At All Costs (23 page)

CHAPTER 32 •••

RETREAT OF THE COMMODORE

I
t might be difficult to imagine how a huge hole in the hull of a ship could be a blessing, but because the
Ohio
had been left behind by the convoy, most of the bombers hadn’t discovered her, having come from the other direction. But still some planes strayed from the swarm and harassed the big tanker.

“The bombers didn’t seem satisfied that we had a raging fire on board, because they came screaming across and giving us a couple dozen near misses, sending deluges of water from stem to stern,” said Allan Shaw. “It was a hell of a hectic time.”

Admiral Burrough ordered the destroyer
Ashanti
to pull along the starboard side of the burning tanker, and between the blast of his own starboard guns at enemy aircraft, he yelled up through his loud-hailer to Captain Mason.

“How bad is the damage? Are you going to be able to proceed?”

“Well, it’s not good,” Mason shouted back down. “But we seem to be gaining on this fire, and my chief engineer tells me he thinks he can have steam in the boilers and the turbines going again in about 40 minutes. We’re not giving up. We’ll do all we can to get to Malta.”

“Good show!” said Burrough. “But if you can’t get her up to speed, you might want to head for the coast and proceed independently, because I don’t have enough destroyers to provide an escort for you. Good luck, God speed, and I’ll see you in Malta!” And with that he raced off to the head of the convoy.

“I was most impressed by the gallant and cool manner in which Captain Mason handled the situation,” Burrough reported.

Besides the hole in the pump room, the deck was buckled and ripped open between the longitudinal beams, but the tanker’s back was unbroken. “That’s a welded hull for you,” said the chief engineer, Jimmy Wyld. “Rivets would never have stood it.”

The hydraulic steering lines from the bridge to the rudder were blown apart, so they had to rig up emergency manual control of the rudder. Ordinary seaman Allan Shaw and three others who weren’t manning guns were grabbed by the twenty-six-year-old chief mate, Douglas Gray, and they climbed down to the steering flat, a compartment about twenty feet below the poop deck.

“It was pretty hairy down there,” said Shaw. “Our own ack-ack fire was continuous, and you could feel the thud of every bomb that landed in the water. The deck of the steering flat was jumping up and down.”

They worked under generator-powered lights to rig up blocks and a one-inch chain that led to an emergency helm, about the size of an automobile steering wheel and mounted on a bulkhead on the poop deck. Chief mate Gray manned the wheel, guided by phone from Captain Mason in the wheelhouse. “Gray was on the emergency helm most of the time,” said Shaw. “I think he enjoyed it, because he wouldn’t let anyone else have a go at it.”

They were now in the narrow Skerki Channel; to starboard lay the shallows of the African coast, and to port were Italian minefields. There wasn’t much room for error, but error defined their direction. There was a big flap of metal extending from the edge of the torpedo hole, turning the ship to port, so constant starboard helm was needed in an attempt to correct the torque, which wasn’t easy because the rudder indicator had been knocked silly. The gyro compass and magnetic compass were both blown out, so Mason and Lieutenant Denys Barton set a rough course for Malta by fixing on a star.

“Thank God for an American ship with telephones,” said Mason. “The phone in the wheelhouse was a Godsend.” He kept Gray on the line: “Give it some port helm…some starboard helm…no, that’s too much, now back,” that sort of thing. It’s no wonder the
Ohio
’s direction was described in reports as “erratic.”

Gray, a quiet Scot, remembered that he had a gallon of rum in his quarters. He sent an ordinary seaman down for it, and all hands on the poop had a big tot, toasting the star that was guiding them and wishing for a safe arrival in Malta.

Meanwhile, the destroyer
Ledbury
was running down those ships that had scattered in other directions. “The merchant ships were steaming on a northerly or northwesterly course, after the bombing and emergency turns,” said Captain Hill. “I chased after them, and found the Commodore’s ship turning back.”

Hill went easy on Commodore A. G. Venables of the Port Chalmers in his report. The commodore, a retired Royal Navy officer, had turned and run. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the message that the convoy was supposed to reach Malta at all costs. Commodore Venables’s own report confirms his retreat.

