BOOK EXCERPT

from With Utmost Spirit: Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945
By Barbara Tomblin

Chapter 4: The Race to Tunis

Once more I bitterly regretted that bolder measures had not been taken in Operation “Torch," and that we had not landed at Bizerta, as I had suggested.
-Admiral Andrew B. Cunningham, RN

With the capture of Oran, Algiers and Casablanca, the Allies had established a strong foothold in North Africa and secured three major ports to support their offensive eastward into Tunisia. Although intent upon securing Bizerte and Tunis, the Allies’ main objective was the destruction of all Axis armies in North Africa, including Rommel’s Afrika Korps which was retreating westward after its stinging defeat at El Alamein. With the British Eighth Army pursuing them from the east and Allied forces advancing from the west, Rommel’s famous desert army was doomed unless German and Italian forces could occupy Tunisia in sufficient strength to ward off an Axis defeat. Although the Italians had anticipated sending troops to Tunisia, the German high command had not developed any plans to defend the Tunis-Bizerte area. In fact, the North African landings had caught them offguard, in part because Hitler had ignored intelligence reports in early November about Allied ship movements near Gibraltar preferring to discredit the possibility of an imminent Allied invasion. Gen. Albert Kesselring, Commander-in-Chief, South, on the other hand, had anticipated an Allied invasion. However, he felt the Allies would not risk landing in the southern France, Sicily, or Sardinia in the face of possible attacks by Axis air craft or the Italian fleet. In his mind “Algeria with the adjacent territories came into first consideration as the likely invasion area." Kesselring began preparations with Supermarina, German Air Force units, and German U-boats to counter an Allied landing in Algeria, but even on the eve of the TORCH landings Goering told Kesselring that Fuehrer’s G.H.Q. was “thoroughly convinced the attack would come in the south of France."1

Any lingering doubts Axis leaders might have had about a possible invasion vanished at 0200 on November 8th when Axis headquarters received news of the landings at Oran and Algiers. At first Hitler was deeply shaken by the reports, but at a meeting that night with Ribbentrop and Count Ciano, who had been summoned from Rome to represent Mussolini, the Fuehrer calmly announced that he would form a bridgehead in Tunis, occupy Corsica, and seize the rest of France.2

Hitler’s decision to reinforce Tunisia was a reversal of earlier policy. Kesselring had, for political reasons, been unable to send German troops to Tunisia and his request that a division to be sent to Sicily had been refused. Thus, he recalled, “as no preparations had been made by O.K.W. and the Commando Supremo, measures had to be improvised to surmount the initial crisis." German Naval Command, Italy was left to devise a defense of North Africa, but with the Italians unwilling to risk sending the Italian Fleet to intercept or harass the Allied landings, the burden of defense fell to Axis submarines. The Germans had nineteen Type VIIC submarines in the Mediterranean and the Italians another twenty-six boats, twelve of them in the invasion area. The Italian Navy also had ten MTBS, the Regata, and three new destroyers available as well as the Savoia and Montecuccoli which were to sortie only if enemy naval forces were badly mauled and withdrew. Captain, U-boats, Italy, Leo Kreisch, re-directed all but one of his U-boats to the western Med positioning nine submarines in three waves east of a line Cartegena-Oran. When he learned of the Allied invasion, Hitler sent them a message, “The existence of the African army depends on the destruction of the English convoys. Await victorious attack."3
Despite the Fuhrer’s stirring words, German U-boats had only limited success against the Allied convoys, in part because Capt. Kreich believed the landing would be at Bougie and had not deployed boats off Oran and Algiers. Only one U-boat skipper, Horst Deckert, in U-205, was able to attack an Allied transport, but his torpedo missed. Fritz Guggenberger attempted to attack the carrier Argus, but the attack was foiled when his boat, U-81, was sighted by the ASW screen.

Toward dawn of D-day, Kreisch also sent two boats (U- 331 and U-592) to wait at the entrance to the Sicilian Narrows for what the German naval commander, Admiral Weichold, believed, despite the landings taking place at Oran, was a through convoy to Malta. Finally, after 1215 on Nov. 8th, Capt. Kresich was told to order the six German submarines off Bougie to proceed to Algiers. Later that same day he broadcast the following command to his boats at sea: “ . . . innumerable transports in CH 9417 and 9468 (north of Algiers), covered by aircraft carriers and battleships. Go to it, all out, dare everything." Two hours later, Kreisch told his anxious U boat captains, “Search for targets in Algiers roads and close under the coast due west and east of Algiers, do not let yourselves withdraw by operating on covering forces standing off to sea."

In the early hours of Nov. 9th, after early reports indicated that there no ships in Algiers bay, Kreisch directed U- 83, U-593, and U-605 to search to the west of Algiers and the others subs to search along the coast. Then, at noon, he divided those U-boats between Algiers and Oran into two groups. Group Delphin with eight boats was deployed off Oran and Group Hai with six boats off Algiers. These new dispositions immediately paid off. While patrolling on the surface that night U- 431’s lookout sang out, “Target bearing 030." U-431’s skipper, Dommes, identifed the target as a formation of three cruisers and four destroyers and, after making a risky approach with his boat silhouetted against the sky, he took aim at a cruiser and fired four torpedoes. A sheet of flame and an explosion that sent an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud into the night sky convinced Dommes that he had hit the cruiser and one destroyer. In reality U- 431 had missed the cruiser, but hit the 1,920 ton destroyer Martin which went down with her commanding officer and a most of her crew.4

