Three Kings (Kirov Series) (24 page)

“I’ve scraped the bottom of the
barrel as it stands,” he said. “If I send anything more to Greece there will be
nothing but the sand and sky between Alexandria and this General Rommel.”

“You misunderstand me,” said Tovey.
“I am a naval officer, General, but given this intelligence it would be my
conclusion that any effort to reinforce Greece at all would be foolhardy.”

Wavell smiled. “I have thought as
much, but you must realize these dispositions were not entirely of my own
making. In my last meeting with the Prime Minister, the man questioned me on
the posting of each and every battalion at my disposal. Churchill can be
somewhat insufferable, with all due respect, and he is rather insistent that
Greece be strongly reinforced. I informed Mister Dill and others in London that
the real danger here would not occur until the Germans sent motorized units and
armor to North Africa. Now that whirlwind is upon us, and our own General
O’Connor is in full retreat, trying to save what little armor we have left
there while I send half the cupboard off to Greece.”

“Well General,” said Tovey. “I am
aware that the First Sea Lord met with Churchill and determined that Egypt
would be Germany’s next move should they fail to break us with the Luftwaffe.
The loss of Gibraltar has made that threat even more perilous for us and
possible for the enemy.”

“Agreed,” said Wavell. “Yet the
Prime Minister seems adamant on the matter of Greece.”

“I am well aware of his
determination,” said Tovey, but HMS
Invincible
is here for a reason,
which I must now disclose.”

There came a knock on the cabin
door and an adjutant appeared with a rush of urgency, bearing a single page
message from the W/T room.

“Please excuse me, sir” The man
came in and quietly handed Wavell a message, saluting and withdrawing as he had
come.

 Wavell took a long breath
as he read the paper, then fixed them all with a steady gaze. “Well gentlemen,
we have yet another problem. The Germans are landing paratroops on Malta.”

Chapter 20

They
came out of the grey
pre-dawn sky, the lines of planes seeming endless to Squadron Leader
Jock Martin, at R.A.F.
Luqa
. He
was up in a
Hurricane
with Squadron mate George Burges. They had the
only two serviceable planes at the field that morning, and they were going to
be quite busy.

The
island was simply not ready for the storm blowing in on the cold morning air.
It was led by another formation of eighteen S-79s of the 34th
Stormo
, only this time there were twelve C200 fighters in
escort. They were coming out of the northeast, and in so doing they pulled the
two British
Hurricanes
off in that direction, a deliberate ploy to draw
off any resources from the main attack. Over 150 Ju-52s transports carrying the
leading waves of enemy troops.

34th
Stormo
was just one of six formations assigned to the
bombing that day. They would hit the Grand Harbor, the seaplane base at
Kalafrana
, the airfields at
Ta’Qali
,
Luqa
and Hal Far and targets of opportunity all over
the island. The air raid sirens droned mournfully as weary crews of the 7th AA
Regiment ran to man their batteries. It was the tenth consecutive day that had
begun like this, and in spite of some success in shooting down fifteen enemy
planes, the bombers were getting through the relatively thin defense and doing
a good deal of damage on the ground.

Malta
was not ready, not the island fortress that Lieutenant General
Dobbie
called it in his address to rally the troops. In his
Order of the Day he announced that the Germans had landed paratroops on the
northern island of
Gozo
twenty minutes earlier, and
the fight was on. “The decision of His Majesty’s Government to fight until our
enemies are defeated will be heard with the greatest satisfaction by all ranks
of the Garrison of Malta,” the order began. While they might finally get a
crack at their tormentors face to face on the ground, the hard truth of the
matter was that the troops would have little satisfaction in that.

“It may
be that hard times lie ahead for us, but I know that however hard they may be,
the courage and determination of all ranks will not falter, and that with God’s
help we will maintain the security of this fortress.”
Dobbie’s
order was an understatement, as the troops were going to need God’s help if
they had any chance to weather the storm that was coming.

By 1942
the British garrison would triple in size, with a hundred aircraft ready to
oppose an attack. Yet now, it was a pathetic shadow of that force. Before the
war, the British thought the island would be indefensible. The Italian Regia
Aeronautica could count 5400 aircraft in Italy and North Africa. Malta received
only a few old fighters in packing crates, the famous
Gladiators
that
had been left there as spares for the British aircraft carriers. They would take
the names “Faith, Hope and Charity” before the
Hurricanes
arrived, but
after ten days of steady air attacks, the old
Gladiators
were long gone.

The
Island itself was commanded by a throwback from the First World War, Lieutenant
General
Dobbie
. He had been ordered to retire, but
made an appeal to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Edmund
Ironside
, who managed to get him a serving command as
Governor of Malta. Old gladiators, in the air and on the ground, held the
“fortress” in the early going, and little help had arrived by the end of 1940.
It was going to take the heavenly intervention that
Dobbie
was counting on to stop the German attack. Malta had no more of a chance than
the Rock of Gibraltar had, and it would not last long in spite of a dogged
defense.

When
the skies over the main island darkened with parachutes, the weary defenders
saw the leading edge of what they would be up against. The planes had come in
from airfields all over southern Italy and Sicily,
Brindisi
,
Lecce, Foggia, Palermo,
Comiso
, and Trapani. The
troops landing on
Gozo
were those of the Italian
Folgore
Parachute Division, who had claimed the honor of
putting men on the ground first. They would secure Victoria and seize the small
fishing port and ferry site at
Mgarr
harbor on the
southern tip of that island. Lightly defended, largely by local militias,
Gozo
would become a reserve staging area for supplies, and
a place to get wounded off the main island where field hospitals would be
established.