“Course was altered to port and I determined to try and save the ship by leaving the convoy from the rear,” he said. “
Port Chalmers
proceeded full speed to Westward. Two other rear ships were informed of my intention and turned to follow me: they were not seen again, as presumably a destroyer found them and ordered them to rejoin the convoy. This destroyer overtook me and gave instructions to proceed to Malta, which was my intention as soon as circumstances appeared favourable.”

But other reports don’t support Venables’s claim that his flight back toward Gibraltar was only temporary. One of the two other ships he mentions was the
Dorset,
whose captain, Jack Tuckett, reported that he had asked Venables for a course and speed.

“He told me he was returning to Gibraltar. I fell in astern, but five minutes later, realising I did not wish to return, reversed course.
Melbourne Star
was in company and she also turned. We left the
Port Chalmers
steaming towards Gibraltar.”

The liaison officer of the
Melbourne Star
added that he too had signaled the commodore for orders and received the reply “Turn back.” But the officers on the bridge were unanimous that their destination remain Malta, so they didn’t follow
Port Chalmers.

“The state of affairs at this time was chaotic, with some ships on fire, some sinking, and destroyers going to the rescue,” said
Melbourne Star
’s liaison officer. “The captain was determined that the only thing to do was make for Malta.”

The
Melbourne Star
caught up to the
Santa Elisa
and signaled Captain Thomson: “Will you follow me?” Thomson signaled back: “Yes.” They raced toward Malta at 16 knots, as the
Port Chalmers
steamed alone back toward Gibraltar.

Captain Hill in the destroyer
Ledbury
continued to chase after other merchant ships. “I went alongside the others to turn them, and got them round by talking to them on the loudhailer. The last ship, the American Almeria Lykes, wanted to go back to Gibraltar, but I pointed out he hadn’t a hope in hell without an escort, and if he joined up with the others he would be in Malta the next day. I added, ‘All the English ships are heading for Malta,’ and round he came.”

After Captain Hill turned the
Almeria Lykes
around, he looked through his binoculars into the last of the light and saw a big dark shape on the horizon. He steamed toward it and found the
Ohio
weaving like a drunken sailor in a dark alley.

“I went close alongside near the bridge and talked to Mason, her captain, and Lieutenant Denys Barton, the Naval Liaison Officer on board. I found that she had been hit in the pump room, and that her bridge steering was out of action. Her engines and propellers were all right.

“I tried to sound very cheerful and confident, and said, ‘The Admiral is waiting for you with the cruisers and destroyers.’”

Captain Hill was a mere megaphone voice in the darkness to Mason, who didn’t know the name of the destroyer that was alongside.

“You need to steer 120 degrees if you want to catch up with the convoy,” the voice said. “Or do you want a tow?”

“No thank you, we’re under our own steam, but we haven’t got a compass,” replied Mason from the bridge. “Can you lead us?”

“I’ll switch on a stern light, and you can follow it,” Hill told him. “We will go close in to the shore and join up with the others before daylight. We’ll get the Malta Spitfires tomorrow and be in Malta for lunch.”

“So off we went, starting very slowly, with the tanker steering all over the place, and gradually getting more steady,” said Hill.

The shielded blue light on the stern of the
Ledbury
was easier to follow than a star, at least. And there were other things to guide them: the beam of the Cape Bon lighthouse and patches of burning oil on the sea, tall flaming tombstones marking the grave of the
Clan Ferguson.

As the
Ohio
was about to steam through the fire, Mason suddenly realized that she was still leaking kerosene. He grabbed the loud-hailer and shouted to
Ledbury:
“For God’s sake, steer clear of the flames!”

“We felt naked and exposed, silhouetted against the fire, and it seemed an agonizing age before we got clear of it,” said Hill. “But the oiler was grand. She yawed heavily at the beginning, but was soon steadied and we had worked up to 15½ knots before reaching Cape Bon.”

When the destroyer
Bramham
returned from the Tunisian coast after leaving the
Deucalion
blazing, she was lost in the dark.

“We went around Pantelleria about three times in the middle of the night,” said Reg Coaker, the petty officer in charge of the armament, ninety-one years old in 2006 and exceptionally keen. “I suppose we were only doing about five knots, and we could see this silhouette of a hump, and we weren’t exactly whispering but we were speaking softly, because we didn’t want to wake the enemy. I can remember Captain Baines saying to our navigator, ‘Where in bloody hell are we?’

