ON 27th September, 1941, several Spitfire pilots of the Royal Air Force returned from a Fighter Command sweep over Amiens and reported that they had encountered an entirely new type of German fighter, described as a radial-engined aircraft not unlike the Curtiss Hawk 75A used by the French Air Force in 1940. At the same time, the British pilots insisted that the phenomenal performance of the unusual enemy fighter ruled out any possibility of it being the Curtiss Hawk, although a few of the obsolescent American-built fighters were known to be in Luftwaffe service. Royal Air Force Intelligence finally squashed all arguments by stating firmly that Germany possessed no modern radial-engined fighters; the Spitfire pilots had either seen captured Curtiss Hawks or been confused by the outline of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in the heat of action.
Within a month, camera-gun photographs of the radial-engined German fighter had been brought back for study on the ground. They proved beyond any doubt that a new type of German single-seater fighter—the remarkable Focke-Wulf Fw 190—was indeed coming into operational service. For the next twelve months, it would be a consistent problem to the squadrons of Fighter Command, far out-classing the Spitfire V and Hawker Typhoon in general performance and reigning supreme in the skies over France and the English Channel.
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, designed by Kurt Tank, originated from a request by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium in 1937 for a single-seater fighter to supplement the Bf 109 then just entering service with the Luftwaffe. From the beginning, the Fw 190 was an excellent aircraft, achieving a maximum speed of nearly 400 m.p.h. and displaying such an outstanding ability to zoom, climb or dive in combat at high speed that in many ways it was better than the Bf 109. However, the Messerschmitt fighter had attracted more favourable attention, and been rushed into mass production as first-line equipment for the Luftwaffe, with the result that the Fw 190 remained nothing more than another iron in the fire. Also, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium tended to distrust air-cooled radial engines; even Tank was surprised when Ernst Udet supported his decision to build Germany’s first radial-engined monoplane fighter.
It is true that Tank radically altered the German policy of designing all new fighters around in-line engines by powering his Fw 190 with a BMW 801 air-cooled radial engine of 1,800 h.p. with an engine-driven fan to improve the cooling, ingeniously blending this bulky power arrangement into the neat, clean lines of the fuselage. Five prototypes were built, undergoing very successful flight trials, but progress with the new fighter still tended to be slow but sure until Goering decided to inspect the Fw 190 in 1940 and was so impressed that he told Tank he must turn out the new machines “like so many hot rolls!”
Armed with four MG 17 machine-guns, two in the wing roots and two in the upper fuselage decking, all firing through the airscrew arc, the first production Fw 190s appeared over the Channel coast in July, 1941, replacing the Bf 109ES in service with Jagdgeschwaden 2 and 26. By the end of the year they had established almost complete superiority over the Spitfire Vs then in use by Fighter Command, and maintained that superiority for nearly two years. The most successful version of the Fw 190, the 190A-3, came to be regarded by both sides as the best fighter which Germany produced during the Second World War. it was fitted with a more powerful BMW radial engine with a rating of 2,100 h.p., had a maximum speed of 408 m.p.h. and carried four 20-mm. MG 151 cannon and two 13-mm. MG 131 machine-guns.
Early in 1942 the new Fw 190s of Jagdgeschwaden 2 and 26 were earmarked to take part in one of Hitler’s most daring ventures—the transfer of the German battle fleet from Brest through the Straits of Dover to the sanctuary of home waters. During 1941, the fast, powerful 30,000-ton battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had ranged the Atlantic, sinking over 100,000 tons of Allied shipping before at last taking refuge in Brest, where they remained a potential menace to the already depleted convoys from the United States and Canada. In both London and Berlin it was realised that the next move of the two battle cruisers could be decisive in the war at sea; the recent exploits of the Bismarck had taught both sides a bitter lesson.
The new German battleship Bismarck—the most powerful warship in the world—had simply sailed from Bergen one night in company with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and vanished into the Atlantic, throwing the Admiralty into confusion. Three days later the German ships were intercepted by the Home Fleet and brought to action by the veteran battle cruiser Hood and the brand-new battleship Prince of Wales, hurriedly rushed to sea when barely completed. The superb gunnery of the Bismarck destroyed Hood and so badly damaged the Prince of Wales that she had to break off the engagement, then the German battleship set course for Brest, her high speed apparently making further interception by the Royal Navy impossible. But later that day Swordfish torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier Victorious damaged Bismarck, forcing her to drastically reduce speed, and a second Swordfish attack from Ark Royal finally sealed the fate of the German ship. She was brought to action by the Home Fleet and sunk, long after Prinz Eugen had slipped away to find safety in Brest. The fate of Bismarck would almost certainly overtake Scharnhorst and Gneisenau if they ventured out again; but that knowledge provided little consolation for the Admiralty, compelled in the meantime to thin down the Mediterranean and Home Fleets in finding capital ships for the convoy routes.
While Admiral Raeder hesitated to send his battle cruisers into the lion’s mouth of the wild Atlantic again, and the Royal Air Force deluged Brest with bombs—299 attacks, with a loss of forty-three aircraft failed to put the warships out of action—Hitler came to the conclusion that the Allies were about to invade Norway. He therefore decided that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau be transferred from Brest to home waters and undergo refitting for the defence of Scandinavia; also, he insisted that the Channel route should be used. Appalled at the idea of sending German capital ships through the Dover Straits within eighteen miles of the English south coast, Raeder pointed out the fearful risk they would be taking, but the Fuehrer remained adamant. “You can count on this,” he said. “From my previous experience I do not believe the British capable of the conception and execution of lightning decisions such as will be required for the transfer of their air and sea forces to meet the boldness of our operation.”
