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 Although a modern ship, through an error of design she was only able to mount outdated 4.7-in guns instead of the newer 4-in weapon.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.
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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.
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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.
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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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