“‘Well, sir, I think we’re a little north of Pantelleria.’

“‘I can bloody see that! There it is over there!’

“We had a signal that the Italian fleet was coming to finish us off. And then, out of the darkness, the bows of a ship began getting closer. We all thought, ‘Oh God, maybe the Italian cruisers are out.’

“The yeoman said to Baines, ‘Challenge, sir?’

“And the captain sort of muttered, ‘Yes, why don’t you.’

“And we had no answer.

“‘Challenge again?’

“‘Yes, righto, yeoman.’

“Still no answer.

“I was in the control tower over the bridge, and I can hear the metallic click of the breech blocks of the twin four-inch guns snapping shut. I think Baines’ idea was to give it one big broadsides and get the hell out of there. We were looking at her head-on, and we thought it was an Italian cruiser. She was looming large, and she was getting ever closer, there she was getting larger and larger…and not answering our challenge.

“And just as we closed the breech blocks and were training onto this ship, we saw the ship’s signal light going, and got a belated answer back.

“It was the
Port Chalmers.
”

She was headed west. Captain Baines signaled Commodore Venables to come about and to follow the
Bramham.

But it took a second destroyer to bring the commodore back to the convoy. The
Penn
had also been out looking for wandering merchantmen. “Returning to the southwestward of Zembra Island, I found
Bramham
escorting the
Port Chalmers,
” reported Lieutenant Commander J. H. Swain, the Irish captain of the
Penn.
“
Port Chalmers
seemed to be in some doubt as to what to do, but I told him to follow me, and stationed
Bramham
astern of him.”

Commodore Venables offered a slim explanation. “The evening of 12th August was a severe trial to all, as escort afloat had also vanished at a critical moment, after the disaster at entrance to Skerki Channel,” he said in his report.

There might have been other gripes by merchant sailors that their escorts had deserted them, but no such complaints appeared in any master’s report, other than that of the commodore of the convoy.

CHAPTER 33 •••

IL DUCE’S PAJAMAS

A
ll that day, Admiral Da Zara’s two light cruisers and three destroyers had been steaming east from Sardinia, to rendezvous in the Tyrrhenian Sea with two heavy cruisers and six destroyers that were steaming west from Sicily. Also, the battleship
Trieste
had left Genoa in northern Italy, escorted by a destroyer and an E-boat, and was steaming south to meet with the light cruiser
Attendolo.
That was a total of seventeen Italian warships coming from four directions, intending to form a battle fleet by the next morning.

Reconnaissance planes from Malta had watched the progress of the Italian warships moving west. Air Marshal Keith Park had sent out nine sorties, seven by Baltimores and two by Marylands. Park was still fuming over the missing Liberators; if they had been delivered as promised by the RAF command in Cairo, the Italian warships would have been bombed by now.

Air Marshal Park, a New Zealander, six feet five inches tall and easily recognized around the island behind the wheel of his red MG Roadster, was serious about winning. He had led the RAF to victory during the Battle of Britain. When Churchill said, “Never in the history of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” he could have narrowed it down to Park. Recalled Malta Spitfire pilot Peter Rothwell, “He’d come down to the mess with his long cigarette holder and a gin in his hand, and he’d say, ‘Right, what I want you to do today is kill the Hun, all right? Kill the Hun!’”

As Da Zara’s warships steamed toward the reeling convoy, Comando Supremo in Rome was arguing about whether or not to provide them with air support. In two morning meetings attended by the German and Italian honchos in the Mediterranean, there wasn’t much agreement.

Admiral Riccardi, chief of the Italian Navy, had requested eighty Luftwaffe fighters to defend the warships against RAF bombers that were expected to fly out from Malta. But Field Marshal Kesselring said he didn’t have any fighters to spare.

General Cavallero said that air cover was absolutely necessary, because the convoy might be an invasion of Libya.

