The Red Sea, 1940–1941
Long months of torture in the blazing heat and incredible
humidity of Massawa had left us apathetic and drained of hope of escape.
—Edward Ellsberg, No Banners No Bugles
Italy’s East African possessions, particularly its Red Sea
base at Massawa, were situated strategically astride the sea route to Suez.
With the Sicilian Channel closed to normal transit, Italy theoretically
possessed the ability to block maritime access to Egypt.
Between 1935 and 1940 Italy’s planners envisioned the
construction of an oceanic fleet that, in its most realistic version, would
have consisted of two cruisers, eight destroyers, and twelve submarines, all
fitted for tropical service and supported by a network of bases along Italian
Somaliland’s Indian Ocean coast. However, this Flotta d’evasione proved more
than Rome could afford. Thus, Rear Admiral Carlo Balsamo, who commanded Italy’s
East African naval squadron, deployed eight modern submarines, seven
middle-aged destroyers, two old torpedo boats, five World War I–era MAS boats,
and a large colonial sloop, all concentrated at Massawa. In Supermarina’s view,
the squadron’s limited stocks of fuel and ammunition restricted its role to one
of survival and sea denial, relying mainly upon the submarines, for the
duration of a six-month war.
Great Britain intercepted Italy’s 19 May orders for the
“immediate and secret mobilization of the army and air force in east Africa,”
whereupon the Royal Navy reinforced its Rea Sea Squadron, which consisted of
the Dominion light cruisers Leander and Hobart, the old antiaircraft cruiser
Carlisle, three sloops, and four ships of the 28th Destroyer Flotilla. This
force was tasked with preventing Italian reinforcements, engaging the Massawa
squadron, blockading the coast of Italian Somaliland, and protecting the
shipping lanes to Suez and Aden.
On 10 June Italy’s Red Sea submarines occupied, or were on
their way to, their patrol stations, but their forewarned enemy had already
halted all mercantile shipping to the Red Sea on 24 May. They enjoyed only one
success, when Galilei sank the Norwegian tanker James Stove (8,215 GRT) on 16
June. In exchange the Italians lost four boats. Crew poisoning caused by the
release of methyl chloride, used as a cheap substitute for freon in the
air-conditioning system (a defect that inadequate testing and training under
realistic battle conditions failed to reveal), led to the stranding and
wrecking of Macallé on 15 June. Galilei attempted to fight it out on the
surface with the 650-ton trawler Moonstone on 19 June, but two well-aimed
shells from the auxiliary’s 4-inch gun killed Galilei’s captain and all the
officers except a midshipman. A British boarding party captured the submarine
and a set of operational orders. These enabled the sloop Falmouth to track down
and sink Galvani in the Persian Gulf on 24 June. The same intelligence led to
the interception of Torricelli, the fourth Red Sea submarine lost in the war’s
first fortnight.
Destroyers Kandahar, Kingston, and Khartoum, along with sloops Shoreham and Indus, intercepted Torricelli north of Perim Island, at the entrance to the Red Sea, at 0418 on 23 June. The Italian submarine, initially seeing only one sloop, and considering her damage and the clear waters that made a submerged boat easy to track, elected to run on the surface for the Italian shore batteries at Assab. In the ensuring fight, Torricelli, firing her deck gun, almost hit Shoreham, which reported “two shells falling close ahead.” Then the three destroyers appeared and closed rapidly.
Kingston opened fire with her forward guns at 0536.
Torricelli, trailing a wide ribbon of oil, launched four torpedoes back at the
destroyer, but their wakes were clearly visible in the calm sea and Kingston
easily evaded. At first the British tried to clear the submarine’s decks, to
permit a boarding attempt. However, Kingston’s 40-mm shells struck one of her
own antennas and wounded eight crewmen. After that the destroyers shot to sink,
but they had to expend nearly seven hundred 4.7-inch rounds before a shell
finally wrecked Torricelli’s forward bow planes at 0605 and flooded the torpedo
room. The submarine sank at 0624.
After rescue operations Khartoum, with prisoners embarked,
set course for Perim while the other ships headed for Aden to refuel. At 1150 a
torpedo in Khartoum’s aft quintuple mount suddenly exploded, igniting a huge
fire in the after lobby. The crew could not control the conflagration, and
Khartoum ran for Perim Harbor, seven miles distant. There her men (and the
prisoners) abandoned ship, swimming for their lives. At 1245, no. 3 magazine
blew up, rendering the destroyer a total loss.
Red Sea Convoys
The first of the Red Sea convoys, collectively the BN/BS
series, consisting of nine ships including six tankers, gathered in the Gulf of
Aden on 2 July. Thereafter these convoys sailed up and down the Red Sea on a
regular schedule. Admiral Balsamo attempted to attack this traffic, but the
war’s opening months held little but frustration for his destroyers. On six
occasions in July, August, and September, they sortied at night in response to
aerial reports of Allied vessels but in every case failed to make contact.
