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THE
ROYAL NAVY IN ADEN 1940-41
The Elimination of Italian Naval Forces in Eritrea
On the outbreak of war the Italians had seven old fleet
destroyers in the Red Sea, in two flotillas: the 5th
Division of three 34 knot 1526 ton ships, the Pantera,
Leone and Tigre each armed with eight 4.7-in guns; and
the 3rd Division of four 35 knot 1058 ton vessels, the
Battisti, Nullo, Sauro and Manin each with four 4.7-in
guns. In addition there were two 30 knot 669 ton “escort
and local defence destroyers”, the Orsini and Acerbi.
Other surface ships included the sloop Ostia, three
gunboats and the Eritrea. This last-named ship was a
modern submarine support ship, built for use in the
tropics, which was perhaps why she was also made the
flagship of the Eritrea squadron. Although a modern
ship, through an error of design she was only able to
mount outdated 4.7-in guns instead of the newer 4-in
weapon. Apart from the threat from the fleet destroyers
there was a potentially greater menace to British
merchant shipping from the submarine squadron of four
ocean-going and four coastal vessels. All the ships
mentioned above were based in the port of Massaua.
To oppose this force the British squadron assembled at
Aden on the outbreak of war between Britain and Italy
consisted of three 5,000 ton cruisers, seven destroyers
or sloops, plus a few smaller vessels.
In a disastrous (for the Italians) 10 day period soon
after war was declared five of their submarines were
lost. On the 14th June the Macalle was lost in an
accident in the Red Sea; on the 19th the Galileo
Galilei was captured by HMS Moonstone in the Gulf of
Aden; on the 22nd the Torricelli was sunk off Perim; the
following day the Galvani was sunk by HMS Falmouth in
the Persian Gulf. The fifth submarine to be lost
capsized in the Massaua canal, having managed to get
back to port although badly damaged. There is no record
of subsequent local activity involving the remaining
three submarines and quite possibly none of them put to
sea again until they were recalled in February 1941,
reaching Bordeaux in May of the same year. One of the
three, the Ferraris, was sunk in the North Atlantic on
25th October 1941.
The sinking of so many submarines in so short a space of
time was not entirely luck. On 16th June the Galileo
Galilei had sunk a Norwegian tanker to the South of Aden
and for two days she was hunted by ships and aircraft.
By the 19th the hunt had been more or less called off
and only the trawler Moonstone remained in the search
area. The crew of the Galileo Galilei by this time was
suffering badly from toxic fumes and heat and the
submarine had to surface and on doing so was engaged by
the Moonstone with its single gun. The conning tower was
hit twice, one of the shells killing the captain of the
submarine. The Galileo Galilei then surrendered and
amongst the documents captured were the sailing orders
for four other submarines.
The loss of the Torricelli is worth mentioning in more
detail since she was sunk off Perim.
On 20th June she was damaged by depth charges, the
effect of which was that she was no longer able to dive.
On 22nd June the Torricelli was therefore on the surface
when, in the narrow channel between Perim and the
Arabian coast, she encountered the British flotilla that
had damaged her two days previously. This flotilla
consisted of five ships: the destroyers Kandahar,
Khartoum and Kingston and the gunboats Shoreham and
Indo. The captain of the Torricelli had little choice
but to try to escape on the surface whilst at the same
time engaging the British ships. The second round from
the submarine hit the Shoreham, which together with the
Indo was then ordered to withdraw. The three destroyers
soon damaged the Torricelli which was then scuttled by
its crew. During the action the fuel of a torpedo on the
Khartoum exploded and the ship caught fire. The ship was
ordered to Perim where once inside the harbour there was
a further explosion which caused her to be beached and
abandoned off Murray Point.
When the Italians invaded British Somaliland the Royal
Navy had a relatively strong squadron patrolling off the
Somali coast: HMSs Carlisle, Auckland, Ceres and
Kimberley and HMAS Hobart.
In mid-February 1941 the Italians took the decision to
try to break out of Massaua with their remaining ships.
The moon was in the last quarter which would ensure at
least four hours of total darkness after last light. The
plan was that on successive nights from the night 18/19
February one ship each night would sail from Massaua and
on the following night it would try to slip through the
Royal Naval blockade covering the straits of Bab el
Mandeb. The order of departure was to be: The flagship
Eritrea (but without the admiral embarked); the armed
merchantship Ramb 1; the German cargo ship Coburg; the
armed merchant ship Ramb 2; the steamships Himalaya,
Piave and India; three German steamships; and, finally,
the four remaining submarines. If the Eritrea succeeded
in breaking through a very short radio message would be
sent back to Massaua. If no message was received no
further ships would attempt to break out.
