“Flying Black Snakes”
{10 May – 1940}
Since early September last year, sailors of the RN Home-Command have seen plumes of black smoke bellowing towards the heavens and each man knew, that too often, those ominous snaky clouds, marked the area where some of the bravest men in the world gave their lives serving the life-line of the home-islands.
Till now, the enemy’s sinking of our slow & cumbersome resource and supply convoys was confined primarily to the seas west of France and Ireland but now the RN’s sailors in the Mediterranean were seeing the same oily plumes in the skies off Spain, Italy and Africa. The war was expanding the grip of death and wreckage of total-war and it was evident in the floating debris-fields of dozens of sunken unarmed merchant ships. Angry British seamen, too frequently looked helplessly on aboard their warships, as they passed those drifting grave-markers, able only to vow revenge.
We kept Berbera...barely.
To date, my B.E.F. - France has accomplished nothing. General Gort commands the BEF but has only received the order to “Stay-put”. Yes, we hold the south intact but Italy has not challenged our lines. That may be a very minor strategic victory but it is not close to the needed tactical one. However, our failure does not lie with my British Generals but with the French High-Command. Instead of moving all available units in southern France to try and halt the collapse of the low-countries (as they fell) and bolster and dig-in along France’s northern border, much time was lost in needlessly fortifying strong British positions, only to then pull-out and begin sending those same units northward, where they should have been sent weeks ago! It is too damn late now. Arrgh! Two divisions of Tiger-tanks and 6 divisions of Panzer IIIs are inside France and all Allied-troops are now rapidly falling back.
Earlier I guessed that Italy knew I did not have the strength to push into Italy and after making a formidable front facing our two Corps, sent their reserve units north to support a spearhead near
Sedan. While trying to halt the invaders, French Command left a single division in each province along the
Maginot line. The German spearhead is progressing in good order and should sever the line-forces from
Paris-supply in a week or two. The question for me now is; When do I pull the BEF out? The answer to that is likely...soon. I am giving some time for a highly unlikely rebound before beginning an orderly withdrawal out of the northern forts southward till I can embark our units from
Nice with a strong RN escort fleet.
The only impact I’ve made in France has been in the air and that is not saying much. My Strategic bombers destroyed some infrastructure in the captured Belgian provinces of
Antwerpen (I was trying to block supply-lines)and
Bruxelles but those runs failed to slow the German advance and even though I had Commander Portal making night-runs, his planes were quickly shot-up before we could destroy half of what was there. My Tactical-Wing was even less successful, when each attack, after only briefly cratering air-fields, they had to re-base and repair. Improving my TACs is and will be ongoing “as we are able” but the STRATs will see no changes; I have too many needs and heavy-bomber improvements cannot be pursued. As it is, the RAF is behind in most Air-Doctrines, so it looks like I will keep to INTs, CAGs and TACs. I would like to get some MRs and more NAVs but they will have to wait for a year or two, or I might not pursue them at all. Time will decide.
With the loss of Dunkirk we have lost
Channel Effect. Consequently we now have to spend 2.62 IC towards keeping Dissent at zero.
Mediterranean HQ
North Africa
We were surprised to learn that Monty’s Corps battled 5 Italian Motorized divisions. However, they proved no match for our weak tanks and our satisfactory motorized units. Montgomery’s forces won in
Ridotta Capuzzo and Bardia. UK men lost 166 – Italy 954. Our biggest surprise was two French infantry divisions taking Italian ground. The French may move on
Tripoli but that remains to be seen.
Other Action in the Med
I decided to invite the Italian Navy to a big-gun brawl in the Mediterranean sea but so far they have not accepted my invitation. I then pushed the issue and with a little success. Since the only true Infantry I have is in India and Burma, I attempted the taking of
Rodi and its important airbase...with wheels. This idea proved quite misguided, when the penalties for 6th LARM proved we could not win a battle against weak defenders. Regardless. the foolish assault did bring some reward because it created a minor sea-clash and we were able to take our first small slice out of the Italian navy; our Battle-Cruiser HMS Renown sank the Heavy-Cruiser RM San Giorgio while CA HMS Norfolk and DD Swansea both sank enemy DD-flotillas. However, we did pay a price to take out these ships; we lost 226 men while the defenders on
Rodi lost 2.