General Fougier seemed to think his Regia Aeronautica could defend the fleet without the Luftwaffe; “Fourteen Macchi 202 should clean the sky,” he said, looking at his watch. His remote-controlled flying buffalo carrying two 1,000-kilogram bombs would be taking off from Sardinia soon. He smiled and told the others that he had the
Wasp
handled. He still believed that the American aircraft carrier was part of the convoy.

The really big guns of the Italian fleet, including four more battleships, could have gone after Operation Pedestal, but they remained in port with nearly empty fuel tanks. As surely as oil lies under the sea, oil governed the movement of the Italian warships.

At the beginning of the war, Italy had said it would need 200,000 tons of oil a month from Germany, but by May 1942 it was being offered just 45,000 tons—not delivered, merely offered. “From this moment on, the fuel question really became the fuel tragedy,” writes Marc’Antonio Bragadin, the official Italian historian, who as a naval commander was involved in the daily watch of the oil supplies.

The Italian Navy had to base its every movement, not on the situation at sea nor on its operational capacities as to ships and firepower, but rather on the day-to-day availability of fuel.

The anxieties and the responsibilities in those days, which weighed on Supermarina every time that some movement in the enemy camp was noted, were truly terrible. Supermarina was haunted by the possibility that the British might attempt a large-scale operation and the Italian fleet would not even be able to leave port! The decisions to be made in that period weighed on the naval chiefs—in a really dramatic way and sometimes brought them to the verge of desperation.

The Italians had a powerful ally in Admiral Weichold, commander in chief of the German Navy in the Mediterranean, who steadily argued for more support of the Italian Navy. “The German High Command, as well as the German Naval General Staff, remained deaf to my every effort to have fuel oil shipments increased,” he wrote from his cell after the war. “That the German General Staff observed all this with indifference proved once again its under-evaluation of naval power in the over-all conduct of warfare, and, in particular, of the meaning of the Mediterranean within the general scheme of the whole conflict.”

The link from oil to air cover for the Italian warships from the Luftwaffe on August 13 was emotional but tangible. Mussolini already carried an attitude about Germany’s limited support and its “niggardliness,” as Bragadin called it, with its oil.

Kesselring didn’t show much respect for Regia Marina in general, and in particular its efficiency; he believed the Italians were wasting hard-earned German oil, infinite amounts of which were needed in Russia and vital amounts by Rommel in North Africa. He said their fleet moved around too much, with harbors all over the mainland, Sicily, and Sardinia. The ships sucked up all their fuel just assembling for battle.

“There were extraordinary technical deficiencies which deservedly earned the Italian navy the nickname ‘Fine-weather Fleet,’” he wrote. “Its doubtful seaworthiness called for increased air protection, and that, with the limited strength of the Axis air forces in the Mediterranean, imposed ridiculous demands on the German Luftwaffe, whose hands were already full protecting convoys; the German airmen, who flew 75–90 percent of all sorties, had consequently to be bled white.”

The meetings in Rome moved from Kesselring’s headquarters to the Comando Supremo war rooms. The debate raged into the night, as ships in the convoy continued to be blown up and sunk. Reports were sent to Supermarina by the submarines
Alagi
and
Bronzo.

Weichold sided with Riccardi (both navy men) in demanding air support for the Italian fleet, while Kesselring and Fougier (air force men) resisted.

Said Weichold, “The cruisers naturally had to be provided with a certain air cover. The naval C. in C. [Weichold] made every effort with the German and Italian Headquarters to procure air cover for the Italian cruisers, as only they could be in a position to complete the destruction of units of the convoy which had broken through. It developed into a heated difference of opinion between the Headquarters of the different Services, during which the representatives of both navies stood alone against the other leaders.”

The German Naval Staff War Diary confirms Weichold’s account: “The Admiral, German Naval Command, Italy, has done everything in his power to support the planned fleet action. The Admiral feels it will mean missing a big chance of annihilating the largest convoy undertaken so far in the Mediterranean after the heavy enemy forces, superior in numbers and arms, have withdrawn.”

Just before midnight, while Winston Churchill was sleeping soundly in Moscow, Admiral Da Zara’s warships were steaming south at 20 knots. A radar-equipped Wellington had located the ships west of the island of Ustica and was tracking them. The battleship
Trieste
had turned back, to save fuel for another day.