Despite Raeder and his naval staff, the decision was made. Adolf Galland was ordered to provide a continuous air umbrella over the German fleet, and for this purpose Jagdgeschwaden 2 and 26 were each increased in establishment to some ninety Bf 109s and Fw 190s. These were reinforced for Operation Cerberus, as the Channel venture was code-named, by twelve Bf 109s from a fighter training school and a further sixty Bf 109s from Jagdgeschwader 1, making some 252 aircraft available to provide air cover. For obvious reasons, a much smaller number of fighters was bound to be over the warships at one time; an elaborate “shuttle” service had to be organised during the whole day. In Galland’s own words: “A continuous escort at high altitude and low level could not be carried out by more than sixteen fighter planes, the single waves of sixteen aircraft each remaining approximately thirty-five minutes over the ships. This varied according to distance from base to object…. The relieving wave arrived according to a precisely fixed schedule ten minutes before the time was up for the first escort to return….” For possible action against attacking British naval forces, a single bomber Geschwader was placed in readiness on the Channel coast.
On the evening of nth February, 1942, the port of Brest shook to the concussion of the inevitable British air raid. Just before 10 p.m., as the “all-clear” sirens wailed over the town, the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, surrounded by seven destroyers, slid quietly away from their harbour moorings and headed out into the open sea. Engine-room telegraphs clanged, and white foam broke away from the bows of the warships as they gathered speed. Vice-Admiral Ciliax, flying his flag in Scharnhorst, stood on the bridge, surrounded by the velvet darkness of the night, and waited for the dawn—and the British reconnaissance aircraft he was certain would appear at first light.
But for once Hitler’s intuition had served him well. A grey, misty dawn came to the English Channel and found the German battle fleet still undetected after being at sea for just over ten hours, and already 250 miles nearer its objective. At 8.30 a.m. the first batch of Galland’s day fighters joined the night fighters that had been patiently circling over the warships during the hours of darkness. The arrival of German aircraft somewhere in the Le Havre area was duly plotted by Newhaven radar station and reported to 11 Group of Fighter Command without comment. No action was taken.
Fifteen minutes later, the British early morning reconnaissance patrol of two Spitfires appeared over the Channel. By great misfortune, one fighter flew directly to Boulogne and turned for home after sighting E-boats leaving the harbour, and the other Spitfire covered only the area between Cap Gris Nez and Ostend before also returning to report E-boat activity east of Zeebrugge. The reinforcements moving to join the German fleet had thus been seen without being recognised for what they were, and the early morning mist still enshrouded the battle cruisers long after they should have been discovered.
Admiral Ciliax could scarcely credit his good luck. At 10 a.m. the German fleet was approaching the narrowest part of the Channel, between Dover and Calais—and still it remained undetected. The Bf no night fighters were now withdrawn until the evening and the day fighter cover increased, activity that brought reports from various radar stations along the English south-east coast of enemy aircraft circling, yet in a curious orbit that was moving up the Channel at more than 20 knots. Despite frequent interference—thought to be caused by atmospherics, but in reality due to German jamming of the radar system—every plot clearly indicated that surface vessels were steaming up the Channel at high speed under air cover. Nevertheless, Fighter Command assumed that the unusual German air activity amounted to nothing more than an exercise or air-sea rescue operation, and the radar reports aroused only mild interest.
At 10.20 a.m. another pair of Spitfires took off on the second Channel reconnaissance patrol of the day. Ten minutes later, two Battle of Britain veterans, Group Captain Beamish and Wing Commander Boyd, out in their Spitfires for an unofficial jaunt over the Channel, sighted two enemy fighters and joyfully dived to the attack. The German pilots immediately turned back for the safety of Galland’s “umbrella” and Beamish and Boyd, thundering in pursuit, abruptly found themselves hurtling across the bows of the battle cruisers they thought were still at anchor in Brest. Bound by Fighter Command standing orders to maintain strict radio silence at all times, the startled Battle of Britain aces could only bank steeply away and race back to base. The same rule of silence hampered the two reconnaissance pilots, who sighted the German fleet five minutes later, protected by what appeared to be masses of Bf 109s and Fw 190s; too much valuable time was lost while they were returning to Hawkinge. The flick of a switch and a few quick words might have made all the difference; but Hitler had judged the British reaction correctly, and the “lightning decision” was never-made.
By 11.0 a.m. the secret was out—after the German ships had been at sea for nearly fourteen hours. But the vague British plan to counteract a “Channel dash” by the enemy was based entirely on the assumption that he would only dare to attempt a night passage, and another vital hour passed before any direct action was taken against the battle cruisers steaming majestically through the Straits of Dover. When the dazed Commands of the R.A.F. had sorted out the situation, the lack of any proper attacking force for a daylight operation became appallingly clear; apart from a squadron of Beaufort torpedo bombers just transferred from Leuchars to Coltishall, barely landed and therefore not at readiness, only six antiquated Swordfish torpedo aircraft and the Dover motor-torpedo boats were immediately available. Too late, the Coast Artillery batteries at Dover opened fire, and the great fountains of water erupted more than a mile to port of the nearest German ships. Within half an hour, they were out of range.
Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmond, a young Irishman, was destined to lead the six Fleet Air Arm Swordfish into action against the German armada that morning, the hopeless, suicidal attack from which few, if any, could possibly return. He was promised five fighter squadrons for top cover and close escort; when the Swordfish squadron took off from Manston at 12.25 p.m., not a single fighter had arrived. In that omission lay the tragedy of Eugene Esmond. Acknowledged by the Admiralty to be “a wise and brave captain with too much integrity to waste either their (his crews) lives or his own in an attack which held no hope of success,” he accepted the inevitable dangers of his job—and found himself faced with the supreme sacrifice.
Over Ramsgate, the six Swordfish biplanes were met by ten Spitfires, and with this pathetic little escort they dropped to a height of 50 ft. and headed out to sea. Almost at once, the fighters became tangled in running dogfights with two flights of Galland’s Bf 109s. Occasionally, a black-crossed machine would hurtle through the Swordfish formation, hammering cannon and machine-gun fire into the big, unwieldy biplanes as they throbbed relentlessly through the mist towards their target. With wingtips almost touching the water, the rear gunners standing up in their open cockpits to spray first one attacking fighter and then another, fuselages trailing torn fabric, the Swordfish presented a curious sight; they could—and did—absorb tremendous punishment, but they were no match for the might of the German fleet. And no man knew that better than Eugene Esmond.
Then the German battle fleet was looming up ahead, and simultaneously the full weight of Galland’s fighter cover fell on the lumbering Swordfish. Attacking in waves, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190s of Jagdgeschwaden 2 and 26 swept in to rake the biplanes with devastating bursts of cannon fire before banking steeply around to fire again. Beyond, the destroyer escort surrounding the battle cruisers became wreathed in smoke and flame as hundreds of rapid-firing anti-aircraft guns crashed into action. Into this reeking hell flew the first three Swordfish, swaying to the concussion of shells bursting all around them, great holes appearing in the tattered wings and fuselages.
As if indestructible, Esmond calmly led his sub-flight through the awful flak barrage from the destroyers, ignoring the flame-stabbing cowlings of Fw 190s hurtling past on either side. At two thousand yards, the battle cruisers opened fire on him with every gun that could be brought to bear, including the main 11-inch armament, which belched out broadside after broadside with clockwork precision. The huge shells hit the sea in front of the sub-flight, sending up a great wall of water which cascaded down on the staggering biplanes. Abruptly, the lower port wing of Esmond’s Swordfish was shot clean away by a direct hit; the skeleton of what had been an aircraft wavered dangerously then flew on, heading relentlessly for the vast bulk of Scharnhorst. A dozen German fighters, with undercarriages and flaps fully lowered to try and reduce their speed to the pitiful 90 knots of the Swordfish, hung on behind, riddling it with point-blank fire.
Dying, with two dead men huddled in the cockpits behind him, Eugene Esmond released his torpedo. Then the stricken Swordfish crashed into the sea; just as the second biplane, taking terrible punishment from the concentrated anti-aircraft fire, came in to attack Gneisenau. Its torpedo released at last, it flew right into the flaming muzzles of the battle cruiser’s guns in a desperate attempt to gain height, barely clearing the superstructure of the German ship before belly-landing heavily on the water. The third Swordfish of that ill-fated yet glorious sub-flight, streaming sheets of flame from the engine and port wings, also managed to drop its torpedo—aimed at Prinz Eugen—before plunging into the sea.
While the great battle cruisers were still altering course to evade the streaking torpedoes, the second sub-flight of Swordfish, in impeccable Vee formation, struggled through the awful holocaust of steel surrounding the German ships. Gutted by fighter cannon fire, manned by dead and dying crews, they entered the mighty flak barrage and deluging water around the battle cruisers and vanished into the furnace; three Swordfish and nine fragments of humanity simply consumed like moths in the heat of a candle. Officially, they were presumed to have released their torpedoes, but the truth of what actually happened in that moment of destruction will never be known.
So ended perhaps the most gallant sortie ever to be flown in the splendid history of the Fleet Air Arm. The German ships had not been halted or even damaged, and therefore the operation had failed in its purpose; but the failure of Esmond and his squadron was more bright with glory than many a victory. Aptly described in the German War Diary as “the mothball attack of a handful of ancient planes piloted by men whose bravery surpasses any other action by either side that day”, the sortie had clutched vainly at the chance of success. But success that day was a straw in the wind, beyond the grasp of even a man like Eugene Esmond; he could do no more than accept the great sacrifice. Later, he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Other men were fated to die on that grey February afternoon. Fighter Command was soon heavily committed, and innumerable air battles reeled back and forth over the German battle fleet as it surged on at top speed. Again, valuable time was lost before a second torpedo attack could be mounted. When it did come, at 3.45 p.m., the two or three Beauforts involved could not penetrate the appalling flak barrage thrown up by the warships. A second, more organised Coastal Command attack, this time by fourteen Beauforts, also met with little success, although at least six aircraft managed to break through and release their torpedoes. Against this display of determination, three Beauforts became lost in the rising mist and finally dropped their torpedoes against “three large ships” which turned out to be British destroyers racing to intercept the German fleet. In this atmosphere of confusion and chaos, Coastal Command activities came to an end. Three Beauforts and two Lockheed Hudsons had been shot down; and still the enemy ships had not been halted.
