Wavell wasn’t entirely convinced. He’d looked at the standard naval reference book before coming to Warspite for this meeting. The count had shown four old but rebuilt battleships in Italian naval service, with at least two more modern ships due to enter service at any time. Six to one was bad odds. Then there were the seven heavy cruisers, a dozen light ones and more destroyers than he could shake a stick at. He honestly couldn’t see how the small squadron left here in Alexandria could secure his seaward flank.
“Andy, with Graziani stuck at Mersa Matruh, what happens at sea could be decisive. I’ve got a coordinated offensive planned. The South Africans in Kenya will push north while O’Connor tries to take down Graziani’s supply base with a division-sized raid. If we can destroy those supplies, Graziani will stay stuck and we get a breathing space to sort out East Africa and the Horn. Even more critically, with any Italian advance in Africa stalled, the Germans might think twice about executing the Noth Plan.”
Cunningham looked at him quizzically. “The Noth Plan. I keep hearing about that. Do you really believe it’s serious?”
Wavell grimaced. “Every time I look at it, I try to logically persuade myself that it is a nonsense; a scheme dreamed up by some wild-eyed theorist who has never commanded troops in the field. Just as I am succeeding, I remember all the other wild-eyed schemes the Nazis have come up with and how they have then made work. We can’t afford to assume it’s not serious and, to be honest, there’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest that the Nazis are really thinking along these lines. There’s all the political trouble in Iraq, for example, and we know the Germans are trying to cozy up to the Turks. They’re also making friendly noises to Subhas Chandra Bose. You heard he escaped from detention at his home in Calcutta after the mutiny and has turned up in Germany?”
“So I heard. That mutiny was a bad do all around.”
Wavell agreed. The attempt by a handful of units under the command of traditional-minded officers to reestablish links with London had already caused some regrettable ramifications. The escape of Bose was one of them. On the other hand, it had the perverse effect of solidifying the rest of the Indian Army behind the accelerating Indian independence process. The ideas of India continuing the war and Indian independence were becoming intertwined, despite all Gandhi’s attempts to separate them. A major Commonwealth victory right now, with Indian troops at the head, would cement that. But, one battleship against six? Four cruisers against almost twenty? Eight destroyers against sixty?
“What I need is for Graziani to be cut off from supplies. When our raid takes out his main supply dumps, the Italians will try to run convoys through to replace the lost supplies. They’re short on road and rail capacity to move them, but if they get replacement supplies ashore, that will make the difference between a serious inconvenience and a major reverse. Andy, you have to stop those supply convoys from getting through.”
Cunningham nodded thoughtfully. “We can do it.”
He saw the disbelief on Wavell’s face and crushed down a moment’s irritation. Halifax may have stabbed Churchill in the back but he, Cunningham, commanded a picked squadron of the Royal Navy and had virtually a free hand in how he used it. That was the one great thing about the present situation. With the de-facto decision to ignore messages and orders from London, he could use his fleet the way he knew it had to be used.
“Don’t worry about it, Archie. I know the numbers look bad. But remember, the Italian fleet is spread all over the Mediterranean and Red Sea. They have to worry about keeping ships in service and they have all too many other responsibilities. We have just one and we can concentrate all our power on that single mission.”
And we’re the Andrew and the Italians are not. And there are just one or two other things we have running for us.
There were three roundels under Marijke’s cockpit now. The Italians had responded to the destruction of the reconnaissance flight and its escorts by sending a formation of Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero bombers to hit the Buna base. Ground observers had spotted the formation and passed the warning. Four Tomahawks were airborne and waiting for them. It had been a massacre; one that Bosede had felt slightly ashamed about.
The Sparviero had been 50mph faster than the Hawker Fury; its immunity to interception made the Italian crews careless. Never having been under serious attack before, they had little idea of how poorly-defended their aircraft were. The SM.79 was armed with a single fixed machine gun forward, another flexible gun in the dorsal position and one more gun in each of the two beam windows. They were completely blind from below and behind. The Tomahawks had swept in from that angle. Their six guns gutted the Italian bombers. Not one survived.
This flight was different. There were eight Tomahawks in 2 Squadron now and the South African Air Force was on the offensive at last. The second flight had arrived back from Mombasa with its new aircraft. Convoys of trucks loaded with spare parts and supplies had arrived at Buna, turning the airfield into a fully-equipped fighter base.
The eight remaining Furies had been relegated to ground attack work, equipped with racks for four 20-pound bombs under each wing. They were spread out underneath the Tomahawks; their target was the Italian troops north of Buna. It was the start of the campaign to drive the Italians out of Kenya and Somaliland and, eventually, liberate Ethiopia. Bosede knew the outlines of the plan. Its first objective was to ruin the morale of the Italian troops. Shooting down eleven aircraft in less than a week had been a good start.
Even better, a second Tomahawk squadron was also entering the game. They were a Rhodesian outfit whose four aircraft were further east, escorting some Ju-86 bombers hitting one of the Italian forward airbases. Soon, the Italian pilots would learn that if they wouldn’t come up and fight the new South African fighters, they would be bombed out of their bases. The battle was changing. The desperate days when the Italians ruled the skies seemed a long time ago.
Bosede glanced down. The Italians were dug in around a road junction some 15 miles north of Buna. It was their foremost position; one that was isolated by distance and the almost non-existent road system in this part of Kenya. Unfortunately, it was also in the way of the planned offensive and removing it was a vital preliminary. Far below, the two remaining flights of Hawker Furies in 2 Squadron sweept into the attack. Bosede imagined he could hear the flat crack of the vicious little 20-pound Cooper bombs, but his eyes were scanning the sky for Italian fighters. Sure enough, he saw them as they approached the beleagured outpost.
“B Flight. Bandits approaching from two o’clock; Angels Five.” By agreement, B Flight would handle these fighters. A-Flight remained high up, guarding against the same kind of ambush that had caused an entire flight of CR.42s to die under the guns of the Tomahawks.
The aircraft below were CR.32s. That hardly surprised Bosede; it had become quickly apparent that the Italians were short of fighters. It hadn’t seemed that way when he’d been flying a Hawker Fury and the CR.32s and 42s appeared to be everywhere. Now that they were as outclassed as he had once been, they were rare sights. According to intelligence, the Italians had a large number of Ro-37 and Caproni reconnaissance aircraft, but few fighters and only a handful of bombers.