Chapter 14: North Africa redux
The following is a transcript from the September 7, 1956 broadcast of
World War II Roundtable, hosted by Dr. Alice Harris, Professor of Military History at Oxford and former radar technician in Hong Kong and Singapore. The special guests were Colonel Larry Quentin of the Royal Marines (ret.) and Field Marshal Wallace Graham (ret.), former Chief of the Imperial General Staff. The topic of the discussion was the second campaign in North Africa.
Alice Harris [AH]: Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today. Both of you offer a unique perspective on our campaigns against Germany and Italy in the Mediterranean theater, and we are delighted to have you on the show. Let's start with Colonel Quentin. What was your role in the Marines from May to November of 1943?
Larry Quentin [LQ]: I was still a Major in those days. I was the XO of a battalion in the First Royal Marines.
AH: And you, Marshal Graham?
Wallace Graham [WG]: I was a Major General. Before the operation began, I was detached from my regiment; although Field Marshal Gort wanted to command the operation, he was still in Tokyo overseeing technology transfers between the UK and Japan. I got a promotion to Lieutenant General and was placed nominally in charge of the First Armored Corps, although the formal command remained the Field Marshal's. I was also the joint planning officer, coordinating the efforts of the Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Marines.
LQ: Yeah, it's all his bloody fault.
general laughter
AH: Quite.
WG: If I recall correctly, your husband was present as well. Commander of the
Ark Royal, if memory serves.
AH: That's correct, Field Marshal. He couldn't join us today, but he promises he'll be on the show soon. So, Field Marshal, tell us about the operation.
WG: The first part of the operation to arrive in theater was the 11th US Airborne Division; I hitched a ride with the transport wing. That was 12 May. The rest of the troops got to Gibraltar on 25 May. After a couple of days to strategize, we began the first stage of the attack.
LQ: Of course, we Marines did the dirty work. I was part of that first landing, at Oran, on 27 May.
After we cleared the beachhead, the Royal Navy dropped off the Marshal's chums in the First Armored Corps. We started to break out soon after; the tanks and one division of Marines went east, the other two divisions west.
AH: How would you estimate the Italian defenders of Oran, Colonel?
LQ: They were garrison troops, fat and lazy. Now, the Italians had some good lads in some units, but these were obviously not the cream of the crop. The Italians didn't even defend Algiers at all, if you can imagine that. The Japanese were much tougher than the Italians, I'd say.
AH: Whose decision was it to use paras to take Misurata, Field Marshal?
WG:
sighs Mine, Dr. Harris. A decision I rue to this day. I forgot the Yankee paras were actually smaller and less well equipped than a standard infantry division, unlike our own units. The intent was to get them to pin down a couple of Italian divisions so they wouldn't march on the west bank of the canal. It did buy us time, but ultimately, they were left stranded. The Royal Navy tried to extract them -- they did the best they could -- but the paras couldn't get back to the beach. They were surrounded and surrendered.
On the positive side, the loss of the Yank paras finally convinced Field Marshal Gort to start our own para corps.
AH: The next part of the campaign was the capture of Tunis. Were you involved in those landings, Colonel?
LQ: No, I was still working on the breakout in Oran, but Tunis fell more quickly than Oran. I'm told they didn't even resist for 48 hours.
AH: This was the situation as of 6 June 1943. Your thoughts, Field Marshal? Had things gone according to plan to that point?
WG: I would say so, yes. The loss of the paras was unfortunate, but in a broader sense, it accomplished the objective of delaying Italian offensive operations towards Suez. The pace was slower than I would have liked, but the terrain in western North Africa is not as suitable to tank offensives as the eastern parts are. The next stage was to link Oran with Algiers.
That was accomplished by 28 June.
AH: Where were you, Colonel?
LQ: Ras el Ma, if memory serves. To be honest, I didn't have much to do in those days. I started getting itchy for combat again, but I was doing simply pacification campaigns. Boring stuff.
AH: Of course, this is also when the Royal Navy sunk the
Vittorio Veneto, a battleship that had just been commissioned not two weeks earlier.
What happened then, Field Marshal?
WG: We tried to seal the Italians a in pocket, but the Italians. for the first time during the campaign, surprised us with a direct attack on M'Sila.
We brought in bombers, but the Marines were outnumbered. In retrospect, it was overextension.
LQ: And Dobbie bein' an idiot. Didn't dig in.
WG: You would know better than I, Larry.
LQ: Dobbie's normally a good start, brave as a lion, and a devious bastard on the offensive, as befits a Marine. But for holding a position, he's not your man.
AH: Isn't General Dobbie part of the reason you retired as a Colonel?
LQ:
smiles but says nothing
AH: Right. Around this time, 3rd Corps was formed and sailed for Alexandria; they were to push west as fast as possible, right, Marshal?