The six-man crew of a second Wellington was on standby at Luqa airfield on Malta. Dennis Cooke was the wireless operator.

“We had no idea there was a convoy on its way to Malta,” he remembered, sixty-three years later. “We knew there was a flap on, because we were put on standby in G shelter, which was underground; but only the top brass had knowledge of Operation Pedestal. We minions on Malta knew nothing of the mayhem that was taking place.

“After a while, AOC Park told us we could leave for a couple of hours, just let him know where we were, and we went to the cinema. We’re watching this film, and suddenly it stops and there’s a message on the screen: ‘Members of Special Duty Flight, report to Luqa.’ We got up to go, and the civilians in the theater all clapped for us. There was a lorry waiting outside to take us to our plane, and soon we were off with a full load of eight 250-pound bombs.

“We were told that the other Wellington had located twelve Italian cruisers and destroyers and were given the latitude and longitude, but we had no idea of their importance. Our orders were simply to illuminate and attack.”

Da Zara’s warships began blipping on the radar screen of Cooke’s lumbering Wellington at about 0300.

“We illuminated the target with a string of flares with about two million candlepower,” he said. “The Italians put up a barrage, but we were in the dark so it missed us by quite a lot. I don’t know what our altitude was because I was focused on the wireless. If we were brave we’d sometimes go in at about a thousand feet, but not often. There were a few RAF heroes who would press home the attack, but they tended to get shot out of the sky. Air crews had a different interpretation of our patriotic duty. We tended to look after our own skins more.

“We dropped our bombs, scored some near misses, and as far as we were concerned, that was the end. We done what we were sent to do.

“But at 0319 something extraordinary happened. I picked up a message in plain language that said, ‘Report result your attack, latest enemy position for Liberators, most Immediate.’ Plain language was never used in special ops, and I knew there were no Liberators in the area. I told the crew, ‘I think this is a fake.’”

Keith Park had been seething for two days about the lack of Liberators, and in the middle of the night, when he needed them most, he created them out of thin air. He sent out the radio signal in plain language so Da Zara couldn’t miss it.

The navigator of Wellington Y looked at the blipping ships on the radar screen. “Bloody ’ell, they’re changing course!” he said.

When the Operation Pedestal veterans get together on Malta, they like to tell the story about how Keith Park’s magic turned back the Italian fleet that night, by faking the Italians into thinking the Liberators were coming.

But there was more. Kesselring, Weichold, Cavallero, Fougier, Riccardi, and others had finally gotten tired of arguing and recognized they were at a stalemate. The only thing to do was ring Il Duce on the phone; get him out of bed to settle it. Commander in Chief Cavallero explained his version of the situation to Mussolini. Without air cover for the warships, the Malta bombers would inflict heavy damage on them. And Cavallero added something new: more British warships had been seen east of Malta.

Mussolini never confessed to being a coward at sea like Hitler, but sometimes he acted like one; two years of thrashings by Admiral Cunningham hadn’t done much for his confidence. But mostly there was the ongoing issue with the allegedly niggardly Germans over oil. He told Cavallero that he wasn’t willing to risk the warships of the Italian Navy if the Germans weren’t willing to protect them. He believed the Italian bombers and E-boats could still destroy the convoy before it reached Malta. So he ordered Da Zara’s warships back to their ports.

In the morning he congratulated the fleet for its “success in annihilating the enemy forces, which have dared to venture into the seas of Rome.”
Bisogna far buon viso a cattivo gioco,
the Italians liked to say. It’s often necessary to disguise a bad game with a good face. Regia Marina and Regia Aeronautica competed to impress Mussolini, who only wanted intelligence that told him what he wanted to hear. When he spoke, his staff stacked the crowd with supporters, called “applaud squads.”

“In this fashion,” said Weichold, “a splendid opportunity for a crushing victory by the Italian ships was thrown away, even as they were already at sea and heading for the battle area. It was a strategic failure of the first order on the part of the Axis, the repercussions of which would one day be felt.”

Admiral Burrough put it even more succinctly. “I was always grateful to Mussolini,” he said. “There is no doubt in my mind that had the Italian cruisers arrived that morning, there would have been a massacre. We would have been wiped out.”