THE strategic scene in the Mediterranean had been transformed by the Allied occupation of North Africa, and with the acquisition of a solid base on its southern shores a forward movement against the enemy became possible. The President and I had long sought to open a new route to Russia and to strike at Germany’s southern flank. Turkey was the key to all such plans. To bring Turkey into the war on our side had for many months been our aim. It now acquired new hope and urgency.
Stalin was in full agreement with Mr. Roosevelt and myself, and I now wished to clinch the matter by a personal meeting with President Inönü on Turkish soil. There was also much business to be done in Cairo, and I hoped on the way home to visit the Eighth Army in Tripoli, if it were taken, and also to call at Algiers. There were many things I could settle on the spot, and more which I needed to see with my own eyes. On January 20 therefore I telegraphed from Casablanca to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary that I proposed to fly from Marrakesh to Cairo, stay there for two or three days and then get into direct touch with the Turks.
The War Cabinet thought a direct approach to Turkey was premature and urged my return direct to London to give an account to Parliament of my meeting with Mr. Roosevelt, but after some telegraphic debate they acquiesced in my plan. Accordingly on the afternoon of the 26th we sailed off in the “Commando”, and after having an extremely good dinner, provided by Mr. Pendar at the Taylor Villa, I slept soundly till once again I went to the co-pilot’s seat and sat by Captain Vanderkloot, and we saw together for the second time dawn gleam upon the waters of the Nile. This time we had not to go so far to the south, because the victory of Alamein had swept our foes fifteen hundred miles farther to the west. We arrived at the airfield, ten miles from the Pyramids, and were welcomed by the Ambassador, Lord Killearn, and received by the Cairo Command. We then repaired to the Embassy. Here I was joined by Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, sent from England by the Cabinet at my desire. We were all able to contrast the situation with what it had been in August 1942 with feelings of relief and satisfaction.
Messages now reached me to say that the Turkish President, Ismet Inönü, was delighted at the idea of the proposed meeting, and arrangements were made for it to take place at Adana, on the coast near the Turkish-Syrian border, on January 30 I went in the “Commando” to meet the Turks. It is only a four-hour flight across the Mediterranean, most of it in sight of Palestine and Syria, and I had with me in another plane Cadogan and Generals Brooke, Alexander, Wilson, and other officers. We landed not without some difficulty on the small Turkish airfield, and we had hardly completed the salutations and ceremonials before a very long enamelled caterpillar began to crawl out of the mountain defiles, containing the President, the entire Turkish Government, and Marshal Chakmak. They received us with the utmost cordiality and enthusiasm. Several saloon carriages had been put on the train for our accommodation, there being none other in the neighbourhood. We spent two nights in the train, having long daily discussions with the Turks and very agreeable talks at meals with President Inönü.
The general discussion turned largely on to two questions, the structure of the post-war world, and the arrangements for an international organisation, and the future relations of Turkey and Russia. I give only a few examples of the remarks which, according to the record, I made to the Turkish leaders. I said that I had seen Molotov and Stalin, and my impression was that both desired a peaceful and friendly association with the United Kingdom and the United States. In the economic sphere both Western Powers had much to give to Russia, and they could help in the reparation of Russia’s losses. I could not see twenty years ahead, but we had nevertheless made a treaty for twenty years. I thought Russia would concentrate on reconstruction for the next ten years. There would probably be changes: Communism had already been modified. I thought we should live in good relations with Russia, and if Great Britain and the United States acted together and maintained a strong Air Force they should be able to ensure a period of stability. Russia might even gain by this. She possessed vast undeveloped areas—for instance, in Siberia.
The Turkish Prime Minister observed that I had expressed the view that Russia might become imperialistic. This made it necessary for Turkey to be very prudent. I replied that there would be an international organisation to secure peace and security, which would be stronger than the League of Nations. I added that I was not afraid of Communism. He remarked that he was looking for something more real. All Europe was full of Slavs and Communists. All the defeated countries would become Bolshevik and Slav if Germany was beaten. I said that things did not always turn out as bad as was expected; but if they did so it was better that Turkey should be strong and closely associated with the United Kingdom and the United States. If Russia, without any cause, were to attack Turkey the whole international organisation of which I had spoken would be applied on behalf of Turkey, and the guarantees after the present war would be much more severe, not only where Turkey was concerned, but in the case of all Europe. I would not be a friend of Russia if she imitated Germany. If she did so we should arrange the best possible combination against her, and I would not hesitate to say so to Stalin.