The last Italian air reconnaissance of Perim had
reported that a destroyer had joined the sloop normally
stationed on the patrol line covering the narrows. When
the admiral brought the captain of the Eritrea this
unwelcome information, almost as compensation he also
gave him a precious chart. It consisted of four sounding
lines that the admiral had plotted some years previously
when serving on the survey ship Cherso, of previously
uncharted waters in the straits of Bab el Mandeb. The
Eritrea cast off before midnight on the 18th
and sailed down the Massaua canal at 15 knots and into
the open sea. Her passage South was uneventful and at
sunset the following evening she was off Assab as the
crew went to action stations. When off the small island
of Dumeira, her speed was reduced to 9 knots so that no
smoke trailed from the funnel. Fortunately Perim
lighthouse and the light on Balfe Point were both lit,
which made the navigator’s task much easier. The major
problem of navigation was that the course set, to always
remain well within the uncharted waters, was leading the
ship directly onto the Muleleh shoal. This was avoided
and the Eritrea passed between the Seven Brothers and
the coast of French Somaliland. She eventually reached
Japan on 22 March after sailing over 9,500 miles.
Next to get away was Ramb 1 on 20 February, but she was
sunk in the Indian Ocean a week later when she was
intercepted by the cruiser HMS Leander. Another ship
that got away was the 12,000 ton cargo liner Himalaya
that left on 1 March. Less successful was the German
merchant ship Oder of about 8,000 tons which was
intercepted in the narrows of Bab el Mandeb immediately
after leaving port on 24 March. The Oder’s fate is
colourfully described in Lord Belhaven's book ‘The
Uneven Road’. In order to prevent more Axis shipping
escaping from Eritrean ports, the admiral in Aden,
Murray, had deployed a small force to Perim to blockade
the straits. This force consisted of two armed
merchantmen and two armed dhows under the overall
command of Lieut Cdr Gibb RN. The dhows were known as
the Light Dhow Patrol which had been formed by Belhaven
some months before. Gibb gave the dhows the task of
patrolling inshore on the African side of the straits by
day and by night to anchor on the 20-fathom line. This
particular line was chosen because many captains had a
preference to feeling their way at night in this depth
of water. On about the eleventh night of their patrol
one of the dhows was nearly run down by the Oder. The
captain of the dhow, Lieut Cdr Ryan, had barely time to
cut his anchor, break out a sail and fire a single round
before the Oder slid past him. The round hit the Oder’s
bridge and the next, fired broadside at very close
range, hit the Oder close to the waterline. The shell
exploded amongst the Oder’s scuttling charges which
caused her to list heavily before she could bring a gun
to bear on Ryan’s dhow. Ryan sailed on but later
returned to pick up the Oder’s crew.
By the end of March the only major vessels remaining
were the destroyers. Their fate is described thus by
Roskill in ‘The War at Sea’, Volume I: “Of the
Italian naval forces which had been stationed in the Red
Sea - originally nine destroyers, eight U-boats and
certain lesser ships - by the 1st of April 1941 one
destroyer, half the U-boat strength and the solitary
auxiliary cruiser Ramb 1 had been accounted for. During
the next ten days eight destroyers were sunk or put out
of action, largely by the Eagle's Swordfish which were
worked from the shore station in Port Sudan. Before the
Army had reached Eritrea all enemy naval opposition had
been eliminated.”
On 31st March 1941 three of the six destroyers had put
to sea with the intention of attacking shipping in the
Gulf of Suez with a view to causing as much damage as
possible prior to being scuttled. Unfortunately the
Leone went aground shortly after sailing and sank the
following morning, at which point the operation was
cancelled and the ships returned to harbour. On 2nd
April the remaining five destroyers put to sea again,
this time to raid Port Sudan but their departure was
spotted by aircraft from Aden. At dawn the following day
four were located 20 miles East of Port Sudan. The Sauro
and Manin were sunk by Swordfish from 813 and 824
Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm assisted by RAF Blenheims
from 14 Squadron, all operating from the airfield at
Port Sudan. Later the Pantera and Tigre were found
inshore to the South of Jeddah and in the process of
being abandoned. Both ships were sunk by HMS Kingston
and Wellesley bombers from 223 Squadron. The fifth
destroyer, the Battisti, was for a while unaccounted for
but was subsequently found to have been scuttled before
reaching Port Sudan after breaking down with a
mechanical defect. The Royal Navy didn't escape
completely unscathed, however. The cruiser HMS Capetown
was torpedoed by one of the remaining smaller warships
and severely damaged, to the extent that she had to be
sent to Bombay for repairs.
The Army meanwhile had been continuing its advance from
East Africa. On 16th March Berbera in British Somaliland
had been retaken from the seaward side by a force of two
battalions from Aden covered by four warships, the
Glasgow, Caledon, Kandahar and Kingston. To hasten the
end of the campaign in Ethiopia a further combined
operation was mounted on 11th June when a force of
British and Indian troops from Aden, supported by naval
gunfire, seized Assab from the seaward side.
With Eritrea, and subsequently Abyssinia, taken and the
destruction or removal of Italian naval forces completed
there was no longer a threat to Allied shipping in the
Gulf of Aden, either from air attack or from warships.
For the Royal Navy Aden soon became a backwater.
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