Although U-73 and U-561, in a new submarine group (Group Wal), working off Gibraltar, attacked HMS Rodney and the carrier Argus, they failed to score any hits. The most important success by German U-boats against TORCH shipping was made early on November 11th by U-407 north of Oran. Kptlt. Ernst-Ulrich Bruller sighted a small silhouette off his starboard bow and as the U-boat closed he could see clearly the target’s two funnels above a gleaming bow wake. Bruller fired a spread of torpedoes from a range of 2700 meters, then a finishing shot from the stern tube and withdrew. Although his final torpedo missed, others had hit the 19, 600 ton Viceroy of India and at 0830 she slipped beneath the waves. HMS Boadicea rescued her 425 survivors.5

Despite Viceroy of India’s loss, the German Navy had been unable to disrupt the Allied invasion of North Africa, a deeply frustrating failure to the German Naval Staff which blamed the short range of Axis patrol planes for preventing them from making contact with Allied convoys sooner so they could send submarines to blockade the Straits of Gibraltar. Weichold’s staff also regretted their refusal to believe the Allies would land in French North Africa which led them to protect the central Mediterranean and neglect Algeria. Captain Kreisch was especially disappointed that Group Hai’s submarines stationed off Algiers had not scored any successes for they clearly were not lacking in targets. On November 9th the harbor of Algiers was choked with assault vessels unloading cargoes and with those destined for Operation PERPETUAL, landings down the coast at Bougie and Djidjelli.6

Commanded by Capt. N. V. Dickinson and Brigadier A. L. Kent-Lemon, the assault force for PERPETUAL included the LSIs Marnix, Karanja, and Cathay lifting the 36th Infantry Brigade Group. The operation, originally scheduled for the 9th but postponed by inclement weather, did not get underway until the night of November 10, 1942 when the fast convoy left Algiers. Sailing independently, Awatea lifted RAF commandos and supplies for the Djidjelli operation. Bothgoups were screened by Rear Adm. C.H.J. Harcourt’s flagship Sheffield, the AA cruiser Tynwald, and monitor Roberts screened by destroyers. Despite information that British troops might receive an unfriendly welcome at Bougie, at 0615 on the morning of November 11th, troops of the 6th Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment came ashore at Bougie unopposed.7

The only initial casualty in Operation PERPETUAL was the minesweeper Algerine, part of the flotilla tasked to sweep the bay for mines. A member of HMS Cadmus’s crew recalled, “About 4 a.m. we heard a thump astern. The Algerine, the first of our class, had been torpedoed, but as she was tail-end Charlie she was not missed until daylight. We carried the flotilla doctor so went out to look for Algerine. She had sunk, but we picked up 32 survivors out of the water, all covered in oil. Their cox’n was the senior survivor and made out the list, all the ship’s officers had been killed." Cadmus landed the men at Bougie and they reported to the Senior Naval Officer, but “later to our amazement we heard that 24 of them had died while at his office. We could not understand it, for after picking them up we had cleaned them of oil fuel, looked after minor injuries, given them a tot of rum and a meal, and in general made them comfortable. But post-mortem showed that their stomachs had gone die to Algerine’s depth charges exploding as she sank-the 24 were all in the water when the charges went off. The eight other men who survived were on a Carley raft." Algerine’s tragedy had one positive outcome, however. All Allied ships in the theater were ordered to not to arm their depth charges when leaving port, but only when attacking.8

Except for Algerine’s loss, the Bougie operation was successful, but at Djidjelli dangerous surf prevented Awatea from landing the commandos assigned to capture Djidjelli airfield. Awatea returned and landed the men at Bougie, but this delayed the airfield’s’ capture leaving the troops at Bougie without air cover from Djidjelli airstrip. When the carrier Argus withdrew as scheduled rather than risk damage from Axis air attacks, Hurricanes and Spitfires from Maison Blanche field tried to fill the vacuum, but at dusk on Nov. 11th they were overwhelmed by 30 plus Ju88s which swooped down over Bougie harbor. The Ju88s let go with a rain of explosives that hit Awatea, Cathay, and the monitor Roberts. Awatea, a “brand-new New Zealand liner" steamed out of Bougie Bay in flames and was beached and abandoned off Cape Carbon. Cathay was hit and abandoned due to heavy flooding, but her 1200 men were rescued.

Anxious to prevent further shipping losses and pre-empt an attempt by German paratroopers at Tunis to seize the Djidjelli airfield, on November 12th, Lt. Col. R. J. Pine-Coffin’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Parachute Regiment was dropped over Bone by the U.S. 64th Troop Carrier Group. The British paratroopers took Djidjelli air field while the 6th Commando (reinforced) was put ashore at Bone harbor from Wheatland and Lamerton. Their spirited efforts were too late, however, to save the auxiliary anti-aircraft ship Tynwald , hit and sunk in an air raid that morning which also set Karanja on fire.9

Although RAF Spitfires arrived and by November 13 had the “situation well in hand," PERPETUAL had given the Allies a smarting lesson in the value of air cover. “We have taken an aerial shellacking at Bougie at dusk," Eisenhower’s aide, Capt. Harry Butcher, noted in his diary. Admiral Cunningham later wrote, “The essential importance of establishing properly directed fighter protection at the earliest moment was a lesson well learnt in the Western desert campaigns, which now had to be demonstrated again by bitter experience in the new theater." It was also a portent of the Tunisian campaign to come and of the Luftwaffe’s intention to contest any feeble attempts the Allies made to advance toward Tunis.10