During these general political discussions military conversations were conducted by the C.I.G.S. and our other high commanders. The two main points to be considered were the provision of equipment for the Turkish forces, prior and subsequent to any political move by Turkey, and the preparation of plans for their reinforcement by British units in the event of their coming into the war. The results of these talks were embodied in a military agreement.
My parleys with Turkey were intended to prepare the way for her entry into the war in the autumn of 1943. That this did not take place after the collapse of Italy and with the further Russian advances against Germany north of the Black Sea was due to unfortunate events in the Ægean later in the year, which will be described in their proper place.
I flew back from Adana to Cairo, stopping at Cyprus on the way, and then on to Tripoli. It had been taken punctually by the Eighth Army on January 23. The port was found severely damaged. The entrance had been completely blocked by sunken ships, and the approaches lavishly sown with mines. This had been foreseen, and the first supply ship entered the harbour on February 2. A week later 2,000 tons a day were being handled. Although the Eighth Army had still great distances to travel, its maintenance during the fifteen-hundred-mile advance from Alamein, crowned by the rapid opening up of Tripoli, was an administrative feat for which credit lay with General Lindsell in Cairo and General Robertson with the Eighth Army. At the end of the month the Eighth Army was joined by General Leclerc, who had led a mixed force of Free French about 2,500 strong fifteen hundred miles across the Desert from French Equatorial Africa. Leclerc placed himself unreservedly under Montgomery’s orders. He and his troops were to play a valuable part in the rest of the Tunisian campaign.
The Eighth Army crossed the frontier into Tunisia on February 4, thus completing the conquest of the Italian Empire by Great Britain. In accordance with the decisions taken at the Casablanca Conference, this Army now came under General Eisenhower, with General Alexander as his Deputy in executive command of land operations. The reader may remember the directive I had given Alexander on leaving Cairo six months earlier.* He now sent me the following reply:
Sir,
The orders you gave me on August [10], 1942, have been fulfilled. His Majesty’s enemies, together with their impedimenta, have been completely eliminated from Egypt, Cyrenaica, Libya, and Tripolitania. I now await your further instructions.
After two long and vivid days I set off with my party to visit Eisenhower and all the others at Algiers. Here the tension was acute. The murder of Darlan still imposed many precautions on all prominent figures. The Cabinet continued to show concern about my safety, and evidently wanted me home as soon as possible. This at least was complimentary. On Sunday night, February 7, 1943, we took off, and flew directly and safely home. This was my last flight in “Commando”, which later perished with all hands, though with a different pilot and crew.
My first task on getting home was to make a full statement to the House of Commons on the Casablanca Conference, my tour of the Mediterranean, and on the general position. It took me more than two hours on February 11 to make my speech. But I was more tired by my journeying than I had realised at the time, and I must have caught a chill. A few days later a cold and sore throat obliged me to lie up. In the evening of the 16th, when I was alone with Mrs. Churchill, my temperature suddenly rose, and Lord Moran, who had been watching me, took a decided view and told me that I had inflammation of the base of a lung. His diagnosis led him to prescribe the drug called M and B. The next day elaborate photographs were taken and confirmed the diagnosis, and Dr. Geoffrey Marshall of Guy’s Hospital was called in consultation. All my work had come to me hour by hour at the Annexe, and I had maintained my usual output though feeling far from well. But now I became aware of a marked reduction in the number of papers which reached me. When I protested the doctors, supported by my wife, argued that I ought to quit my work entirely. I would not agree to this. What should I have done all day? They then said I had pneumonia, to which I replied, “Well, surely you can deal with that. Don’t you believe in your new drug?” Doctor Marshall said he called pneumonia “the old man’s friend”. “Why?” I asked. “Because it takes them off so quietly.” I made a suitable reply, but we reached an agreement on the following lines. I was only to have the most important and interesting papers sent me, and to read a novel. I chose Moll Flanders, about which I had heard excellent accounts, but had not found time to test them. On this basis I passed the next week in fever and discomfort, and I sometimes felt very ill. There is a blank in my flow of minutes from the 19th to the 25th. Soon the President, General Smuts, and other friends who had heard about my illness sent repeated telegrams urging me to obey the doctor’s orders, and I kept faithfully to my agreement. When I finished Moll Flanders I gave it to Doctor Marshall to cheer him up. The treatment was successful.
22 + s.w.w.
