then we will be right on Turkey’s doorstep at the Bosporus. That leaves only the old remnant of the Ottoman Empire between us and all that oil in the Caucasus. Hitler will soon have an interesting choice to make, and he will want us to do all the planning. From Greece and Bulgaria we can easily stage an operation against Turkey. Such a plan would take us right to the oil we need and come to Volkov’s assistance in the Caucasus at the same time. In fact, I intend to advise the Führer that we do exactly this. If he must attack Soviet Russia, then he should do so on the southern flank, with the principle effort striking through Moldavia into the Ukraine, and right into the Crimea! That is the shortest route to a link up with Volkov’s forces. Attacking in the north with any intention of driving on Moscow or Leningrad will be foolish.”
“In this we find agreement,” said Halder. “This must be our principle operation of the war. If we do make such a move it will encircle the British in the Middle East. Once we have Turkey, then we can move right in to secure Iran and Iraq to link up with the Vichy French in Syria. That takes us right to the doorstep of the Suez from the east.”
“True,” said Keitel. “The eastern offensive is an essential part of our overall war aims. That said, the attack against Russia should be limited to this southern axis, and not aimed at Moscow or Leningrad. Yet that will not be possible for six months to a year. In the meantime what do we do, sit on our duff and twiddle our thumbs? Do we wait for Mussolini to make another bungling attack somewhere for us to rescue him as we have in North Africa and Greece?”
Halder took a long breath, his eyes on the map again. He knew in his gut that Keitel was correct. Malta should be taken—Crete as well. And he knew that unless they decided on one course or another, the matter would eventually end up in Hitler’s lap. Once there, the General Staff might lose control. If Hitler decided on some cockamamie strategy, they would be forced to take the war in that direction, even if it led them into a thicket. Yet, if they decided things now… If they presented a united front to Hitler and kept a firm hand on the tiller, then they might very well end this war in another long year.
“You are aware of Mussolini’s views regarding Malta,” he said, coming back to the matter of their discussion. “He believes his air force can finish the British with no intervention by ground troops.”
“That is a self-serving opinion,” said Keitel. “The man has no assault shipping worth mentioning, and no real trained paratroopers to do the job. Look, Halder. We cannot expect the Italians to do anything in this war. We had to bail them out of trouble in Greece, and now North Africa. Look what happened to them in Somalia! That said, we have already committed troops to the desert, the western approach to Suez. You have approved the schedule of divisions for that operation, and we have the Führer’s approval as well. If we do this, then we must have Malta.” Keitel laid his finger heavily on the map, fingering the tiny island. “We simply must have it, and we should take it now. There is no more than a single Brigade there, and local militias. This message we have received of late from Ivan Volkov has given us the entire British order of battle there, right down to battalion level, and it urges us to do exactly as I now advise—take Malta. We must decide this, Halder. Crete? Yes, in good time. But insofar as Malta is concerned, the time is now. It will be a perfect preliminary operation for Student, and the lessons learned will aid us in the planning for your operation against Crete.”
“The Italians already have such a plan,” said Halder. “They are calling it Operation C3.”
“Yes? Well if we leave things to them you know how they’ll turn out. No. This must be a German plan, and an operation principally undertaken by German forces.”
“We will need the Führer’s approval, and he will need to speak with Mussolini first. Then we must do the staff work.”
“I have already done that,” said Keitel quickly.
“You, Keitel? You mean to say this is why you have been locked up in the back rooms of OKW with Jodl and Raeder?”
“Correct,” said Keitel. “So there you have it. I have been talking to Raeder, and now that we have Gibraltar, with two good battleships at Brest and Saint Nazaire, Raeder has been keen to put them to good use.”
“Whatever for? Is he planning another sortie into the Atlantic? Those battleships are a nuisance, Keitel. They had a little luck with that convoy when they broke out, but mark my words—it will be Doenitz and his U-boats that will make the difference in the Atlantic.”
“But Hindenburg and Bismarck would make quite a difference in the Mediterranean…” Keitel let that dangle for a moment, and Halder gave it some considerable thought before he spoke.
“Raeder wants to do this?”