U-boats, on the other hand, were unable to seriously hamper an Allied build-up of men and supplies in North Africa. U-431 did attack a convoy on November 13th sinking the 1628 ton Dutch destroyer Isaac Sweers. A faithful veteran of the Mediterranean war, Isaac Sweers had just rescued the survivors of the Niuew Zeeland two days before she herself was sunk. HMS Loch Oskaig picked up fifty-two of the Sweers’ survivors. That same afternoon, another ace submariner, Fritz Guggenberger, in U-81, sank the 6500 ton Maron. However, these two victories represent the zenith of German submarine attacks on the Allied invasion forces. By November 16th Kreisch had only seven boats operational, four of them north of Algiers. Another five, U-559, 259, 605, 595, and 331, were presumed sunk. In a report to Commander-in-Chief, U-boats dated November 16th, Kreisch blamed poor weather and enemy fighter patrols for a lack of extensive reconnaissance which had deprived him of an accurate picture of enemy supply routes. He also said that enemy A/S patrols had kept his boats submerged and unable to report their positions making the disposition of the U-boats very difficult. Kreisch further explained that vigilant Allied anti-submarine patrols often prevented the U-boats from shadowing or hauling ahead of a convoy to be in position to attack it.11

Axis submarines were not the only submarines in the Mediterranean in November. During the invasion of North Africa and immediately afterward, the British had the 1st, 8th and 10th Submarine Flotillas operating in the central and western Mediterranean. Just prior to TORCH Captain (S), Tenth Flotilla, G.W. “Shrimp" Simpson was ordered to deploy six of his submarines to prevent the Italian fleet from interfering with Allied landings at Algiers. All were on station by November 5th, but Simpson wrote, were “never put to the test since the enemy fleet remained in harbor." They did, however, find “some pickings." Lt. J.S. Stevens in P.46, now renamed Unruffled, blew the bows off an Italian Regolo-class cruiser, Attilia Regolo, on November 8th, but, Capt. Simpson wrote, “ the cruiser gained harbor in tow of tugs despite a determined search by P.211 and P.44 who were seriously hampered by the heavy escort throughout the night." Simpson then signaled Safari. “Damaged cruiser being towed to Palermo in position X.Y.Z. escorted by numerous destroyers and M.A.S., putting up a smoke screen, close and investigate." Ben Bryant received the signal and pursued the cruiser on the surface, but Simpson said, “He was met by darkness and smoke and since the tow had increased he was badly astern of any interception and retired."

The following afternoon P. 247 sank a Cobalto-class Italian sub and on November 10th Una and Utmost pursued three Italian cruisers. Una’ s skipper, C.P. Norman, fired torpedoes which missed a cruiser but sank an enemy destroyer. During this initial phase of TORCH, Capt. Simpson’s boats made four attacks on Axis submarines. None of them was successful prompting him to comment, “These results were disappointing, since due to close range and good conditions, at least three more U-boats should have been sunk."

On Nov.11th Simpson was told to re-deploy his submarines to cut Axis communications with Bizerte, Tunis, and eastern Tunisian ports. That same day, P.35’ s skipper, Lt. S.L.C. Maydon, was ordered to intercept three Littorio-class Italian battleships which had left their base at Taranto. Maydon sighted the battlewagons, pursued them, and watched with frustration as they turned to starboard and passed the very spot just vacated by his submarine. He persisted, however, and at 1619 fired one salvo at the trio from 4000 yards. “For some inexplicable reason," Simpson wrote, “Lieutenant Maydon allowed the enemy 29 knots and all torpedoes missed. A P.R.U. pilot later sighted the battleships and estimated their speed at 15 knots."

From November 12th to December 12th Capt. Simpson kept an average of five British subs on patrol in that area, but due to bad weather and increased enemy vigilance they were able to sink only two Italian ships and damage just four others. In fact, Unbroken’s skipper, Alastair Mars, recalled, “We were hunted by enemy A/S vessels, who were now lashing themselves into a fury of retaliation."12

By then, the invasion phase of Operation TORCH had been completed. Despite sporadic resistance from the Vichy French and limited Axis air and submarine attacks against invasion shipping, the Allies had landed successfully on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar and established a firm lodgment in western North Africa. On November 10, 1942 the overall commander of Operation TORCH, General Dwight Eisenhower held a press conference at his headquarters on Gibraltar. “Ike asked the press to play down the extent of fighting at Oran," Capt. Butcher wrote, “Job now is to reorganize our forces and get after the real enemy-the Axis."13

A vital part of that re-organization was the establishment of functioning naval bases along the North African coast. The Allies wasted no time. Within seven hours of Oran’s official surrender, the U.S. Navy had dispatched port parties and Marine detachments to Oran and the French naval base at Mers el Kebir. Rear Admiral Bennett found Oran’s major shore installations had not been sabotaged thanks to the early arrival of some security detachments, but that the port was clogged with wrecks. By December 9th, however, his port parties had worked their wondrous magic salvaging the 2400 ton floating dry-dock, two small dry-docks, and six steamers.14

Meanwhile, the Naval Operating Base Oran was activated and equipped as a major base facility with-a radio station, A/S patrols, convoy control and protection, a visual station, and anti-aircraft protection. The lack of damage done to the naval base at Mers-el-Kebir simplified putting that port into operation because the only serious casualty was a 400 ton crane damaged by an “over" from the British battleship HMS Rodney. The battleship’s historian later recalled, “When the opportunity for shore leave arose, most of us went on a pilgrimage to inspect the damage done by our shelling. It was most impressive to see shell-holes going up the side of the hill and finishing in the fort itself." Rodney’s crew found one shell had failed to explode, but that the most damage had been done by one that did explode: “This hit the end of a floating crane, the only damage we caused apart from damage to our target. The French authorities were very sorry about this, as we were also, for it was a most useful instrument." The crane was re-floated on December 13th.15