However, Admiral Ciliax was also having a difficult time. At about 2.30 p.m.—when Coastal Command was hurriedly assembling a striking force of Beauforts—the flagship Scharnhorst was abruptly shaken from stem to stern by a tremendous explosion. By great misfortune from the German point of view, she had struck a mine, and, with both propeller shafts damaged, was soon wallowing heavily to a standstill. Haunted by the fear of air attacks which were expected to hit the battle fleet at any moment, Ciliax decided to transfer his command to the destroyer Z-29, which was ordered alongside. As the two ships closed, the Admiral, his staff and the vital Luftwaffe fighter liaison staff leapt across the gap, and within minutes the destroyer was heading after the main fleet at full speed. However, Scharnhorst soon managed to repair her damage sufficiently to get under way again, despite repeated attacks during the afternoon by aircraft of Bomber Command.
Nearly four hours had elapsed after first sighting of the enemy ships before Bomber Command struck against them in any force, mainly because many of the aircraft supposedly at immediate readiness were armed only with armour-piercing bombs. When the alarm was given, high-altitude bombing with armour-piercing bombs was obviously impossible in the heavy cloud and deteriorating visibility of early afternoon, and most of these had therefore to be switched for general purpose bombs fused to explode on impact. Bomber Command thus accepted that it had little hope of crippling the German battle cruisers; it compromised by endeavouring to damage the lightly armoured upper decks and superstructures.
These final air attacks of the day were all courageously pressed home despite the fearful German flak barrage, yet none proved effective. At 2.30 p.m. the first wave of Bomber Command aircraft—seventy-three assorted bombers—struck at the enemy ships. Of the second wave of 134 bombers, only a few found the targets in the thickening mist, and those that survived the blanket of anti-aircraft fire had no success. A third wave, which went in through rain and mist in the early evening, failed to contact the enemy fleet at all. In the final assessment, fifteen bombers had been lost out of 242 committed—and again nothing had been achieved.
The fighter battles raged on without respite until nightfall. Cannon-firing Hurricanes and twin-engined Whirlwinds of Fighter Command fought through the flak and Galland’s air cover to attack the German destroyer escort and E-boat screen; dozens of Bf 109s and Fw 190s strove to intercept them. “Conscious that everything was at stake on that day, no scruples about safety existed,” comments Galland in his memoirs. “The fighter pilots had done more than their duty. They were carried away by the grandeur of the operation and showed an enthusiasm I did not think could be possible after the long, hard struggle the squadron had waged on the Channel….”
Nevertheless, the scales of fortune were still heavily weighted against Admiral Ciliax. In the late afternoon, the destroyer Z-29 developed engine trouble, and again the German commander and his staff had to be transferred, this time to the destroyer Hermann Schoemann. However, the vast bulk of Scharnhorst soon loomed out of the mist, having at last caught up with the main fleet, to the great relief of Ciliax. Having beaten off destroyer and M.T.B. attacks and repulsed determined air attacks for hour after hour, the German flotilla was still intact and running at maximum speed up the Dutch coast, beyond the range of British fighters and medium bombers. From Le Touquet, Adolf Galland withdrew his air cover and signalled his congratulations to the exhausted Luftwaffe crews, many of whom had scarcely been out of their machines since dawn.
Then, off the Friesian Islands and almost in German home waters, Gneisenau trembled to a violent explosion; she, in her turn, had struck a mine. An hour later, she was again limping slowly along, and just after midnight reached the sanctuary of Heligoland Bight. Shortly before dawn Prinz Eugen reached the mouth of the Elbe and dropped anchor alongside Gneisenau, to the accompaniment of cheering from the tired crews of both ships.
But misfortune still dogged the flagship Scharnhorst. At 9.30 p.m., just inside home waters, she again hit a mine and shuddered to a standstill. Although now badly damaged, by midnight she was able to continue and proceeded independently to Wilhelmshaven. Thankfully, Admiral Ciliax despatched a signal to Berlin: “It is my duty to inform you that Operation Cerberus has been successfully completed….” The next day, in his personal report to Hitler, he wrote: “Now that the three ships have put into German estuaries the operation Cerberus is ended. With it closes one day of the war at sea, a day which will probably go down as one of the most daring in the naval history of the war….”
Undoubtedly, the Channel dash, as such, had been a remarkable achievement, and a hard blow to British prestige. That enemy warships could pass unscathed through the Straits of Dover was incredible; yet the impossible had taken place, and in broad daylight. Expressing all the indignation of the British people, The Times stated bluntly in an editorial: “Vice-Admiral Ciliax has succeeded where the Duke of Medina Sidonia failed. Nothing more mortifying to the pride of sea power has happened since the seventeenth century.” Like Winston Churchill, when told that the German ships had safely reached home waters, Britons were reading their newspapers in amazement and asking, the simple question, “Why?”