Aircraft and the surviving submarines did little better. Guglielomotti
torpedoed the Greek tanker Atlas (4,008 GRT) from Convoy BN4 on 6 September
1940, while high-level bombing attacks damaged the steamship Bhima (5,280 GRT)
from BN5, which four Italian destroyers had failed to locate, on 20 September.
As Italian warships burned their oil reserves on
unsuccessful sorties, the Allied Red Sea Squadron grew stronger, deploying by
the end of August four light cruisers, three destroyers, and eight sloops.
Other warships passed through on their way to and from the Mediterranean. In
September, as traffic volume swelled, the Mediterranean Fleet lent the newly
arrived antiaircraft cruiser Coventry, which alternated with Carlisle along the
Aden–Suez route to provide extra protection against air attacks.
By October the Italian ships faced mechanical breakdowns,
the increasing exhaustion of crews by the extreme climate, and a growing
shortage of fuel. Nonetheless, they continued to sail. On the evening of 20
October, four destroyers weighed anchor to search for BN7, which aerial reconnaissance
had spotted sailing north. The plan called for the slower and more heavily
armed Pantera and Leone to distract the escort while Sauro and Nullo slipped in
to send a spread of torpedoes toward the merchant ships.
Australian sloop HMAS Yarra
Italian destroyer Pantera
Attack on Convoy BN7 and Battle of Harmil Island, 20–21
October 1940, 2320–0640
Conditions: Bright moon, calm sea
Allied ships—
BN7 Escort (Captain H. E. Horan): CL: Leander (NZ) (F); DD:
KimberleyD2; DS: Auckland (NZ), Indus (IN), Yarra (AU); MS: Derby, Huntley
BN7: thirty-two merchant ships and tankers
Italian ships—
Section I (Commander Moretti degli Adimari): DD: Sauro (F), Nullo Sunk
Section II (Commander Paolo Aloisi): DD: Pantera (F), Leone
The convoy timed its progress to pass Massawa around
midnight. The moon was bright, but haze reduced visibility toward the African
coast. At 2115 the Italian sections separated, and at 2321 Pantera detected
smoke off her starboard bow. She reported the contact to Sauro and began
maneuvering at twenty-two knots to position the low-hanging moon behind the
contact.
BN7 was thirty-five miles north-northwest of Jabal-al-Tair
Island (itself 110 miles east-northeast of Massawa) when Yarra, zigzagging in
company with Auckland, sighted Captain Aloisi’s ships ahead. Yarra challenged
and Pantera replied with a pair of torpedoes at 2331 and then another pair at
2334, at ranges fifty-five and sixty-five hundred yards, respectively. Shooting
over Yarra, she “lobbed a few shells” into the convoy. According to a wartime
British account, “a lifeboat in the commodore’s ship was damaged by splinters,
but otherwise no harm was done.” Leone, which trailed Pantera by 875 yards,
never fixed a target and thus did not fire torpedoes.
Yarra saw the torpedo flashes from broad on her port bow and
turned toward the enemy. Both sloops opened fire as torpedoes boiled past,
narrowly missing. The Italian ships altered away, shooting with their aft
mounts. Aloisi reported explosions and claimed two torpedo hits, but in fact,
his weapons missed. Kimberley was trailing the convoy. She rang up thirty knots
and steered northwest to close the action. Leander, sailing on the convoy’s
port beam, headed southwest, while the sloops and minesweepers stayed with the
merchantmen. Pantera and Leone, considering their mission successfully
accomplished, continued west-southwest and broke contact. They eventually
returned to Massawa via the south channel.
After the gunfire died away, Captain Horan steered Leander
northwest to cover Harmil Channel believing the enemy ships had retired in that
direction.
Upon receiving Pantera’s report, Sauro and Nullo had turned
to clear the area while the first group attacked and to put themselves in a
favorable position relative to the moon. This involved a ninety-degree port
turn at 0016 on 21 October and another at 0050. The section then headed
southeast, but for nearly an hour it encountered nothing. Finally, at 0148,
Leander and another ship hove into view. Sauro snapped off a single torpedo at
the cruiser (another misfired). In response Leander lofted star shell, and then
ten broadsides flashed from her main batteries in two minutes before she lost
sight of the target. Italian accounts say this engagement occurred at sixteen hundred
yards, while Leander’s report stated the enemy was more than eight thousand
yards away.
Sauro turned south by southwest and at 0207 attempted
another torpedo attack against the convoy. One weapon misfired, and although
Sauro claimed a hit with the other, it missed. At the same time Nullo detected
flashes that she believed came from an enemy torpedo launch, and within minutes
a lookout shouted that wakes were streaking toward the Italian destroyer’s bow.