Stalin at this time sent me a film of the Stalingrad victory, with all its desperate fighting wonderfully portrayed, and this is the point at which to tell, all too briefly, the tale of the magnificent and decisive struggle of the Russian armies.
The German drive to the Caucasus had culminated and foundered during the summer and autumn of 1942. At first all had gone very much according to plan, though not quite so swiftly as had been hoped. The Southern Army group cleared the Russians from within the bend of the Lower Don. It was then divided into Army Group A, under List, and Army Group B, under Bock, and on July 23 Hitler had given them their tasks. Army Group A was to capture the entire eastern shore of the Black Sea and the adjacent oilfields, and Army Group B, having established a defensive flank along the River Don, was to advance on Stalingrad, “smash the enemy forces being assembled there, and occupy the city”. The troops in front of Moscow would conduct holding operations, and Leningrad in the north would be captured in early September.
General von Kleist’s First Panzer Army of fifteen divisions led the onrush to the Caucasus. Once across the Don they made much headway against little opposition. They reached the Maikop oilfields on August 9, to find them thoroughly destroyed. They failed to reach the Grozny oilfields. Those of Baku, the greatest of them all, were still three hundred miles away, and Hitler’s orders to seize the whole of the Black Sea littoral could not be carried out. Reinforced by fresh troops sent down by railway along the western shore of the Caspian, the Russians everywhere held firm. Kleist, weakened by diversions for the Stalingrad effort, struggled on till November amid the Caucasian foothills. Winter then descended. His bolt was shot.
On the front of Army Group B worse than failure befell. The lure of Stalingrad fascinated Hitler; its very name was a challenge. The city was a considerable centre of industry and a strong point on the defensive flank protecting his main thrust to the Caucasus. It became a magnet drawing to itself the supreme effort of the German Army and Air Force. Resistance grew daily stiffer. It was not till September 15 that, after heavy fighting between the Don and the Volga, the outskirts of Stalingrad were reached. The battering-ram attacks of the next month made some progress at the cost of terrible slaughter. Nothing could overcome the Russians, fighting with passionate devotion amid the ruins of their city.
The German generals, long uneasy, had now good cause for anxiety. After three months of fighting the main objectives of the campaign, the Caucasus, Stalingrad, and Leningrad, were still in Russian hands. Casualties had been very heavy and replacements insufficient. Hitler, instead of sending fresh contingents forward to replace losses, was forming them into new and untrained divisions. In military opinion it was high time to call a halt, but “the Carpet-eater” would not listen. At the end of September Halder, Hitler’s Chief of Staff, finally resisted his master, and was dismissed. Hitler scourged his armies on.
By mid-October the German position had markedly worsened. Army Group B was stretched over a front of seven hundred miles. General Paulus’s Sixth Army had expended its effort, and now lay exhausted with its flanks thinly protected by allies of dubious quality. Winter was near, when the Russians would surely make their counter-stroke. If the Don front could not be held the safety of the armies on the Caucasus front would be undermined. But Hitler would not countenance any suggestion of withdrawal. On November 19 the Russians delivered their long and valiantly prepared encircling assault, striking both north and south of Stalingrad upon the weakly defended German flanks. Four days later the Russian pincers met and the Sixth Army was trapped between the Don and the Volga. Paulus proposed to break out. Hitler ordered him to hold his ground. As the days passed the Army was compressed into an ever-lessening space. On December 12, in bitter weather, the Germans made a desperate effort to break through the Russian cordon and relieve their besieged comrades. They failed. Thereafter, though Paulus and his army held out for seven more terrible weeks, their doom was certain.
Great efforts were made to supply him from the air, but little got through, and at the expense of heavy losses in aircraft. The cold was intense; food and ammunition were scarce, and an outbreak of typhus added to the miseries of his men. On January 8 he rejected an ultimatum to surrender, and next day the last phase began with violent Russian attacks from the west. The Germans fought strongly, so that only five miles were gained in as many days. But at last they began to crack, and by the 17th the Russians were within ten miles of Stalingrad itself. Paulus threw into the fight every man who could bear arms, but it was no use. On January 22 the Russians surged forward again, until the Germans were thrown back on the outskirts of the city they had tried in vain to take. Here the remains of a once-great army were pinned in an oblong only four miles deep by eight long. Under intense artillery fire and air bombardment the survivors defended themselves in violent street-fighting, but their plight was hopeless, and as the Russians pressed forward exhausted units began to surrender wholesale. Paulus and his staff were captured, and on February 2 Marshal Voronov reported that all resistance had ceased and ninety thousand prisoners had been taken. These were the survivors of twenty-one German and one Roumanian divisions. Thus ended Hitler’s prodigious effort to conquer Russia by force and destroy Communism by an equally odious form of totalitarian tyranny.