Yet the Channel dash proved to be of little value to Hitler, for the very good reason that the Allies had never intended to invade Norway. The Fuehrer was left with yet anothe: indecisive German victory, gained without any real purpose. The Scharnhorst was so badly damaged that she was out of action for over six months: Prinz Eugen was fated to rust away in German waters until crippled for good by a torpedo from a British submarine; and Gneisenau would soon be knocked out by aircraft of Bomber Command while still in dry dock. Also, within a year, Hitler, like a capricious child, would have decided that capital ships were out of date and suitable only for breaking up or filling with concrete as sunken fortresses. The Channel dash amounted, therefore, in Admiral Raeder’s words, to “a tactical victory and a strategic defeat” which, like so many of Hitler’s gambles with fortune, was scarcely worth the cost; and in the spring of 1942 the Luftwaffe could ill afford its heavy fighter losses over the Channel.
“There are no more unconquerable islands,” Hitler had declared after the fall of Crete, conveniently forgetting that Operation Sealion still remained in abeyance. He also apparently forgot that the most important base in the Mediterranean was still in British hands; and that particular island—Malta—was fast becoming a thorn in the flesh of the Axis forces in North Africa. But in 1941 the Fuehrer had ignored the opportunity to use Crete as an air base against Alexandria, and in 1942 he was just as reluctant to take any action against Malta. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of that gallant little island, events in the Western Desert soon took such a turn for the worse that Hitler had to entrust the overworked Luftwaffe with yet another task. Thus began the operation that would decimate the German bomber force in the Mediterranean theatre and earn Malta the award of the George Cross.
Italy’s declaration of war against Great Britain and France in 1940, had, of course, made the Mediterranean an operation theatre in the first place. The small British army in Somaliland, initially driven back by the Italians, had been hurriedly reinforced by the men—General Wavell’s famous “30,000”—who later in the year drove the Italian army headlong out of Egypt, taking 38,000 prisoners. Bardia, Tobruk and Benghazi were occupied in quick succession, until at last Hitler began to wonder if it would be worth his while to save the situation in Tripoli. As he explained to his Army staff, “the loss of North Africa could be withstood in the military sense but must have a strong psychological effect on Italy…. The British forces in the Mediterranean would not be tied down….”
Therefore, on 15th February, 1941, a little-known German officer named Erwin Rommel, who had served with distinction on the Western Front, was promoted General-Leutnant and appointed to command a small German force in North Africa. From this small beginning emerged the Deutsche Afrika Korps, the powerful army that under Rommel’s superb leadership would in 1942 throw the British Eighth Army back to Alamein and the very gates of Alexandria.
Rommel arrived in Tripoli like a thunderbolt. Without waiting for the promised reinforcements of the 15th Panzer Division, he attacked almost at once and within a week had recaptured Benghazi and was surging on to hammer at the fortress of Tobruk. But two attempts to take Tobruk were unsuccessful, although Rommel stood fast there, repulsing the counter-offensive by General Wavell code-named Battleaxe and supposedly mounted in sufficient strength to destroy the German forces in Africa. The summer passed quietly enough, but a powerful attack in November, this time by General Auchinleck, caught Rommel off balance. His armour squarely beaten at Sidi Rezegh, his cunning attempt to turn the tables with a violent, unexpected breakthrough towards the Egyptian frontier foiled by Auchinleck, the German commander was forced to withdraw, and within a month the Afrika Korps was in full retreat. At El Agheila Rommel made a stand, and in the lull that followed he took stock of the situation. For the Afrika Korps it was disastrous; 33,000 men and over 300 tanks had been lost. Two-thirds of the Axis armies in North Africa had been destroyed, due in no small part to Allied air supremacy; for Rommel could muster at the height of the battle only 350 German and Italian aircraft, against a Desert Air Force of over a thousand.
During 1941, Hitler’s whole attention had been riveted on the eastern front. Too late, he was persuaded to take his gaze from the map of Russia and heed Rommel’s urgent requests for increased air support in Africa. Since February the inadequate Fliegerkorps X, operating from Sicilian bases, had given token air support to the Afrika Korps until so worn down by the excessive demands placed upon it that it had later been replaced by Fliegerkorps II, under the command of Bruno Loerzer. In the November, as Rommel’s forces reeled back to Gyrenaica, Hitler recalled Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring from the east and ordered him to take over air operations in the Mediterranean theatre. The full strength of Luftflotte 2, under Kesselring, was to be used initially to break the crisis in North Africa and thereafter undertake an air offensive against Malta, a double task which Kesselring realised only too well would incur heavy losses in men and machines. The proposed attack on Malta seemed all the more pointless when Hitler revealed that he had no plans for capturing the island in the near future, partly because he considered that it could be rendered innocuous by bombing, but also because he had no parachute or airborne troops available after the Pyrrhic victory in Crete.
Nevertheless, with Rommel depending almost entirely on supplies from Europe, and Malta serving as the main British base from which transports carrying these supplies could be sunk, an attempt would have to be made to destroy the airfields and harbour installations there. And British air and sea action from Malta had undoubtedly greatly contributed to the defeat of the Afrika Korps; by the end of 1941 over seventy-five per cent of the German and Italian ships running the gauntlet to North Africa had been sunk. Rommel, at a standstill at El Agheila, was urgently requesting the petrol and other supplies he needed to rebuild his shattered forces, and Malta stood like a dagger, threatening to cut the pipe line that could feed him victory.