At Algiers, however, there was very little to salvage but the political situation. Adm. Darlan’s cease fire order was hardly a permanent solution and Gen. Clark was now faced with the task of negotiating a genuine armistice. After a week of delicate negotiations with Darlan and Giraud at Allied Force HQ in Algiers, on Nov. 22nd Clark secured an agreement, approved by Petain, which confirmed Darlan as High Commissioner, Giraud as Commander-in-Chief of French forces in North Africa, and affirmed the intention of both sides to expel the Axis from Africa and work to the eventual liberation of France. This controversial agreement has been referred to ever since as the “Darlan deal." Adm. Cunningham later wrote, “The agreement with Darlan aroused the most acrimonious comment in the British and American press, particularly the former." The press and public failed to understand why Eisenhower and Clark had chosen to negotiate with Darlan, whom many considered a Nazi collaborator, instead of the Free French leader Charles DeGaulle. Adm. Cunningham wholeheartedly supported Eisenhower ’s decision. “In my view it was the only possible course, and absolutely right. Darlan was the only man in North Africa who could have stopped the fighting and brought the authorities and people of North Africa in to help us in the struggle against the Axis." Gen. Clark also stated, “Darlan was the one man whose authority was recognized by all the French armed forces in North Africa. Military expediency dictated that we do business with Darlan to minimize bloodshed and get on with the war against the Germans who were pouring into Tunisia." Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt also backed the Darlan decision.16

These prolonged Allied negotiations over the fate of French North Africa, together with the lack of air cover and deteriorating weather, delayed an Allied advance eastward into Tunisia allowing the Axis to seize the initiative in the strategic Tunis-Bizerte area. Within hours of the TORCH invasion, Axis authorities began organizing the deployment of Italian and German troops to establish a bridgehead in Tunis. On November 9th, when Hitler gave Kesselring a “free hand" in Tunisia, the C-in-C, South immediately sent a parachute regiment and his HQ battalion to Tunisia protected by fighters and Stuka dive bombers. German signals ordering the first Axis aircraft to Tunisia and the occupation of Unoccupied France were intercepted by British cryptanalysts at Bletchey Park and the arrival of German aircraft in Tunis was confirmed by PRU aircraft from Malta. Allied commanders and staff, who had underestimated the possibility of Axis intervention in Tunisia, were shaken by this vital intelligence which indicated the German reaction to TORCH would be “quick and probably powerful."17

Ironically, if the Allies had seized Bizerte as part of the TORCH operation, Vice Adm. Edmond-Louis Derrien, in command of French naval forces in Bizerte, might have been received them with open arms. Derrien, who had been informed in advance about the landings, is reported to have urged the Allies to “hurry up, the Germans will be here in 48 hours." Indeed, on November 9th Luftwaffe transport planes landed at El Aouina airfield on the north side of Lac Tunis and debarked German troops who were met by French soldiers under orders to neither interfere with their arrival, nor to allow them to leave the confines of the airfield. When the Italians arrived at Bizerte on November 12th with 1000 troops they discovered that the senior French army commander in Tunis, General Georges Barre, had ordered his Tunis Division into the hinterland of Tunisia. Axis units quickly occupied the Bizerte naval base and established an Italian Naval Headquarters for Tunisia. By November 11th Axis units had also surrounded the base at Bizerte. Although the Resident Governor General of Tunisia, Vice Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva, was sympathetic to the Allies and might have ordered the French to resist the Axis build-up, he did not. Some have argued that if the Allies had sent even a “token detachment" to Tunis or Bizerte, Admiral Darlan could have included both in the armistice agreement. After the war, Admiral Cunningham wrote, “Once more I bitterly regretted that bolder measures had not been taken in Operation`Torch’, and that we had not landed at Bizerta, as I had suggested. Esteva was a true patriot. He loathed the Germans and I am quite sure would have welcomed the Allies. ”18

Thus Axis forces were not overthrown in Tunis-Bizerte and the build-up of enemy troops and supplies to the bridgehead continued uninterrupted by either the advance of Allied forces or opposition from the French. Allied efforts, such as they were, to interfere with the flow of supplies and reinforcements to Tunisia came largely from Malta. The island was an ideal base from which Allied air and surface forces could attack Italian convoys, but only if sufficient stocks of fuel and food could be delivered to keep Malta operational. Efforts to supply Malta by submarine prior to TORCH, however, had only been partially successful, so an Allied priority following the invasion was to organize a full-scale Malta convoy to re-supply the island before her food stocks ran out in mid-December.19

That convoy, MW 13, code named “Stoneage," was composed of four merchantmen escorted by the veteran 15th Cruiser Squadron, now under the command of Rear Adm. A. J. Powers R.N. flying his flag in HMS Cleopatra. Powers assured his commanders that, although opposition from enemy air forces and possibly by the Italian fleet was likely, MW13 would have fighter cover from newly captured bases in the desert. “This gave us a further lift and meant that we would probably have fighter cover well into the central basin," recalled young Frank Wade, a midshipman on HMS Jervis. Wade says the quality of their air cover had improved greatly since 1941. “We now had three or four Beaufighters or U.S. built Kitty Hawk fighters over us, controlled by a cruiser. Added to this were the anti-submarine aircraft-Bisleys, Hudsons and the old- stager Swordfish still in evidence (from our land-based Fleet Air Arm squadrons)-patrolling head of us." In addition, Malta-based squadrons were to attack Axis airfields on Sicily on November 19th. “All in all, omens for a successful operation looked promising and our weakness in surface ships was offset by impressive aerial plans."

