Wavell stared at the map, following the movements with his eyes.
“Don’t count on that, Jumbo. The Italian generals aren’t stupid; they’ll be learning fast from this debacle. You can bet they’ve seen the threat to Tripolitania and are moving their forces around to block any thrust we make. The geography of Cyrenaica is a gift to us but once we’re past it, we won’t be able to pull a similar operation again. And, with Cyrenaica behind us, it’s just as much of a trap for us.
“Also, they’ll be moving reinforcements in. Sending some to Tripoli, no doubt, but you can bet your life they’ll be trying to move tanks into Tobruk. When the Cyrenaica force tries its breakout, they’ll have tanks to support them.”
“Unless Andy Cunningham’s fleet stops them.” Maitland Wilson didn’t sound that hopeful.
“Unless he does.” Wavell agreed.
“Anything down there?”
Mannix called down to Charlie Cussans, who was responsible for taking the photographs. It had finally dawned on somebody that the Maryland’s combination of range and speed, along with a high cruising altitude, made it an excellent reconnaissance aircraft. Mannix missed having the other members of his flight around him, but drew comfort from the fact that his Maryland was 20 miles per hour faster than the Italian monoplane fighters. Up at 15,000 feet, the brass had assured him that he would be safe from interception.
He had, however, noticed that none of them were on the aircraft.
“Nothing.” Cussans had learned his lesson from the first flight; he kept his reports clipped and to the point. From 15,000 feet, ships were but tiny stick-like outlines. It was still painfully obvious that the Italian fleet was not at home. They’d been told to expect at least four battleships, half a dozen heavy cruisers and two dozen or more destroyers and light cruisers. Nothing like that fleet was in the great kidney-shaped harbor of Taranto.
Mannix swung GGeorge away from the harbor. There would be heavy flak guns down there and he didn’t want to try conclusions with them. As if to reinforce his caution, a few black puffs of smoke flowered ahead of him. Right for altitude and directly on our course, Mannix noted. Whoever the gunners are down there, they know their business. If I hadn’t changed course, we’d be in trouble.
“Sean, hold that report. There’s one battleship down there; looks like she’s in drydock.” Cussans was staring through the high magnification setting on his bombsight. It was more effective that the binoculars he’d been using, although the field of vision was far less. “And two cruisers; light ones. They’re not where we were told, though; they’re in the outer basin. Along with six, no, make that seven, destroyers.”
“South side of the outer basin?”
Mannix had studied the map of Taranto before taking off from Malta on his way here. He’d memorized the layout of the port as best he could and was trying to visualize where the ships left in harbor were.
“All of them. That’s the naval arsenal, I think.”
“It is. Well done, Charlie. Now, lets get the hell out of here and back to Malta before those gunners have another crack at us. Wherever the Eye-tie fleet is, it isn’t here. They’re out.”
“Now that is an early Christmas present I can really welcome.”
The Marquess of Linlithgow looked up at the formation of aircraft flying overhead. Although he didn’t actually recognize the aircraft, he knew what they were from the briefing he had received. Mohawk IV fighters led the formation; four neat flights of four that formed a diamond in the sky. The lead fighter was flown by an American civilian advisor called Boyington; the rest by the Indian pilots of No.1 Squadron. They had just finished their conversion program and were making this flypast before being assigned to a new operational base in Northern India. At long last, India had fighter defenses. One of the gaping holes in its military infrastructure was being slowly filled in.
“An independent India; defended by Indian fighter pilots. A year ago, I could only dream of this.”
Pandit Nehru looked at the squadron of DB-7 bombers that were following the fighters over Calcutta. Long a proponent of massive reductions in India’s armed forces, he found himself thinking differently now that the aircraft flying overhead and the troops parading through the city served India, not Britain. It was symptomatic of the way his thinking had changed over the last six months.
Once he had seen the British as interlopers and foreign adventurers; ones whose motivations were, at best, equivocal and whose absence was urgently demanded. Now, he realized that they had been doing their best in an honest, if sometimes misguided, effort to rule India fairly. He also realized just how complex the modern world was and how out-of-place in it India would have been, had its old governing system continued. For all their faults, he realized, India could have done much worse than spend a few years under British rule.
“Our second fighter squadron will be going down to Ceylon to protect the Trincomalee naval base.” Linlithgow repeated the news he had been given with relish. Many of the RAF pilots from the six squadrons based in India had volunteered for secondment to Indian units. In theory, they were simply providing the Dominion squadrons with a cadre of experienced pilots and would return to the RAF units as soon as the Indian Air Force squadrons had gained enough experience to stand on their own feet.
In reality, Linlithgow knew that their motives were more mixed than that. There was an element of envy in it. The Indian Air Force squadrons were getting the new American fighters and bombers; ones that made the Wapitis, Audaxes and Blenheims in the British squadrons seem antiquated. Pilots were pilots; they wanted to fly the better aircraft.
There was more to it than that though. Even a desire not to be stained by Halifax’s collapse wasn’t all there was to it. It was the idea of India itself. There was something about the country that, after a few years here, worked its way into a man’s soul.
“And we must send more forces to the Middle East as well.” Nehru spoke again as the roar of aircraft engines from the flypast died away. He confused himself there as well; the fall of Keren to the Indian troops advancing on Asmara had caused jubilation. The Times of India had even called it a “reaffirmation of traditional Indian martial values.” Privately, Nehru had thought that was going a bit far, but there was no doubt the achievements of the Indian Army in Eritrea and Ethiopia were establishing India as an independent country in the eyes of the world. Soon, more Indian troops and aircraft would be in Iraq and Iran; providing a forward line of defense against the German Army, when the Noth Plan finally got into high gear.
“We have had word from Churchill’s government in Ottawa. They’ve issued a statement confirming that standing orders prior to June 1940 are still in force and that DomCol forces around the world and British forces along with them are to continue fighting, ignoring any ceasefire orders that come out of occupied London. That eases the situation on our guests, of course.”
Nehru nodded at Linlithgow’s words. The ambivalent status of the British forces in the Dominions was a source of running concern to everybody. Now, at least, they had some semblance of authority to link their chosen actions to. “Of course, the question is, can London be considered occupied at this time?”