Weary after the months of hard fighting in Russia, Luftflotte 2 went into action over North Africa. Due largely to this reinforcement of the Luftwaffe forces in Sicily, on 21st January, 1942, Rommel was able to attack again, and by the end of the month had driven the Eighth Army back to Gazala. After an uneasy lull, while both sides hesitated to take the offensive, Rommel made a new drive on 27th May which met and destroyed the Allied armour and then thundered on at breakneck speed. The Gazala positions were quickly overrun, Tobruk fell, then Sidi Barrani and Mersa Matruh. But the men of the Afrika Korps could not be expected to keep such a pace. Exhausted by the headlong advance, they came to a halt on 30th June at El Alamein, only sixty-five miles from Alexandria. Reluctantly, the tireless Rommel decided that he could not risk trying to push on to Cairo. The great, glittering jewel of Egypt was almost within his grasp, but the frailty of the human body and the perilous supply problem had, for the moment, beaten him. Again, the Afrika Korps was forced to rest and wait until it had the strength to undertake the final offensive that would throw the Eighth Army out of Egypt.
Meanwhile, Kesselring had turned his attention to Malta. His object was to destroy the three airfields on the island, render the harbour installations useless and sink any ships in or outside the harbour. As Malta was within easy range of the Luftwaffe air bases in Sicily, Kesselring’s strategy consisted of little more than saturating the island with bombs from dawn to dusk, with the advantage that there would be no lack of fighter cover. Heavily escorted Ju 87 and Ju 88 dive-bombers were to be used for pin-point bombing of vital targets, as in Crete.
Against the massed attacks Kesselring was able to hurl against Malta, the Royal Air Force could put into the air some ninety aircraft of all types, including two squadrons of Spitfires and one of Hurricanes. These fighters and a few scattered antiaircraft guns had successfully repulsed bombing raids by the Italians since 1940, but the island defences were quite inadequate when faced with a determined offensive; and reinforcements could, of course, only be brought from Great Britain by aircraft carriers, with the risk of heavy losses. But in spite of its apparent vulnerability to air attack Malta could be defended, for the simple reason that it was a natural fortress, honeycombed with underground barracks, stores and even hangars. It was possible for Kesselring to put the island out of action, but only if he had sufficient time—and aircraft—to crack the hard outer shell.
The Malta Blitz began on 2nd April, 1942. Day after day, waves of bombers escorted by fighters took off from their Sicilian bases and within minutes were over Malta; day after day the bombs rained down. The defending fighters were in the air from morning until night, often only ten or twelve at a time being available to intercept the raiders. The airfields became pitted with hundreds of craters, diving Stukas turned the harbour into a shambles of wrecked and sunken ships, but Malta never failed to take its toll of German and Italian bombers, until Kesselring found that his offensive was fast becoming another Battle of Britain on a smaller scale. He could inflict serious damage on Malta—perhaps put the island out of action for good—but in the attempt he was allowing Luftflotte 2 to waste itself away. The bombardment continued without respite, but Kesselring doubted if success was going to be worth the cost. He pressed Hitler to take the opportunity of following his air assault with an invasion by airborne forces.
By 8th April Malta had endured 2,000 air raids. Far beneath the chalky surface that erupted daily to the explosions of hundreds of bombs, many of the defenders and inhabitants of the island lived an unreal, troglodyte existence, tending the wounded overcrowding the hospital wards, working night and day to keep the scanty fighter force in action, hurrying ammunition forward to the overworked anti-aircraft guns. All refuelling of aircraft had to be tediously carried out by hand from Jerricans, there was a scarcity of spare parts and an acute shortage of ammunition. Supplies of food soon became so short that Lord Gort, remembered as commander of the B.E.F. at Dunkirk, and Governor of Malta at the height of the bombardment, had been compelled to impose severe rationing; the defenders were obliged to work and fight on a few olives and figs, a portion of bully beef and a quarter of a pound of bread a day. And still the martyrdom of Malta went on, while the bombs rained down, the flat-roofed houses of picturesque Valetta crumbled into ruins and the fighters rocked and swayed over the cratered runways to take the air against the masses of enemy aircraft darkening the Mediterranean skies.
Then, on 26th May, Rommel called for a heavy air assault to support his attack on Tobruk, thus bringing a temporary relief to Malta. Kesselring hurriedly transferred every available dive-bomber from Greece and Crete to North Africa, and for good measure threw in all the Sicilian-based aircraft that could be spared. Following the tried and trusted Blitzkrieg technique, the Stukas blasted a passage through the Tobruk defences and within hours the Afrika Korps armour was rumbling into the fortress. Rommel pressed eagerly on to Sidi Barrani and then El Alamein, where he came to a standstill with only thirty tanks left fit for action; Kesselring returned to his exhausting offensive against the rhinoceros-like hide of Malta and more wastage of men and machines.
Unexpectedly, Hitler was persuaded to agree that an invasion of Malta should be at least attempted. Code-named Hercules, it was to be undertaken by a joint force of German and Italian parachute troops, supported by three divisions of Italian infantry flown in by gliders and large transport aircraft. A month later, when the island was obviously reeling and ripe for capture, Hitler changed his mind and postponed Hercules, saying that the transports were more urgently needed in Russia. To the despair of Kesselring, a few weeks later the Fuehrer postponed the invasion of Malta again, this time with the explanation that it would have to wait until after Rommel had conquered Egypt.