With this fighting spirit, the “Stoneage" convoy sailed from Port Said escorted by Powers’ squadron and a close escort of four Hunt-class destroyers and ten fleet destroyers. HMS Petard, with Euralyus and eight fleet destroyers, joined them at sea. Not unexpectedly, the first day they were attacked by Savoia bombers and Axis torpedo bombers, but the only ships damaged were the destroyers of the outer screen hit by splinters from their own anti-aircraft barrage. This was a risk that, according to G.G. Connell, “had to be endured. The risk was always present of being hit in the back by the ships under protection and the inner screen of warships, while facing outward towards the direction of the attack."

Air attacks the following day were discouraged by a high cloud cover and escorting Beaufighters but on the evening of November 18th twenty-six Ju 88 torpedo planes converged on the 15th Cruiser Squadron from three directions dropping flares. “The night turned into a holocaust of gunfire and roaring aircraft engines," as the Hunts and destroyers fired blindly at their attackers. On bomb hit the light cruiser Arethusa on her port side, abreast `B’ turret and flooding quickly had her down by the bow and listing fifteen degrees to port. Petard and Javelin were sent to escort her, but Mark Thornton made the courageous, if risky, decision to send Javelin back to the convoy’s screen. He reasoned that the convoy’s safe arrival in Malta took priority over Arethusa’s survival and Admiral Cunningham later endorsed his decision.

Arethusa’ crew reduced her list to five degrees and Petard began towing the crippled cruiser toward Alexandria at ten knots. Petard’s 4-inch AA batteries fought off two separate attacks on November 19th and when a gale made towing Arethusa even more difficult, Petard’s skipper, Mark Thornton, decided to tow the cruiser stern first. “It was an awesome sight, the great stern and rotating propellers following the slow and straining destroyer, but a painful and steady progress began to be achieved; 3 knots towards safety." HMS Arethusa reached Alexandria safely, bringing with her the bodies of 155 British seamen killed in the attack. Among the wounded was her captain, C.H. Cresswell DSO DSC, who was badly burned in the explosion and ensuing fire which had enveloped the bridge.20

Meanwhile, after a peaceful night “with no urgent messages about the Italian fleet," the “Stoneage" convoy had pressed on toward Malta in increasingly stormy weather. No enemy attack developed and they arrived in Grand Harbor, Malta without further incident at 0300 on Nov. 9th lifting the long siege of that indomitable island. “Stoneage"’s four merchant ships, Robin Locksley, Mormacmoon, Denbighshire, and Bantam, were given a rousing welcome by the Maltese who quickly unloaded their precious cargo. “This was just as well, for Malta had a mere three weeks supply of food left-this was how closely fought the Med battle was in its final stages," Wade says.

With Malta re-supplied, the Allies turned the tables on the German Air Force whose pilots, once masters of the skies over Malta, now met death in increasing numbers over that tiny island. Malta’s eight reinforced Spitfire squadrons now savaged incoming Axis aircraft. Luftwaffe pilot Werner Bambach, who commanded a bomber wing at Comiso, Sicily, kept a diary which poignantly testifies to the trials of German airmen in those days following the TORCH landings. “Briefing, target same as yesterday. With everything we have. Same as yesterday. Always the same as yesterday. And early next morning, when we assemble after the sortie, two, three or four crews will be missing once more." As the situation grew more desperate Bambach confided to his diary: “ I lie on my bed in a sort of paralysis, dripping with sweat and yet feeling frozen to the bone while gazing at the blood-red oranges hanging in the leafy trees. It is worry, heart-rending worry, which shakes me to the core . . . Since we have been here I have stopped talking to the men. I could not find anything to say which would lessen the feeling of hopelessness. " Finally, Bambach told Gen. Jeschonnek that “daylight bombing attacks on Malta in present circumstances cannot be carried out without extremely heavy losses, and it is even doubtful whether the aircraft actually reach the target." Jeschonnek’s reply was swift and efficient-Bambach was promoted and removed from his command in Sicily.21

The situation was not much brighter for Axis surface and submarine forces. Altough the Italian Navy still had most of its surface warships operational, they lacked sufficient fuel oil to go to sea which left the offensive to Italian submarines whose efforts were often frustrated by Allied a/s patrols. Two, Emo and Dessie, were lost in November, but Argo actually entered Bougie roads on Nov 12th, submerged, and two hours later maneuvered into position to fire torpedoes at a pair of targets. Her C.O.,T.V. Pasquale Gigli, was rewarded by seeing hits on the Tynwald and the 13,482 ton Awatea which had already been damaged in an air raid. Two days later, Mocenigo’s captain, Alberto Longhi, fired four torpedoes at a target off Bone and quickly submerged. Longhi thought he had hit a Tribal class destroyer, but, in fact, he had torpedoed and heavily damaged the British cruiser Argonaut which was later sent to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for repairs.22

The Germans now had eighteen U-boats operational in the Mediterranean and, by patrolling aggressively, they claimed to have damaged several Allied ships before the end of 1942. The British have not confirmed two of these claims, but admit that the destroyer HMS Porcupine was torpedoed sixty-five miles north of Oran on Dec. 9th. Ironically, the torpedoes barely missed the submarine depot ship, HMS Maidstone. Frederick L. J. Peters, an engine room artificer on Maidstone, recalled, “H.M.S. Porcupine took the fish instead. Four torpedoes were fired, two passed our bows, one missed astern, and the other hit Porcupine. She was towed into Oran before breaking her back." Salvage officer Cdr. Edward Ellbsberg vividly recalled this particular tow. “We got a message,` HMS Porcupine torpedoed port side engine room, completely disabled and sinking.’" When his salvage ship reached Porcupine, Ellsberg found her skipper, Cdr. George Scott Stewart RAN, looking haggard, his uniform streaked with oil. All of the ship’s engine room crew were dead, her stern was awash and she was on the verge of rolling over. By using two electric pumps to keep her afloat, they towed Porcupine to Arzeu stopping once Ellsberg said for two “agonizing hours" while men sawed through a rusted shackle to free her anchor chain.23