The spring of 1943 marked the turning-point of the war on the Eastern Front. Even before Stalingrad the mounting Russian tide had swept the enemy back all along the line. The German army of the Caucasus was skilfully withdrawn, but the Russians pressed the enemy from the Don and back beyond the Donetz river, the starting line of Hitler’s offensive of the previous summer. Farther north again the Germans lost ground, until they were more than two hundred and fifty miles from Moscow. The investment of Leningrad was broken. The Germans and their satellites suffered immense losses in men and material. The ground gained in the past year was taken from them. They were no longer superior to the Russians on land. In the air they had now to reckon with the growing power of the British and American Air Forces, operating both from Britain and in Africa.
Victory, however, made Stalin no more genial. If he could have come to Casablanca the three Allies might have worked out a common plan face to face. But this was not to be, and discussions were pursued by telegram. We told him of our military decisions, and on my return home, with the President’s authority, I had sent him an additional explanation of our plans, namely, to liberate Tunisia in April, capture Sicily, and push our preparations to the limit for crossing the Channel in August or September.
“… It is evident,” he replied promptly, “that, contrary to your previous calculations, the end of operations in Tunis is expected in April instead of February. I hardly need to tell you how disappointing is such a delay.… It is [also] evident from your message that the establishment of the Second Front, in particular in France, is envisaged only in August-September. It seems to me that the present position demands the greatest possible speeding up of the action contemplated—i.e., of the opening of the Second Front in the West at a considerably earlier date than indicated. In order not to give the enemy any respite it is extremely important to deliver the blow from the West in the spring or in the early summer and not to postpone it until the second half of the year. …”
And a month later (March 15):—
“Fully realising the importance of Sicily, I must however point out that it cannot replace the Second Front in France. … I deem it my duty to warn you in the strongest possible manner how dangerous would be from the view-point of our common cause further delay in the opening of the Second Front in France. This is the reason why the uncertainty of your statements concerning the contemplated Anglo-American offensive across the Channel arouses grave anxiety in me, about which I feel I cannot be silent.”
It was evident that the most effective aid which we could offer the Russians was the speedy clearing of the Axis forces from North Africa and the stepping up of the air war against Germany, but although the pace of our advance from the east had surpassed expectations, the Allied situation had for some time remained anxious. Malta was indeed re-victualled and rearmed and had again sprung into full activity. From our new bases in Algeria and Cyrenaica our naval and air forces ranged widely, protecting Allied shipping and taking heavy toll of enemy supplies and reinforcements. Besides blockading Tunis, where German air forces were still strong, we reached out to the ports on the Italian mainland. Palermo, Naples, and Spezia all felt the lash as our strength mounted, and R.A.F. bombers from home took over the attack on Northern Italy. The Italian Fleet made no attempt to interfere. Apart from the presence of the British Fleet, the lack of oil was serious. There were days when there was not one ton of fuel in all Sicily for the escort vessels covering supplies to Tunis.
But all this could not disguise the fact that after the failure to conquer Tunisia in December our initial blow was spent. Refusing to recognise that he could not safeguard by sea or air even the short passage from Sicily, Hitler ordered the creation of a new army to meet the impending Allied attacks from both east and west. Rommel, promoted to command all the Axis troops, concentrated two German armoured divisions east of Faid to throw back the opposing U.S. Corps and prevent them from coming down on his flank and rear while he was engaged against the hard pressure of the Eighth Army. The attack began on February 14. It had been mistakenly expected that the main blow would come through Fondouk and not Faid. Consequently the 1st U.S. Armoured Division, under General Anderson’s orders, was much dispersed. On the 17th Kasserine, Feriana, and Sbeitla were in German hands. Rommel then struck northwards. A fierce fight ensued, but by noon on the 22nd he began a general withdrawal in good order and eventually our original line was re-established. But Rommel was not yet finished. Four days later he began a series of strong attacks on the front of the British Vth Corps. South of Medjez the enemy were repulsed without significant gains; to the north they won several miles, leaving the town itself in an awkward salient. Near the coast our troops were forced back twenty miles, but they then held firm.