At 0212 Sauro turned north and disengaged, eventually circling behind the
British and taking the south channel to Massawa. Nullo’s captain, however, put
his helm over even harder, “because it was [his] intention to attack, being
still in an opportune position to launch against the convoy, before taking
station in formation.” However, the rudder jammed for several minutes, causing
Nullo to circle and lose contact with Sauro.
At 0220 Leander’s spotlights fastened onto “a vessel painted
light grey proceeding from left to right”—in fact, Nullo steaming north. The
cruiser engaged from forty-six hundred yards off the Italian’s starboard bow.
Nullo returned fire, first against “destroyers” spotted astern (probably
Auckland) and then at Leander. The ships dueled for about ten minutes. The
Italian enjoyed one advantage: she employed flashless powder (the British noted
only two enemy salvos), whereas British muzzles flared brightly with each
discharge. Leander fired eight blind salvos (“little could be seen of their
effect”), but several rounds nonetheless hit home, damaging Nullo’s gyrocompass
and gunnery director. With this the Italian destroyer abandoned her attack
attempt and turned west-northwest running for Harmil Channel at thirty knots.
In the two actions Leander fired 129 6-inch rounds.
Guessing Nullo’s intention, the cruiser pursued in the
correct direction. At 0300 Kimberley joined, and at 0305 Leander turned back,
“appreciating that the enemy was drawing away from her at the rate of seven
knots and that the convoy might be attacked.” Kimberley continued, hoping to
intercept.
The British destroyer arrived off Harmil Island before dawn.
At 0540 her lookouts reported a shape to the south-southeast, and she closed to
investigate. Nullo’s lookouts likewise reported a contact. The sharp angle of
approach made it impossible to be certain, but the Italian captain assumed it
was Sauro, especially when it seemed to signal the Harmil Island station. He
was more “worried about the shallows scattered around the mouth of the
northeast passage and above all of the 3.7 meter sandbank immediately north of
his estimated 0500 position.”
At 0553 the British destroyer opened fire from 12,400 yards.
Surprised, Nullo took four minutes to reply and at 0605 swung sharply from a
northwest heading to a south-by-southwest course. By 0611 the range was down to
10,300 yards. Due to her prior damage, Nullo’s gunners fired over open sights,
while human chains passed shells up from the magazine. Harmil Island’s battery
of four 4.7-inch guns joined the action at 0615 from eighteen thousand yards.
At the same time, with the range now eighty-five hundred yards, Kimberley
turned south, emitting black funnel smoke, causing Nullo’s gunners to think
they had scored a hit.
At 0620 Nullo scraped a reef, opening her hull to flooding
and damaging a screw. Then, while the ship was setting course to round Harmil
Island, a shell exploded in the forward engine room and a second slammed into
the aft engine room. Nullo skewed sharply to the left and lost all power;
splinters swept the upper works. The captain ordered his men to prepare to
abandon ship while he angled the ship toward Harmil in an attempt to run it
aground. The aft mount continued in action until the heel became excessive.
Having expended 115 salvoes, Kimberley launched a torpedo to
dispatch her adversary; it missed, so she closed range and uncorked another.
The second torpedo slammed into Nullo at 0635 and blasted her in two.
Meanwhile, the Harmil battery finally found the range, and a shell struck
Kimberley’s engine room, wounding three men. Splinters cut the steam pipes; the
British destroyer lost power and came to a halt.
Kimberley’s men frantically patched the damage while the
drifting ship’s guns remained in action, shooting forty-five rounds of HE from
no. 3 mount, and achieving some hits that wounded four of the shore battery’s
crew. After a few long minutes, the destroyer restored partial power and pulled
away at fifteen knots. The shore battery fired its final shots at 0645, when
the range had opened to nineteen thousand yards. During the battle Kimberley
expended 596 SAP and 97 HE rounds.
After she was clear the destroyer lost steam pressure again.
Finally Leander arrived and towed Kimberley to Port Sudan. Nullo remained above
water; her guns ended up equipping a shore battery. On 21 October three
Blenheims reported destroying a wreck east of Harmil Island. This led the
British to conclude two enemy ships had been involved in the action.
The Aden command faulted the escort (except for Kimberley)
for demonstrating a lack of aggressiveness, although deserting the convoy to
chase unknown numbers of enemy destroyers through a murky night does not in
retrospect seem the best course of action either. The Italian ships, although
outnumbered, delivered two hit-and-run torpedo attacks, according to their
plan. However, while using widely separated divisions increased the probability
of finding the enemy, a natural consideration given the history of failed
interception attempts, it also guaranteed that the Italian forces would lack
the punch to take on the escort and deliver a meaningful attack. In fact, the
first Italian attack seemed more formulaic than a serious attempt to cause
damage.