Although German U-boats scored occasional victories, Allied A/S patrols succeeded in finding and sinking more and more of them and in mid-November 1942 German Headquarters admitted to losing three boats and seeing another seven return to port “having been damaged by depth charges."24

Fall 1942 also represented a very discouraging period for Italian convoy forces which found themselves saddled with greater responsibilities and correspondingly higher losses. After struggling for three months to organize and escort convoys to both Tunis-Bizerte and Tripoli, the Italian Navy ended convoys on the Libyan run, the last sailing for Tobruk on November 1st and for Benghasi on the 6th. Traffic then shifted to the port of Tripoli but the Italians sent only eight convoys to Tripoli in December compared to 24 in November. Of the 12,981 tons sailed, just 47.8% or 6,150 tons arrived. British submarines accounted for an impressive number of these losses in both November and December sinking seven merchantmen.

Convoy operations to the newly organized Axis bridgehead in Tunisiawere initially encouraging to the Italians. During November, the first month of operation, twenty-five convoys safely delivered 34,339 tons of military supplies and 13, 300 soldiers with the loss of only one ship, Citti di Napoli, which hit a mine. From the first day of December, however, the Italians suffered continual losses on the route from Naples to Tunis which was only 361 miles long (allowing for 10% for zigzag) but was checkered with minefields. The route was under constant surveillance by the Allied intelligence which used ULTRA decrypts to decipher Axis signals about convoy routing. According to Italian naval historian Marc Antonio Bragadin, “Dozens of Allied aircraft would pounce on each target " and the case was not rare “where 40 or 50 bombers were working over a single poor lighter." As a result, in December, 1942 the Italians lost eleven merchantmen, four naval vessels and 28.6% of the tonnage on the newly opened Tunisian route. As more Italian merchantmen and escorts were sunk or damaged, Italian seamen began calling the Tunisian convoy route the “rotta della morte" or the route of death.25

These first losses of December were tragic for the Italians, but a proved a spectacular debut of the Royal Navy’s newly formed Force Q based at Bone. Composed of Rear Adm. C. H. J. Harcourt’s 12th Cruiser Squadron (Aurora, Sirius, and Argonaut) with destroyers Quentin and Quiberon, Force Q was a rebirth of the old Force K. In their first operation, Force Q decimated an Italian convoy composed of four merchantmen escorted by three destroyers (Folgore, Camicia Nere, Da Recco) and two destroyer escorts (Clio and Procione). The convoy was one of two spotted earlier by air patrols sent out to cover for the real source of Allied intelligence about Italian convoys, Ultra decrypts. This “H"convoy lost four merchantmen and one destroyer in a bitterly fought battle, one of most tragic experiences of the war for the Italian Navy, during which 2200 men lost their lives. Despite Italian claims, the British insisted that Force Q did not suffer any damage during the engagement, although the destroyer Quentin was sunk by German torpedo en route to Bone.26

Meanwhile, Allied aircraft from Malta were stalking the steamers Veloce and Chisone and three escorts making their way toward Pantelleria. They alerted Force K’s Jervis, Javelin, Kelvin, and Nubian which sailed from Malta to intercept the enemy ships off the southern Tunisian coast. “We were getting hourly reports on the convoy’s position and I was kept busy decyphering messages," Frank Wade recalled. “As a result of the information we were confident that we would be able to intercept the convoy with no chance of error." Wade says the destroyers were not attacked by Axis aircraft, “ . . . a welcome change from conditions the year before, when so many ships had been sunk by aircraft within sight of the island."

By 2330 Nubian had picked up the Italian convoy on radar and from Jervis’ bridge, Wade could see flashes. “Our Albacore and Swordfish torpedo-bombers from Malta fitted with equipment for night operations, had begun to attack them as planned." The torpedo planes scored a hit on the Veloce which was loaded with benzene and burned furiously before sinking. “We closed very rapidly, the stricken ship loomed larger and larger and we could soon make out its funnels, superstructure and masts partially covered by smoke and flames. It seemed quite unaware of our approach." As the British destroyers closed the convoy, Jervis’s radar operator thought he saw a group of ships leaving the area at high speed, but concluded the Italian escort was abandoning the convoy. “Suddenly the silhouette of a destroyer passed between us and the burning ship. Jervis got a fix on the ship and was about to open fire. Then something extraordinary occurred . . . we found ourselves steaming through hundreds of men in the water around us. They were so close that some of them could actually be identified as shadowy heads in the water. Farther away there were boats full of more survivors. They called out for help in Italian and German, their voices echoing pitifully over the sea."

No one on Jervis’ bridge paid them any attention. Starshell illuminated the area revealing only one enemy destroyer and the burning ship. “We turned our searchlight on her and all the details of a small destroyer-similar to our Hunt class but even smaller-became starkly evident. Within three minutes, hot, glowing circles appeared on her superstructure and hull from the hits she was sustaining." The luckless Lupo never saw her attackers which all opened fire on her. “Within five minutes it was all over," Wade recalled. “Her mast soon collapsed and her superstructure all but disappeared, from internal explosions. What a terrible sight to see a ship being so brutally destroyed with such heavy loss of life. We were soon past her and we put the grisly memory out of our minds as best we could." Arethusa and Chisone escaped, undamaged, to Tripoli, but little Lupo, "the veteran of more encounters with the British than any other Italian ship," was sunk by a British torpedo. Force K returned to Malta. "There was no thought of picking up enemy survivors or following the other enemy warships around the Kerkenah Bank inshore," Wade recalled. "We immediately set sail for Malta at full speed, where we arrived as dawn came up."27

