A Mighty Endeavor (49 page)

Solomon was already up with his men, trying to bring them into some sort of order and start the process of reducing the strongpoints in a rational manner. By which, he meant according to the book. He was quick to realize that the book had already been thrown out of the window. Nothing he or Lieutenant Oswin could do would get it back. The only hope now was to keep up the momentum of the assault and not give the Italian officer he feared the moment he would need to get control of the battle.

A brief look around told him two things. One was the tiny number of figures in khaki lying on the ground. For all the insanity of the assault, so far, the casualties were remarkably few. The other was that the Australian breakthrough was spreading sideways, ripping an ever-larger hole in the Italian defenses. Already, the coastal road was being opened up as the defenses fell to simultaneous attacks from front and rear.

Then Solomon saw what he dreaded. Italian tanks. At least a half-dozen of them rumbled towards the milling mass of Australians. His men had no anti-tank guns; nothing that could stop them.
Now it’s our turn
, he thought; remembering how the Matildas had crushed the Italian infantry under their treads. The tanks continued to advance. Solomon tried to get his men under control and into the overrun Italian fortifications.
There might be anti-tank guns or rifles there. Now that’s a slim hope at best.

Over on his left, a Bren gun carrier had seen the risk. It tried to engage one of the tanks with a peppering of machine gun fire.
Gallant but useless. He doesn’t stand a chance.

One of the Italian tanks fired its turret gun. The Bren gun carrier exploded into a ball of flame. That told Solomon something else. The tanks were M13/40s; better armed and armored than the M11/39s they’d faced earlier.
This time, there are no Matildas here to help.

That made it all the more surprising when one of the M13/40s stopped, black smoke belching from its engine compartment. After briefly contemplating the possibility the sight represented divine intervention, Solomon realized that the portees with their two-pounders had arrived.
They must have made it up the road,
he thought Anti-tank shots snapped out across the battlefield, knocking out one tank after another. Solomon could only see a single portee, but its gun destroyed four of the M13/40s. Then it was hit, silencing the gun.

A second portee entered the battle. It knocked out a fifth tank, sending a cloud of black smoke high into the sky. That portee was destroyed by fire from the sixth tank; the third portee soon knocked the remaining M13/40 out.

The tanks being knocked out in quick succession broke the remaining Italian infantry. They started surrendering as the Australians swarmed through the remaining defenses. The Italian line caved in completely; the way to Bardia was open.

Solomon led his men forward towards the Italian rear area. An Italian soldier, on one of the strongpoints that had been overrun but not cleared, pulled himself out of the ruins. He took over a Breda light machine gun that had been left there. He fired just three rounds before the machine gun jammed. Two hit Joe Solomon in the back, killing him instantly.

GHQ,
Middle East Command, Cairo, Egypt

“The strongest position on the western side of the perimeter, with the Italians dug in deep along the top of a wadi, tons of wire, MG’s etc, above an ‘unclimable’ slope and the battalion went straight through them on nothing but pluck, pride and ignorance. God bless the buggers.”

Wavell spoke with something very close to reverential awe. The initial reports from the assault on Bardia were in. They told a very different story from the carefully choreographed plan that had been evolved to counter a resolute defense. The battle had descended into chaos, with multiple assaults breaking through the Italian defenses in a variety of directions. It was truly chaotic; a battle with no discernable shape or form.

Wavell had little doubt that in years to come, the historians would draw lines on a map and explain how the various attacks were supporting each other. They might even speculate as to what his basic plan had been. Wavell knew the truth, though; his basic plan had been thrown out of the window within minutes of the attack starting. The battle was being shaped by the troops on the ground. Privately, he had no objection to that. In the swirling madhouse that was the assault on Bardia, the Italian defenses were dissolving.

“We had some problems with 17th Brigade’s assault.”

Maitland Wilson was having a hard time making up his mind about the formless battle that had developed. On one hand, he gloried in the sheer audacity with which the offensive was shredding the Italian Army. What had been intended as a mere raid for supplies and a spoiling action against a later Italian attack was turning into a major offensive that was ripping apart the Italian position in North Africa. On the other hand, if the Italians got their act together, the situation could swing the other way with frightening speed. “They got pinned down by artillery for a while and took a lot of casualties. The battalion support company eventually got the attack moving and they broke through.”

Maitland Wilson hesitated for a moment. The next part was difficult. “We’re taking a lot of prisoners, Archie; thousands of them, in fact. We’re getting the problems of false surrenders again, though. That led to a bad do all around at Strongpoint 24. A company of the 2/7th, backed up by a couple of Matildas, were attacking the position when the Italians hoisted the white flag. As the prisoners were rounded up, one shot the company commander dead, then threw down his rifle and climbed out of the position; smiling broadly, by all accounts.

“The troops didn’t like that, Archie; not at all. They took the law into their own hands. They shot the bugger with a full magazine from a Bren gun, then threw grenades in with the rest of the Italians and bayoneted any survivors.”

“Just because an Italian will knife you for suggesting he is not a gentleman, doesn’t mean he is one.” Wavell thought carefully. “The Italians put up a white flag and
then
our troops were fired on when they came forward to take the surrender?”

“That’s one way of putting it, Archie.” Maitland Wilson was wary.

“That’s how the official report will put it. The Italians opened fire from under the cover of a white flag and the troops returned fire. Unofficially, make sure the troops involved get the riot act read to them. We can’t have this sort of thing becoming commonplace. It would have been nice to have hanged that Italian for murder; it might put a stop to this false surrender nonsense.” Wavell’s voice hardened while he was speaking.