The Italian East African squadron conducted another
(fruitless) sortie on 3 December 1940. It aborted a mission planned for early
January after British aircraft damaged Manin, one of the participants, and on
24 January it sortied again, without results. On the night of 2 February 1941,
however, three destroyers departed Massawa and deployed in a rake formation to
search for a large convoy known to be at sea.
Attack on Convoy BN14, 3 February 1941
Conditions: n/a
Allied ships—
Convoy Escort: CL: Caledon; DD: Kingston; DS: Indus (IN),
Shoreham
Convoy BN14: thirty-nine freighters
Italian ships—
DD: Pantera, Tigre, Sauro
Sauro spotted the enemy, made a sighting report, and
immediately maneuvered to attack. She launched three torpedoes at a group of
steamships and then, a minute later, at another dimly seen target marked by a
large cloud of smoke. She then turned away at speed. Her two sisters did not
receive the report, but ten minutes later Pantera stumbled across the enemy and
also fired torpedoes. The Italians heard explosions and later claimed
“probable” hits on two freighters. Tigre never made contact.
On her way to Massawa’s south channel, Sauro encountered
Kingston. Out of torpedoes, the Italian retreated at full speed. Concerned that
the British were attempting another ambush, the squadron concentrated on Sauro
and radioed for air support at dawn. In the event, the three destroyers safely
made port. The Italian East African press reported two freighters as probably
hit, but despite this claim, all torpedoes missed.
By April 1941 Imperial spearheads were probing Massawa’s
defensive perimeter. With Supermarina’s approval, Rear Admiral Mario Bonetti,
Balsamo’s replacement from December 1940, ordered a last grand gesture—an
attack by the three largest destroyers (Leone, Pantera, and Tigre) against Port
Suez, five hundred miles north, and a concurrent raid by the smaller destroyers
Battisti, Manin, and Sauro against Port Sudan. The British Middle Eastern
command had considered such an attack possible and had reinforced Port Suez
with two J-class destroyers and sent Eagle’s experienced air group south to
Port Sudan, while the carrier waited for mines to be swept from the Suez Canal
so she could proceed south.
The Italian venture ran into problems early when Leone
struck an uncharted rock forty-five miles out of Massawa. Flooding and fires in
her engine room forced her crew to abandon ship. Her two companions returned to
port, as the rescue operation left insufficient time for them to continue the
mission.
On the afternoon of 2 April the remaining Italian destroyers
sailed once again, this time against Port Sudan, 265 miles north. British
aircraft attacked them about two hours out of port but caused no damage. Then
Battisti suffered engine problems and scuttled herself on the Arabian coast.
The other four continued at top speed through the night and by dawn were thirty
miles short of their objective. However, Eagle’s Swordfish squadrons
intervened, sinking Sauro at 0715. The other ships headed for the opposite
shore, under attack as they went. Bombs crippled Manin at 0845. She eventually
capsized and sank about a hundred miles northeast of Port Sudan. Pantera and
Tigre made it to the Arabian coast and were scuttled there.
Caught off guard by the Italian sortie, British warships
rushed north. At 1700 Kingston found Pantera’s and Tigre’s wrecks. The two
ships had already been worked over by Wellesley bombers, but Kingston shelled
Pantera’s hulk and then torpedoed it, just to be sure.
The biggest Italian naval success in the Red Sea was a
Parthian shot that occurred on 8 April, with Massawa’s defenses breached and
ships scuttling themselves on all sides. MAS213, a World War I relic no longer
capable of even fifteen knots, ambushed the old light cruiser Capetown, which
was escorting minesweepers north of the port, and scored a torpedo hit from
just over three hundred yards. After spending a year in repair, the cruiser sat
out the rest of the war as an accommodation ship.
This was the Italian navy’s final blow in East Africa. The
capture of Massawa relieved Great Britain of the need to convoy the entire
length of the Red Sea and released valuable escorts for other duties. On 10
June an Indian battalion captured Assab, Italy’s last Red Sea outpost,
eliminating a pair of improvised torpedo boats. After that President Franklin
D. Roosevelt declared the narrow sea a nonwar zone, permitting the entry of
American shipping.
However, German aircraft continued to exert a distant influence
over the Red Sea, by mining the Suez Canal and attacking shipping that
accumulated to the south of the canal. As late at 18 September Admiral
Cunningham complained to Admiral Pound that “the Red Sea position is
unsatisfactory . . . about 5 of 6 ships attacked, one sunk [Steel Seafarer
(6,000 GRT)] and two damaged. . . . The imminent arrival at Suez of the monster
liners is giving me much anxiety. They are crammed with men and we can’t afford
to have them hit up.” In October 1941 the Suez Escort Force still tied up four
light cruisers, two fleet destroyers, two Hunt-class destroyers, and two
sloops. The British maintained a blockade off French Somaliland until December
1942.