Axis convoys continued to suffer losses in December losing a German steamer, five merchantmen, two schooners, and one tanker. Then, on December 17th, Lt. I.L/M. McGeogh in HMS Splendid torpedoed the destroyer Aviere, flagship of Ignazio Castrogiovanni, one of the Italian Navy’s most veteran commanders. At the time Aviere was escorting the SS Ankara which escaped, but the destroyer broke in half and sank in minutes. Castrogiovanni was left clinging to a Carley life raft, but one survivor said, "He was calm and imperturbable with a word of encouragement for everyone." When he spotted seaman in the water nearby struggling to survive, Castrogiovanni gave up his place on the Carley float and was never seen again.28

Italian submarines also fared poorly in December. Take, for example, one Italian boat caught on the surface by Petard and Queen Olga off the African coast on December 15th. When Petard’s skipper challenged the sub, she crash-dived and fired torpedoes. Thornton warned Queen Olga with two loud blasts on the ship’s siren and dodged the torpedoes. Both destroyers then dropped depth charges on the sub, Uarsciek, forcing her to the surface. Thornton was keen to capture an enemy sub intact and retrieve her code books and charts. An earlier effort to capture an enemy boat had failed, so this time Thornton did not hestitate to order Petard’ s 40 mm and 20 mm guns to open fire on the sub. From Petard’s bridge her crew watched in horror as the oerlikons and pom-poms tore into the submarine killing all of the white, mostly naked, figures on Uarscieck’s casing and conning tower. Petard’s gun crews were so aghast at the slaughter that Mark Thornton twice had to order them to re-open fire.

In the confusion, Petard collided with the Italian submarine riding up over her hull, but Petard’s First Lieutenant, David Nasmith quickly sent a boarding party below to recover the submarine’s codebooks and charts while the destroyer’s crew helped thirty-two of the survivors aboard. Yeoman Petty Officer Chapman, an ex-submariner, and the Italian engineer officer were able to keep Uarsciek from sinking allowing Petard to begin towing the sub. However, the towline parted and when the Italian engineering officer went aft to manually center the submarine’s rudder the process of opening the watertight doors compromised her buoyancy and she settled down by the stern. At 1133 "Uarscieck’s bow reared up vertical and with both engines still flying, she slid stern first?to the bottom of the Mediterranean." Petard’s disappointed crew watched as their prize disappeared, but were relieved to see the Italian engineer and a small prize crew escape in a dinghy.29

Uarscieck’s loss was another blow in a series of reversals for the Italian Navy which, undaunted, kept the offensive spirit alive by hitting back hard with one of the most potent weapons developed by the Italians during World War II-the Tenth Flotilla. On December 11th ten frogmen and three of the Flotilla’s human torpedoes were delivered to Algiers harbor by the submarine Ambra for a bold, but carefully planned, operation to blow up Allied ships. Although none of the assault teams was able to re-locate Ambra, many were able to see their targets explode. Berta, Ocean Vanquisher, Armattan, and Empire Centaur rumbled and erupted as the explosives detonated. One of the Allied steamers sank, two others were beached next to the Thomas Stone, and another was towed into the harbor.30

These merchantmen were just a small part of the Allied build-up of men and supplies in North Africa which began immediately after TORCH as UGF fast convoys or UGS slow convoys began arriving from the United States. The first convoy, UGF-2, arrived in North Africa on November 18, 1942 with 30,700 men and 161,500 tons of supplies carried in nine troopships and thirty freighters. Included in this convoy were 400 men to staff the administrative section of the newly created Sea Frontier Forces, Western Naval Task Force, commanded by Rear Admiral John Lesslie Hall. His mission was to maintain and operate the port of Casablanca, establish A/S patrols, provide escorts for coastal convoys, receive and guide convoys from the U.S., and lay minefields to ward off enemy intruders. With the exceptions of the Poitou, torpedoed on Nov. 27th and a six plane air raid on Casablanca on December 31st, the Axis did not interfere at first with the arrival and unloading of convoys off French Morocco. But UGS-3, which left the United States on December 12th, was cursed with bad luck losing five ships early in the voyage, another ship which grounded off Casablanca and a seventh torpedoed off Oran with heavy loss of life.31

Inside the Mediterranean a steady procession of KMF and KMS convoys poured into Oran and Algiers from the U.K. at intervals of fourteen days for the fast and eighteen days for the slow convoys. This vast logistical effort was carried out with remarkable aplomb and only a few casualties. One casualty was the British troopship Strathallan torpedoed on December 21st by U- 652 in KMF-5. Commander Edward Ellsberg, Principal Salvage Officer, was sent from Oran in the salvage ship King Salvor to assist the damaged Strathallan which had been torpedoed in the port side engine room about sixty miles north of Oran. Five Royal Navy destroyers, en route to rescue the 6,000 American troops on board Stratallan, passed King Salvor and Ellsberg recalled, "I prayed earnestly they might be in time. I could not recall any troopship with that many men on board ever having been torpedoed before. And in World War I, the losses of troopships torpedoed while carrying far less men had been sickening."