In the last week of February General Alexander took command of the whole front. At the same time, in accordance with the Casablanca agreement, Air Marshal Tedder assumed control of the Allied Air Forces. The battle in Tunisia was now at its height. On March 6 Rommel made four major attacks on the advancing Eighth Army, using all three of the German Panzers. Every one of them was beaten off with heavy loss. This was probably Rommel’s sharpest rebuff in all his African exploits. Moreover, it was his last action there. Shortly afterwards he was invalided to Germany, and von Arnim succeeded him.
The Eighth Army then moved forward to close with the enemy’s main position, the Mareth Line. This was a highly organised twenty-mile-long defence system constructed by the French before the war to prevent Italian incursion into Tunisia. Now Italians were manning it against the British! A fortnight was needed to prepare a deliberate assault against such strongly held defences. The blow was struck during the third week in March, the enemy were outflanked, and on April 7, after bitter and complicated fighting, a patrol of the 4th Indian Division met one from the U.S. IInd Corps. The American greeting, “Hello, Limey”,* although not understood, was accepted with the utmost cordiality. The two armies which had started nearly two thousand miles apart were now at last joined together. On the 18th a great enemy air convoy a hundred strong was set upon by our Spitfires and American Warhawks off Cape Bon. The convoy was scattered in confusion; over fifty were brought down. Next day South African Kittyhawks destroyed fifteen out of eighteen; and finally on April 22 a further thirty, including many laden with petrol, went flaming into the sea. This virtually ended Hitler’s obstinate attempt, which Germany could ill afford. No more transport aircraft dared to fly by day. Their achievement had been great. In the four months December to March they had ferried more than 40,000 men and 14,000 tons of supplies to Africa.
On May 6 Alexander launched his culminating attack. The Allied Air Forces put forth a supreme effort, with 2,500 sorties in the day. The Axis had been gradually worn down, and at this crisis could only make sixty sorties in reply. The climax was at hand. The relentless blockade by sea and air was fully established. Enemy movement over the sea was at a standstill, their air effort ended. The British IXth Corps made a clean break in the enemy front. The two armoured divisions passed through the infantry and reached Massicault, half-way to Tunis. Next day, May 7, they pressed on, the 7th Armoured Division entered Tunis, and then swerved north to join hands with the United States force. Resistance on the main American front had cracked at the same time, and their 9th Infantry Division reached Bizerta. Three German divisions were thus trapped between the Allied troops, and surrendered on May 9.
The 6th Armoured Division, followed by the 4th British and with the 1st Armoured on their right, drove east, through and beyond Tunis. They were held up by a hastily organised resistance at a defile by the sea a few miles east of the city, but their tanks splashed through along the beach, and at nightfall on May 10 reached Hammamet, on the east coast. Behind them the 4th Division swept round the Cape Bon peninsula, meeting no opposition. All the remaining enemy were caught in the net to the south.
“… I expect all organised resistance to collapse within the next forty-eight hours,” cabled General Alexander on May 11, “and final liquidation of whole Axis forces in the next two or three days. I calculate that prisoners up to date exceed 100,000, but this is not yet confirmed, and they are still coming in. Yesterday I saw a horse-drawn gig laden with Germans driving themselves to the prisoners’ cage. As they passed we could not help laughing, and they laughed too. The whole affair was more like Derby Day …”
Admiral Cunningham had made full preparation for the final collapse, and he ordered all available naval forces to patrol the straits and stop an Axis “Dunkirk” evacuation. The appropriate code-name of this operation was “Retribution”. On the 8th he signalled, “Sink, burn, and destroy. Let nothing pass.” But only a few barges tried to escape, and nearly all were captured or sunk. On the 12th the encircling ring was closed. The enemy laid down their arms. At 2.15 p.m. on May 13 Alexander signalled to me:
Sir:
It is my duty to report that the Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shores.
No one could doubt the magnitude of the victory of Tunis. It held its own with Stalingrad. Nearly a quarter of a million prisoners were taken. Very heavy loss of life had been inflicted on the enemy. One-third of their supply ships had been sunk. Africa was clear of our foes. One continent had been redeemed. In London there was, for the first time in the war, a real lifting of spirits. Parliament received the Ministers with regard and enthusiasm, and recorded its thanks in the warmest terms to the commanders. I had asked that the bells of all the churches should be rung. I was sorry not to hear their chimes, but I had more important work to do on the other side of the Atlantic.