But there was little prospect of an early German victory on the Nile. After taking Tobruk, Rommel had been rewarded for his success with a field-marshal’s baton, but he would have been happier to receive the supplies and reinforcements he so urgently needed. The British forces in Egypt were rapidly gaining in strength, thanks to the flow of tanks and guns beginning to pour in from America. Also, an eccentric but brilliant new commander named Sir Bernard Law Montgomery had arrived in the desert, full of confidence that he would soon “knock Rommel for six” and then “tidy up the battlefield”. Montgomery, a man who could be greatly admired and intensely disliked at one and the same time, surprised the tired Eighth Army with his self-assurance and boundless energy; he firmly repulsed Rommel’s probing attacks with the minimum of casualties, while briskly informing his troops that they would never again have to attack without the adequate means to do so. He could afford to wait until he had a vastly superior army to the Afrika Korps in both quality and quantity, but when he was certain of his strength he would strike, and when that day came Rommel would not reign long in Africa.
With a heavy heart, Kesselring resumed his air offensive against Malta. In the August, a determined effort was made to relieve the besieged island by a large convoy from Britain, escorted by the battleships Nelson and Rodney, seven cruisers, thirty-two destroyers and four aircraft carriers. All the available Luftwaffe forces in the Mediterranean were hurled against this vital fleet; after four days and nights of continuous bombing the aircraft carrier Eagle, two cruisers and seven merchant ships had been sunk and two other cruisers and the oil tanker Ohio badly damaged. Despite unceasing air and E-boat attacks, three cargo ships laden with precious supplies of food and ammunition fought through to Malta, and the battered Ohio was later towed into Valetta. Also, as Kesselring soon discovered, the carriers had succeeded in flying off their Spitfire squadrons, which were soon operating from Malta. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe air superiority in the Mediterranean theatre began to decline, and most of Rommel’s supply ships were sunk during September. When he complained that he could do nothing without petrol, Hitler merely assured him that all would be well. “Don’t worry,” said the Fuehrer, confidently. “I mean to give Africa all the support needed. Never fear, we are going to get to Alexandria all right.”
The air offensive against Malta had to be suspended in the late summer of 1942 because of heavy losses and the necessity to provide increased air support for Rommel in North Africa. Hermann Goering, who had passed away most of the winter enjoying the Italian sunshine and carefully avoided taking any part in the Malta Blitz, arrived in Sicily to blame the Luftwaffe fighter force for failing to protect the bombers, just as he had done during the Battle of Britain; any criticism, any excuse, sufficed for the bemedalled Reichsmarschall provided it lifted the responsibility from his own shoulders. In fact, he had not bothered to follow the Mediterranean air operations with more than a casual interest, and knew next to nothing about the conditions under which the weary Luftwaffe was struggling to remain in action.
One man, Hans Joachim Marseille, was a shining example of the German fighter force in North Africa. Acknowledged by Adolf Galland to be “the unrivalled virtuoso among the fighter pilots of the Second World War”, Marseille had joined Jagde-schwader 27 in late 1940, and within months of the group landing in Africa in April, 1941, became prominent in despatches for shooting down large numbers of enemy aircraft. By the time Rommel’s armour had reached El Alamein, Marseille—at the age of twenty-two—had over 100 confirmed victories and been awarded the highest German and Italian decorations, including the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and the Italian Gold Medal for Bravery. With the exception of Rommel, at the height of his fame Marseille was probably the most discussed and publicised figure in the desert; to the German press he was known as the “Star of the Desert”, the unequalled, invincible “African Eagle”.
On 30th September, 1942, Marseille was returning from a sweep in the Cairo area when he was heard to say over the radio: “There is smoke in my cockpit!” The pilots flying on either side saw him slide back his ventilator, releasing a cloud of white vapour; as the Bf 109s flew on, the vapour thickened into black smoke, tinged with red flame. “I can’t see,” Marseille kept saying, then, later “I can’t hold out any more.” He was seen to roll the aircraft over on its back and attempt to bale out, but he was too late. All the time, the Bf 109 had been rapidly losing height, and Marseille was killed instantly when it crashed four miles inside the German lines. In the year of his glory, he had flown no less than 388 sorties and destroyed 158 enemy aircraft; when he died he was worn out by too much fighting against increasing odds, physically and mentally exhausted—but undefeated. Joachim Marseille was an ace of aces in the true spirit of Boelcke and Richthofen, but he was also a typical fighter pilot in the desert war; one of those whom Goering, in his sublime ignorance, dared to criticise for inefficiency.
General Montgomery opened his mighty counter-offensive at El Alamein on 23rd October, after a tremendous artillery barrage by over a thousand guns. For eight days the Afrika Korps resisted the great weight of men and material, then Rommel decided to withdraw before his armour was destroyed piecemeal. He needed a free hand to retreat as he liked, make a stand when he could, and let the Afrika Korps live to fight another day. Rommel therefore sent his aide, Hauptmann Berndt, to Hitler’s headquarters two thousand miles away in East Prussia, with a summary of the critical situation and an urgent request for “complete freedom of movement”—beginning with a tactical withdrawal into the Fuka positions to the west. “Make our position quite clear to the Fuehrer; tell him that the African theatre of war is probably lost for us,” said Rommel, then left Berndt and drove back at high speed to the front line.