WG: Yes. Good lads, with the newest equipment the army could give them, but very, very green. Initially, we were going to have them defend the west bank of the canal, but Lt. General Festing convinced me otherwise, and they were given more latitude to move as they saw fit. We had our second setback, a minor one, at Jerada a few days later.
LQ: Marines can't sail up mountains, Wally.
WG:
grins I suppose not, Larry. It was around this period that we sent two of the tank divisions to Tunis, to start a proper breakout there.
The 3rd Corps started to move at this time as well.
AH: Toward the end of July, the Italians and UK traded cruisers and destroyers in an inconsequential battle, but a harbinger of bigger fights to come.
Field Marshal?
WG: So, the month of August was an attempt to link Tunis and Algiers, as we had done with Oran and Algiers some weeks before. We spotted our first Germans during the Tunis breakout, but to our knowledge, Germany never had more than a single division in the area.
3rd Corps was especially impressive, as despite inexperience, they rapidly outflanked and outmaneuvered an Italian division, effectively ending the threat to the Suez Canal. They were given new orders to take the offensive and move west to meet up at Tunis.
By mid August, we'd captured another Italian division in a pocket.
We got ever closer to linking Tunis and Algiers throughout the rest of the month.
AH: Didn't you get back into the fight around this time, Colonel?
LQ: I did, thank God. Even if Tripoli was completely undefended, it was better than chasing Italians in the desert.
We stayed put while 3rd Corps marched west. I agree with Wally, they were very good lads, moved surprisingly fast for rookies.
AH: In early September, things looked very good, and the link between Algiers and Tunis was completed.
What happened at Souk Ahras, Field Marshal?
WG: We got greedy. We'd already completed the connection, securing an even greater flow of supplies, but sending the Armored Divisions to take that mountainous territory was stupid. I take full responsibility.
LQ: Wally, you know damn well Charrington was the cause. He practically forced you to do it; he was furious that Gort tapped you and not him to be the corps commander, and he wanted his "moment of glory" to prove him wrong.
WG: Thank you for that, but he was my subordinate, and I could have argued against the attack. I failed to do so, so the failure is as much mine as it was his.
AH: Was the Gabes landing necessary, Field Marshal?
WG: I would say so, yes.
Larry and his mates had already met 3rd Corps. Taking Gabes cut off the last port for Italian troops in the region, and without a massive counter invasion of their own, there was no way the Italians could stop us. We eliminated several divisions over the last week of September.
LQ: The Marines and 3rd Corps teamed up to defeat the last few divisions, a proud moment in my career.
AH: So what occupied your time in October and early November, gentlemen?
LQ: For me, it was taking Sardinia and Corsica. I saw the explosion of the
HMS Resolution as me and my boys were getting into the transport crafts. A real shame, that one, even if we did take an Italian battleship and a cruiser with us.
AH: Of course, the navy got a measure of revenge.
And you, Field Marshal? We'll give you the last word.
WG: Once the Royal Navy sunk
Littorio, there were effectively no obstacles in the Mediterranean. With sixteen divisions, including eight Marine divisions, four armored divisions, and 3rd Corps, we were stationed in Malta, making our last preparations for Operation Husky. I don't think there was any better sign that Italy was about out of the fight then the fact that Syracuse was totally undefended.
AH: Thank you both, Colonel Quentin and Field Marshal Graham, for appearing on the show. I hope you'll join us next week, for another thrilling tale of Sir David James' adventures in Edinburgh. Until then!
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Okay, we won't be hearing about James next time.
I've decided to switch formats a bit, because the quote boxes seem unwieldy to me. We'll do a George R. R. Martin style where subsequent chapters will be from the perspective of one character (or, perhaps, three, as in this update), but without the constant letters back and forth. Obviously, Sicily is next, followed by working up the boot. The US has still done nothing significant to this point, which worries me, but perhaps something big is coming.
In addition to what you see here, a number of submarines got sunk, and I'm quite certain I've sunk all of Italy's transports in the Med. The Soviets almost lost a battleship too, but it got away. I got a number of good techs, including drop tanks, and enough techs to make some more light cruisers if I've a mind. I'm targeting paras, then mech divisions and infantry divisions, before I build up the Royal Navy any more. Maybe another Marine corps, although that's somewhat low priority. I think I'll try to puppet Italy, but I don't really want Italy to fall before the US commits troops or before the Soviets DOW Germany (which I'm increasingly suspecting will never happen.) Sicily should be fairly easy, I think. My Maltese radar tells me that they've probably emptied out a good chunk of Sicily for their attack on North Africa.
Anyway, next update should be entirely focused on Italy, so it'll probably be Graham again as our protagonist. I'll start playing this weekend or early next week!