The
main attack would be a German operation, and their first targets would be the
airfields at
Ta’Qali
,
Luga
,
and Safi. There were several open areas where aircraft dispersal fields had
been sited at
Mqabba
and
Qrendi
.
They were not as heavily defended as the main fields, and made excellent
landing sites for the Fallschirmjagers.
Tante
Ju
came in very low that morning, with the flights of
Ju-52s at no more than 500 feet to achieve a tight concentration of troops on
the target area. Student had been training his men for these low level “Sturm”
jumps for months.

The
troops were preceded by a company of Brandenburger commandos, the first
lightning in the storm, just as they had been in the attack against Gibraltar.
These men came in on agile
Storch
reconnaissance
aircraft, capable of landing on very short airstrips, roads, or even fields.
They would put down what amounted to a company of men, who would spread out to
cut telephone and telegraph wires and sow discord all over the island. A
platoon size force was able to seize one of the secondary airfields to silence
the four AA batteries there, and the Ju-52s came in ten minutes later.

All the
paratroops dropped with weapons, K98 rifles, MP40 MGs and extra ammunition in
canisters that fell with the troops by parachute. They would be ready to fight
the moment they hit the ground, though the low altitude jump saw many with
sprained ankles and other injuries. Yet the bulk of the troops weathered the
drop, and soon a regimental sized force was building up near
Ta’Qali
. A Luftwaffe forward air controller was assigned to
every company to call in the lavish air support that was just fifty to sixty
kilometers away in Sicily. Soon the morning skies would hear the scream of
Stuka
close support squadrons that were already in the air to loiter on call for the
troops on the ground.

The
entire 7th
Fleiger
Division, three regiments, would
be augmented by a special Sturm Regiment in the attack. The reserve force would
be the 22nd Luftland Air Landing Division, flown in to Italian airfields from
Romania in the days prior to the attack. A full regiment of German mountain
infantry was also staged at Syracuse and Catania on Sicily, with all the
assault shipping and transport that the Italians could provide. They would be
sent only if the Italian Navy could first assure the Germans that they could
achieve naval superiority.

Adding
in the
Folgore
Regiment, the Axis forces available
came to nine full regiments. Against this, the Malta Garrison at this time was
no bigger than the one that had defended Gibraltar. Lieutenant General
Dobbie
commanded 2nd Battalion Devonshire Regiment, 2nd
Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1st Battalion
Dorsetshire Regiment and the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. The 8th
Battalion Manchester Regiment had been the only reinforcement sent to the
island after the outbreak of the war, making five British battalions in all,
and one Maltese battalion. They would be outnumbered twelve battalions to six
in the crucial first six hours of the assault, and if the Germans could quickly
seize one of the key airfields, the 22nd Luftland could fly in directly there
to rapidly build up troop strength on the ground.

At sea
the Italians would initiate the first stage of the naval operation. The
battleships
Veneto
,
Roma
and
Littorio
were staged from
Naples with a strong escort of cruisers and destroyers. Their mission was to
provide close artillery support and directly engage the harbor shore batteries.
The distant covering force was staged from Taranto, and it was comprised of the
battleships
Cesare
,
Doria
and
Duilio
with an equal escort force. It’s mission was
to fend off the expected sortie of the British Navy from Alexandria, and the
Admirals meeting to discuss the matter would not disappoint.

* * *

“We
simply must get the navy out in support of Malta,” said
Cunningham. “I see no other course. We were damn well chased out of Gibraltar
when the Germans hit us there, and to let them pound Malta from the sea
unchallenged is simply intolerable. My ships are ready. We were all set to have
a go at Taranto, and now the Italians have put to sea. We should be right in
their faces, and let them know who they are dealing with.”

“They
won’t be alone,” said Tovey with a guarded edge in his voice. “I was just about
to disclose the latest Enigma decrypts we received from Bletchley Park.”

At this Wavell raised an eyebrow,
waiting patiently.

“As you may have heard,
gentlemen, the Germans lately managed to slip two warships past our guard to
French ports. When this conference was proposed I met with Admiral Somerville
of Force H to aid in the planning of the occupation of the Atlantic islands,
operations which we have lately concluded, all while keeping a watchful eye on
the German ships at Brest and Saint Nazaire. Well, the foxes have slipped out
of their dens. We were led to believe they were being recalled to Germany.
Instead they turned south for Gibraltar, and with Somerville covering the
operation in the Cape Verde Islands, there was nothing we could do about it. I
departed for this conference, and the Germans were kind enough to sit tight at
Gibraltar. Now I’m afraid the Germans are on the move again.”

“In the Atlantic?”

“No sir, in the Mediterranean…”
Tovey let that sit there, allowing Wavell and Cunningham to appreciate the implications.
I’ve Admiral Holland back with the Battlecruiser Squadron to look after the
North Atlantic. Now, however, we have a new problem on our hands. The French
pulled out of Dakar and reestablished their Atlantic
Force de Raid
at
Casablanca—absent one ship, the battleship
Normandie
. It has moved into
the Mediterranean as well, along with the German ships from Gibraltar, the
Bismarck
and
Hindenburg
. I must now report that these ships are moving east.
Something is afoot, gentlemen, and this news of the attack on Malta is the root
of it all. The reinforcement of your fleet is timely with the arrival of
Invincible
here.”

“Indeed,” said Admiral
Cunningham. “This news, coupled with movement out of Toulon by the French
squadron there, and movement by the Italians out of Taranto—well I’m afraid we
have a real nightmare on our hands at the moment.”

“Correct,” said Tovey. “We now
know that the battlecruisers
Strasbourg
and
Dunkerque
have sailed
with that squadron from Toulon, and the Italians have sortied with at least
three of the five battleships they had at Taranto. Simply counting the capital
ships, we now find ourselves outnumbered two to one, even with
Invincible
thrown on the scales.”