Hitler’s answer arrived the following day in a memorable radio message. “In the situation in which you now find yourself,” it stated, “there can be no other consideration save that of holding fast, of not retreating one step, of throwing every gun and every man into the battle…. It would not be the first time in history that the stronger will has prevailed against the stronger battalions of the enemy. You can show your troops no other way than that which leads to victory or death.” Without making any attempt to find out exactly what was happening in the desert, Hitler thus immobilised Rommel as a commander and condemned the Afrika Korps to complete destruction. “It will be the end of our army,” Rommel’s Chief of Staff, Oberst Westphal, told his commander.
Westphal proved to be a true prophet of disaster. A soldier born and bred to unqualified obedience like Erwin Rommel could not ignore the Fuehrer’s order, and so the British offensive at El Alamein, crowned by Hitler’s “victory or death” command, broke up the German forces in North Africa. On 8th November an Allied Expeditionary Force of 140,000 men under General Dwight Eisenhower landed in Morocco and Algiers, and within seventy-six hours controlled 1,300 miles of coastline. From the main Luftwaffe bases in Sicily—Catania, Comiso, Trapani, and Gerbini—the German fighter and bomber arms tried vainly to stem the great avalanche of Allied ships and aircraft, pressing home attack after attack regardless of losses. Luftflotte 2, already wasted away over Malta, was reduced to a skeleton of its former self by the end of the year; Fliegerkorps II was often forced to operate with Geschwader of only ten or twelve aircraft left in action; and Fliegerkorps X, decimated during the summer months, had to be thrown into the furnace again, flying at extreme range from airfields in Crete.
With Montgomery advancing from the east against Rommel, and Eisenhower’s Anglo-American army pressing slowly but surely forward on the road to Tunis, the Afrika Korps became caught in the closing pincers, a helpless target for the unopposed British bomber squadrons ranging far and wide over the open desert. The “carpet bombing” technique practised with such success by the Luftwaffe during the Spanish civil war proved no less successful when used against German targets six years later. Casualties were heavy, many vehicles were destroyed and even Rommel and his staff occasionally had to jump for cover into slit trenches. “What can we do in face of this order from Hitler?” was the question asked of Rommel again and again. “I cannot order you to disobey it,” he would reply wearily; the iron hand of the Fuehrer lay heavily on the German desert headquarters.
But Hitler or no Hitler, the Afrika Korps was relentlessly pushed back; by 13th November the defeated army had retreated six hundred and fifty miles. Fighting a losing battle, Rommel continued to plead urgently for petrol—the petrol denied to him because Malta remained in British hands and Allied air and sea supremacy in the Mediterranean was complete. From Kesselring, designated Commander-in-Chief South and therefore Rommel’s nominal superior, came only vague promises of assistance; he was committed to establishing a strong bridgehead in Tunis and thus preventing that city with its important harbour from falling into Allied hands. In fact, against such overwhelming Allied opposition the Tunis bridgehead was a hopeless undertaking from the beginning, and it irked Rommel to find that a quarter of a million German and Italian troops, equipped with the most modern weapons, were being thrown into the Tunis area to try and recover a battle already lost.
At the end of November, Rommel flew back to Germany and told Hitler that the situation in North Africa was hopeless; it was time to evacuate the Afrika Korps and save it to fight again in Italy. As Rommel had feared, his suggestion exploded Hitler into a violent rage. He shouted that Rommel was a defeatist, and his troops cowards who deserved to be “put up against a wall and shot”. Then, unexpectedly, the Fuehrer calmed down, apologised, and sent for Goering. “Do anything you like,” he told the Reichsmarschall, “but see that Rommel is supplied with all he needs.”
Taking Rommel with him, Goering returned to Rome. Three days passed before Rommel realised that the vast, flamboyant chief of the Luftwaffe had nothing to offer him, no interest in North Africa, or indeed anything except statues and paintings. Rommel talked of supplies and the desperate need for air reinforcements in the desert; Goering boasted that he had a special train filled with valuable sculpture and pictures. His tie secured by a large emerald, his fat fingers sparkling with enormous diamonds, the Reichsmarschall was a grotesque, horrifying figure to the soldierly, austere Rommel, who finally flew back to Africa in disgust, a sickened and sadly disillusioned man.
“The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power!” says Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Certainly there was no remorse in the heart of Adolf Hitler; no remorse for the dying Afrika Korps, no compassion for the men who had fought for him in the burning sands of the Western Desert. He cared nothing for Germany, the German people or the German armies; to Hitler, human life was expendable. The Fuehrer had an answer to every problem. Rommel was proving troublesome and the Afrika Korps almost decimated? Then let Goering deal with Rommel in his own inimitable way and forget the Afrika Korps. Malta seemed to be too hard a nut for the Luftwaffe to crack? Then let the British keep Malta. The Tunis bridgehead could not be held? Then let it be held until not a man remained alive. And so on and so on, question and answer in the strange, twilight mind of Adolf Hitler.
Unfortunately, in that winter of 1942 Hitler had one problem that refused to be solved, a grey spectre that night and day haunted the bleak headquarters in East Prussia. Far away in Russia, the greatest defeat in German history was at hand; the Fuehrer had ordered another German army to stand fast, and thousands of men were dying in the snow. “Not one step back!“—the whim of a megalomaniac who had convinced a whole nation that he was always right. “No retreat!” And the place of this great disaster—the cemetery of the living dead ever to remain a monument to the strategy of Adolf Hitler—was a doomed, encircled city on the Volga.
Stalingrad.