“He does, and he is of the opinion that we can now decide the issue of naval supremacy in the Mediterranean once and for all. The front door is shut tight and barricaded at Gibraltar. Now the British have to sail 12,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope to reinforce their Eastern Mediterranean squadrons under Admiral Cunningham. So I discussed this with Raeder in light of this Malta business. He believes that, with the French Fleet at Toulon, the Italians at Taranto, and a little backbone with the arrival of Hindenburg and Bismarck, we will have what it takes to neutralize the one foil the British still have—the Royal Navy. If he leaves those ships in the French Atlantic ports the British will be bombing them night and day. They attacked again last night.”
Halder pursed his lips, his eyes narrowed with thought. “Jodl agrees?”
“He does, and Goering has agreed to provide us with any aircraft we need for the operation. Student’s Fleigerkorps has just been formed and it is operational now. He is eager for an assignment, and Malta is the perfect choice. Malta now, Halder, with Raeder’s battleships to make certain the Royal Navy does not pay us a visit once we get there. Malta now—Crete later, after we finish in the Balkans and move the main army south along the Moldavian frontier. Once that is accomplished, then the final operation of the war begins, as we have discussed. And if we move decisively, we can finish the job before President Roosevelt and the Americans start thinking more seriously about intervention.”
Halder nodded. He could see that Keitel was correct. It was all a question of proper timing, and this next six months were a vacuum that must be filled with something that mattered. He looked at Keitel, placing his cap firmly on his head. “Very well,” he said with equal firmness. “You have my support.”
* * *
At the end of 1940 Malta was not the hard nut that it would later become by 1942. There was only a single brigade there, with plans to double this in size that had not yet been carried out. Another long time British holding like Gibraltar, it was the former headquarters of the Royal Navy Mediterranean Fleet, which had since been moved to Alexandria. Yet even if it was no longer the vital hub of the wheel of British sea power there, it was still a strong outpost at the edge of that power base, and the one means they had of projecting land based air power into the Central Mediterranean. Unfortunately, there were all too few planes there as 1940 ended. Measuring only eleven miles by nine, there simply wasn’t room to put very much in the way of men and material on the tiny island. Before the war the British had come to believe the island was indefensible. That said, its principle function as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” was well known, but ill served at the moment.
There were airfields at Takali in the center of the island, and at Luga, Safi and Halfar in the south, with plans to build more if the planes ever came. There had been no more than six old Gladiator fighters on the island, with a few more delivered in crates as reserves for a British aircraft carrier. Now, however, in January of 1941, the force had been built up somewhat with the arrival of 36 Hurricane fighters, but it was still a very thin shield considering the enemy could bring planes in their hundreds to the attack. The airfields on Sicily were within easy striking distance of the island, and they would soon be crowded with a flock of dangerous new crows as
the Germans moved to execute the plan that had been brewing in OKWs kettle along with Operation Felix. It was to be code named Hercules, and it would involve the seizure of the island with thunderclap surprise, primarily an airborne attack led by Kurt Student’s elite 7th Flieger Division.
As with every operation of war they seemed to undertake, the Italians had approached the problem of Malta with a plan, but half hearted measures since the outbreak of the war. They had thought to use their air force as the primary hammer against the island, visiting it with eight air raids in the first day of the war before the British even had time to make their airfields fully operational. By June the British had organized 830 Squadron, comprised of Swordfish torpedo bombers to give them a little bite, and the planes demonstrated their utility by raiding Sicily, damaging an Italian cruiser and sinking a destroyer. They were soon joined by the Hurricane fighters hastily sent as a reinforcement and organized as 261 Squadron, R.A.F. By year’s end, however, a good number of the planes were grounded for lack of spare parts, but the few that had been kept operational had tallied 45 kills against Italian bombers.
Mussolini had dreamed up big plans for an invasion by 40,000 men, but this was a fantasy that would never be carried out, because it relied on the navy to get the troops safely ashore. The Italians had a superb navy, on paper, but without the fuel, experience, and will power to use it, it remained a timid coastal defense force in the first six months of the war. They had sent divers from submarines down to cut undersea telephone cables leading to Malta, but that had been the extent of their naval campaign. A Japanese admiral might have had battleships running out through the straits of Messina to make nightly bombardment raids on the place, just as they had done against Guadalcanal over far greater distances. But Regia Marina was not the Japanese Navy. It had fine ships, but lacked the skill and the will to use them effectively, particularly when faced down by an experienced and aggressive force in Cunningham’s fleet.
Three Kings (Kirov Series) Page 13