Actually off Rodi Island
After a brief fight on
22 May with an Italian CA fleet, Trento, Bolzano & Trieste, that ended with the enemy safely escaping, I have 2nd Carrier out sinking Italian shipping hoping to draw more RM capitols out from there harbors. We are sinking a few enemy convoys but it seems there may not be a lot of targets so I will likely send the 2 Singapore sub squadrons back to home-base to await Japan’s entry into the war. There’s no need for me to waste the fuel.
Another way I am trying to provoke the RM is placing Admiral Sommerville’s 1st Combined Fleet in the
West-central Mediterranean Sea in the waters south of
Malta. The reason? The is a prime sea-lane for Italian traffic. However, this strategy has so far only resulted in HMS BB Warspite sinking two transports and two of our DD-groups being formally named DD Grimsby & DD Flint after each sunk an Italian sub-squadron. Sooner or later we hope to see the RM’s warships.
Malta received its first two INT-wings on
2 June and Alexandria now has our only Naval bombers.
Currently Italian sub-activity is most successful in and around the
Balearic Islands. I have sent 1st Cruiser Fleet to those waters. This is the same fleet that won the small fleet-action around Dodi. On
6 June our fleet found the subs and then again on the
8th. There’s no word yet about the battles.
East Africa
Weeks prior to the battle for Port Sudan
My only plan in
East & South Africa is to hold our ports and thus far we have done so. However, not without the “rescue of
Port Sudan.”. I explained my blunder earlier of not having my garrisons already in place in
Sudan and Berbera and that I feared one or both may be attacked before they could reorganize. As you can see above...they both could have been lost.
Berbera had a Militia capture land up the doorstep of the Africa HQ but then turned back. But against
Port Sudan the Italians sent an Infantry-division against our Militia-brigade and the 2 unorganized Garrison-brigades. Just hours before the port would have been lost, I pulled the combat-ready x2 Garrison from
Bur Sa’id and transported them down to save
Port Sudan. In addition, I sent 2nd Combined Fleet back into the Red Sea to provide shore-bombardment. As soon as the additional 6,000 garrison troops arrived in the town, the Italians called off the attack and have now also turned around. The Italians did accomplish something in Sudan though, they cut the supply-line coming from
Mombasa and that caused me to create an 8-vessel supply-convoy to Port-Sudan, which has already been hit by subs at least once. The only immediate concern I have in this theater is that
Khartoum and the airbase there, has no defending garrison. I hope to get one in place very soon.
Home-Command
* I continue to give France 25 LL and Norway 10 LL.
* General Horrocks commands our small BEF-Norway and he reports; Norway has added an Infantry-division to
Oslo joining our 2 MOT-divisions there. All is quiet for now.
* I should mention that I abandoned
Hong Kong and brought everything to
Singapore. I still have the resource-convoy running but of course that will end once Japan is in the war.
*
22 May we finished research on
Single-engine Aircraft Armament 1. Our IC for Upgrades has never dropped below 20 and now that some important techs are finishing, it will not for a while yet.
Important research underway.
* I don’t know how much it will help them but for the time being I am allowing French, South-Africa and Australia debts. Since I’ve done nothing for my weak Allies maybe this will help them somewhat?
* For those that may be interested, we are still selling 25 supplies total to the U.S.A.
* We have had only one Luftwaffe attack into British airspace and we quickly turned them back.
* The two GAR brigades pulled from
Hong Kong were put directly under General Slim in
Singapore.
* One troubling failure the UK has at present is that we have no defensive forces in either the
Lerwick or
Faroe islands as well as
Iceland and
Greenland.
* In Aden we gave our lone GAR-brigade to Oman who consequently sent it to the capitol.