“There’s another minor problem. Colonel Godfrey is claiming all the credit for 2/6th Infantry Battalion’s assault. Says he saw the opportunity and took advantage of it. Disgraceful case of a CO seeking to make his mark at the expense of his men. Truth is, he lost control of them and they did the job on their own.”

“Well. If we take him at his word, the assault he ‘planned’ was in defiance of the clear instructions he had received, and against all basic military logic and common sense.” Wavell hesitated, aware of the operational and political implications of the situation. “That’s the trouble with the Australians; they just don’t have the experience to season them. Not yet, anyway. An Indian Army battalion wouldn’t have gone out of control like that. But, they
did
breach the line; so, we’ll leave Godfrey where he is for a while. Jumbo, I want you to have a word with him and haul him over the coals. Get Iven Mackay to speak with him as well. And his brigade commander. You organize the details, Jumbo; you know the drill.”

Maitland Wilson smiled grimly. A series of reprimands from evermore senior officers would ensure that Godfrey never lost control of his men again; or, if he did so, he wouldn’t try and seize the credit for their success. Idly, Maitland Wilson wondered what would have happened had the attack been the disaster military logic suggested it should have been. Godfrey would have been quick to blame his junior officers he guessed.
Sly, devious and cunning; the man bears considerable watching.

“I’ll see to it, Archie. 16th and 17th Brigades are through the defenses by now and consolidating. One of the problems is that all the infantry units are severely under strength from detaching PoW guards. Stan Savige’s 17th Brigade is spread out too far to do much more at the moment. 16th Brigade will be launching a night attack once they’ve consolidated, but they’ll be exhausted by tomorrow evening. Iven says we need to move 19th Brigade up to reinforce them both.”

“He’s the man on the spot. Give him a free hand.”

Maitland Smith nodded and noted down the order. “Dickie O’Connor says that his flying column is already south of Tobruk; a place called Bir al Ghabi. There’s a maze of camel tracks, but the column is steering west by compass. There’s a major wadi to the west that is causing some concern, but the column is still expected to make it to Beda Fomm within a week. Then the Italians will have nowhere left to go.”

Swordfish Mark 1
V4373,
off Cape Methoni

The flight of a Swordfish could best be described as stately; its evasive maneuvers could only be called majestic. As Lieutenant James MacFleet was all too aware, those characterizations were hardly complimentary when attacking an enemy battlefleet. Even the light patter of anti-aircraft fire coming from the Italian ships seemed to be threatening enough. The volume might be small by British standards, but the closing rate was so slow that the gunners seemed to have plenty of time to correct their aim.

The Swordfish torpedo bombers from
Eagle
were approaching in a wide arc as their scouting line closed in on the Italian ships. MacFleet had a good idea of what they were up against now; the news was only marginally reassuring. There were fewer ships in the formation that the Maryland crews had reported. Three battleships, two heavy cruisers and six destroyers. MacFleet’s navigator had already identified the two cruisers as the
Trento
and
Trieste.
Older ships than the heavy cruisers reported by the RAF crews, with much less effective anti-aircraft batteries. The eleven Italian ships had only a handful of 90mm guns and 13.2 mm machine guns between them. The volume of fire that they generated was unimpressive to anybody who had seen the Royal Navy’s eight-barrelled pompoms at work.

Another look at the three battleships showed that they had grown only marginally larger as his Swordfish had closed the range. MacFleet had a strange fear that if the Italians turned into the wind, they would actually outrun his Swordfish. Fortunately, with the British aircraft coming in from ahead of the formation, turning away from him would mean heading towards another group of torpedo bombers. The Swordfish crews had been practicing exactly this kind of attack for almost a decade. They were performing a well-known drill that had been methodically refined and perfected. The only slight differences were that the torpedo hanging under their aircraft were live. So was the ammunition being fired at them.

“We’ll take the nearest cruiser.” MacFleet yelled the remark into his speaking tube and got a thumbs-up from his navigator. The Italian heavy ships formed a V. The three battleships lead, and the two heavy cruisers brought up the rear. MacFleet felt sorry for the lead battleship. No matter what orders said, there was an irresistible tendency for crews to drop on the first enemy ship they came to. With the torpedo planes coming in from ahead, the battleship at the point of the V would attract most attention. He had a feeling she was the
Conte di Cavour,
but the four rebuilt Italian battleships were so similar, it was hard to tell the difference between them.

He kept weaving his Swordfish, trying to throw off the gunners who were hosing machine-gun fire at him. Every few seconds, there was a thud as one of the machine gun bullets hit his aircraft. That really didn’t concern him too much. The wood and fabric-built Swordfish might seem flimsy, but it was resilient enough to take a lot of punishment.

“We got one!” The navigator yelled out the news with glee.

MacFleet sneaked a quick look over to the head of the formation. A great tower of water rose from the stern of the leading Italian battleship. “Right in the arse. That’s got to hurt.”

MacFleet was surprised how quickly he seemed to be moving as he finally closed in on his target. There was a destroyer between him and his chosen cruiser. Tracer fire streamed from its machine guns. He took a quick look; the midships 4.7-inch twin mount that defined her as a member of the Navigatore class. Another quick glance at the battleships that now seemed terribly close yet were also passing behind him showed that a second tower of water had erupted from the already-injured battleship. He would have held the sight longer, but there was another thud. Something hit his aircraft. This one sounded very different.
The deep thud of something important getting hit, not the lighter noise of a bullet passing through wood andfabric.