As King Salvor approached the crippled Strathallan, Ellsberg learned that the liner was on fire and had been completely abandoned by her panicky Lascar crew. Concluding that she had only a slight 10 degree list and was in no danger of sinking, Ellsberg ordered King Salvor to use her large fire monitor to keep the fires from reaching the troopship’s magazine, while the armed trawlers Restive and Active took Strathallan in tow and headed for Oran at 3 knots. Despite the crew of King Salvor’s tireless efforts to save the Strathallan, the fires took hold and Cdr. Ellsberg ordered his men, " singed, blistered, blinded, bleeding-hardly men anymore," to withdraw. When the fires melted her airports, water poured into the liner’s hull and at 0400 she rolled over and sank. Ellsberg recalled,"With wet eyes, and not from smoke either, I stared sadly at that spot. The Strathallan was gone after all our efforts. We had done our best. But we had failed." Between them, Verity and Panther rescued 2,470 troops from the torpedoed Strathallan and delivered them safely to Mers-el- Kebir and Oran.32

Strathallan’s loss, like that of so many Allied merchantmen in 1942, was tragic. However, the greatest tragedy of this post TORCH period came not at sea, but in the southern French port of Toulon, home of the French Navy. When the Germans occupied France in November, 1942, Toulon was declared a Free Zone but following TORCH Hitler ordered "Operation Anton" into effect and the Germans disarmed the French Army, entered Toulon, and seized the commandant of the naval district. In response, on November 27th the French admiral, Adm. de Laborde ordered the fleet to scuttle. The flagship Strasbourg’s crew set off demolition charges, opened her sea cocks, and sank the battleship. When the first German troops tried to board Algerie, Adm. Lacroix said, "In that case, I’ll blow her up." And he did, the Algerie burning furiously for two days. Other French the crews were similarly defiant and scuttled fifteen destroyers. Five French submarines managed to escape Toulon and all but one reached safety.

Hitler also ordered French forces in Tunisia to disarm. Adm.Giraud then issued Adm. Derrien an ultimatum to surrender his ships and facilities or sign death warrants for every French sailor in the port. Derrien acquiesced and the defenders of Bizerte were demobilized and two destroyers, five small vessels, and nine old submarines were seized.33

At the other end of the Mediterranean, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery’s British Eighth Army was advancing steadily westward on the heels of a defeated Afrika Korps which was retreating along the coast road covered by rear guards and aided by old minefields. On the morning of Nov. 8th, as Allied troops were coming ashore in Operation TORCH, British soldiers were entering Mersa Matruh only to discover an Axis rearguard had slipped out the night before. Rommel’s forces continued to retreat westward abandoning Sollum, Bardia, and Capuzzo. When Tobruk fell painlessly to the British on November 13th, port parties quickly put her port into operation and within six days Tobruk was discharging 880 tons of supplies a day, relieving Mersa Matruh and Bardia which had been for two weeks the only the main ports to supply the Eighth Army. A British naval port party had already begun operating and clearing the 86 wrecks that cluttered the harbor at Benghazi which fell to British troops on November 20th.

Initially Hitler refused to allow Rommel to abandon El Agheila, but finally gave his grudging approval and on Dec. 12th Axis troops began pulling out of Agheila, booby-trapping and mining the roads as they went. By Christmas Eve, they had reached Sirte, halting there to accumulate supplies and build landing strips. The Christmas holidays were spent peacefully by Germans and British alike in the area near Sirte. These tough, veteran Afrika Korps soldiers rigged a Christmas tree out of a wooden pole and camel thorn branches, decking it with silver paper and candles to brighten up their Christmas season and spent Christmas reading letters and smoking a few of their precious cigarettes. The Allies in northwest Africa also celebrated the holidays with various festivities. For many G.I.s this was their first Christmas away from the home and for the now unpopular Admiral Darlan, his last. On December 24th he was shot and killed by a young anti-fascist monarchist, Ferdinand Bonnier de la Chapelle.34

Meanwhile, British and American forces in Tunisia found themselves halted before Longstop Hill, far from their goal of capturing Tunis by Christmas. Gen. Anderson’s forces had scheduled an offensive in Tunisia for December 20th, but it was postponed by torrential rain ending the year 1942 on a disappointing note for the Allied cause in Tunisia. Their advance eastward from Bone had been held up by rainy weather and the difficulty of bringing supplies forward along the single-line railroad and poor Algerian road network. Although, "large personnel ships could not be risked east of Algiers because of the air menace," the navy sent escorted convoys of smaller craft to Bone from Algiers every two weeks. As Adm. Cunningham noted, "all of these convoys had to be fought through, and no passage was without incident." Furthermore, enemy air attacks on Bone had damaged cranes and piers and disrupted unloading forcing the army to commit most of its valuable vehicles and labor to port clearance. This, in turn, deprived the 78th Division and British 6th Armored Division of much needed transport and slowed the Allied build-up in Tunisia. Credit for the Allies’ delay goes to the Luftwaffe which had accomplished more to threaten the Allied landings in North Africa and the subsequent build up of troops and supplies than the Italian Navy or the German U-boat force. Although Hitler’s activation of Operation "Anton" and the occupation of the rest of France had resulted in the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon, confusion about the actual location of the TORCH landings and Axis submarines’ weak, delayed response in the face of vigilant Allied a/s forces had deprived the Axis of disrupting the Allied invasion and occupation of Oran and Algiers. Furthermore, the success of TORCH, and the capture of airfields along the coast after Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein, had allowed the British to lift the siege of Malta and turn the island into a base for offensive operations in the Med. The Germans, on the other hand, had been able to seize the initiative in Tunisia reinforcing the Tunis-Bizerte area and denying Allied ground forces an easy victory in North Africa. The result was a long, costly struggle to secure North Africa.

The only bright spot for Allied armies in December 1942 was General Mark W. Clark’s appointment to the command the forces in southern Tunisia. Although he was subsequently told to organize Fifth Army and leave the field command in the southern sector to General Lloyd Fredenhall, Clark said that he "felt pretty happy about the way things were going at the time, and believed that there was a fine opportunity to cut off the Afrika Korps." The new year of 1943 would test Clark’s optimism.35

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