12. 16 To Bengasi and Beyond,
On January the twenty fourth O’Connor and the Desert Army were ready for the next phase of the capture of Italian north Africa. By sending the Australians along the coast towards Benghazi via Barce and both the seventh and fourth Armoured Brigades strait across to the bulge of Cyrene to the coast south of Benghazi to cut off the Italians line of retreat.
To say this ploy was successful would be a real understatement, by the fifth of February the coastal thrust had reached Barce and the Brigades sallying across country had capture Msus. Commencing on the night of the fifth of February a major battle was fought at Beda Fomm as the Italian tenth Army attempted to break through the units of the fourth and seventh Brigades now holding blocking positions.
In a brutally fought battle against great odds the blocking force prevailed and the bulk of the Italian tenth army were forced to surrender.
With Benghazi captured supplies could be shipped forward directly from the delta. The need to get the port up and running again and to basically completely refit the forces under O’Connor would necessitate a delay in any further advance. O’Connor was acutely aware that time was of the essence and that what units he still had capable of manoeuvring in the field needed to be pushed as far west as possible. Meanwhile the RAF were very thankfully taking ownership of the Italian air bases in and around Benghazi.
Despite O’Connor’s remonstrations the Indian forth Division had been withdrawn from his command and was even now begging to commence operations against Italian East Africa in the Sudan. Wavell was apprehensive of another pending visit from Sir Antony Eden this time accompanied by Sir John Dill, Chief of the Imperial General Staff which could result in all his plans and dispositions being changed at short notice. Unless or until the priorities given to Wavell were changed by his political masters the reduction of the Italians in Libya and in Italian East Africa would remain the focus of operations with the establishment of the RAF on Crete in force with an adequate garrison for defence would be the next objective.
The decision by the Polish Government in Exile for the PAC to go to Crete, whilst a logistic headache was a godsend. Since their arrival in Egypt the Polish flyers had been champing at the bit whilst they and their aircraft adapted to the new environment. The chance to punish the enemy even if it was only the Italians was welcomed with a ferocious enthusiasm familiar to those who had fought alongside the Polish squadrons in the summer battles over England. The news that the Luftwaffe were in Scilly and Italy was met with disappointment in these circles but the possibility of the Germans entering Greece was welcomed.
The advent the arrival of Luftwaffe units in Rhodes at the end of January and the laying of mines by HE 111’s of II/KG 26 on the night of the thirtieth of January had real ramifications. The defence of the Port Said and Suez Canal had become a priority for the Polish night fighters and AMES GCI units had been positioned to cover the entire canal, whilst an AMES CH unit could detect approaching enemy aircraft almost from take off on Rhodes. So whilst the attack by He111’s of II/KG 26 was unexpected, they were tracked by RDF as they approached the port and canal.
The biggest surprise of the night was undoubtedly that experienced by the HE 111 crews who found themselves being attacked by night fighters. Whilst the Polish Night fighters had had some success, in definitely destroying one aircraft, damaging another and causing a third to jettison its mine over the desert some mines did fall into the canal. The airborne Magnetic minesweeping Wellingtons managed to explode a number of these mines but a sobering discovery was made when a Naval bomb disposal office came to defuse a mine that had missed the canal and failed to explode when it landed in soft sand nearby. Upon examination it was discovered that this mine had a new combined acoustic/magnetic exploder and that relying on magnetic sweeping would not clear all the mines from the canal. So all ships in the canal were stopped, as a large ship sunk in the canal could have been catastrophic.
Closing the canal was a last resort so a hasty sweeping system was devised but still shipping was brought to a standstill for nearly a week. Mine clearing was greatly helped by the information provided by the AMES site that had tracked the attacking aircraft and could therefore indicate where they had crossed or flown along the canal. Closing the canal for any length of time would have a large negative effect on the logistics of supplying the army in the desert and the Navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Therefore the efforts of the Polish Night Fighters were given a high priority and the two squadrons of Wellingtons with the PAC were tasked to regular attacks on the airfields on Rhodes.
The insistence by the Polish Government in Exile that their RDF AI equipped Beaufighters used by their Night Fighter squadrons were sent with them to the middle east had been justified in a single night, much to the relief of Sir Hugh Dowding who had given his backing to the Polish proposal.
With Benghazi having been captured on the sixth of February, Elements of O’ Connors force pushed forward to El Agheila by the eighth of February where they were instructed to hold in place whilst logistics caught up and the tens of thousands of Italian prisoners processed and sent east.
With Wavell now confirming that no further troops would be taken from O’Connor’s command the race was on to re-equip is units and press on towards Tripoli before the Italians could recover and strengthen their defences. It was now a logistics race, who could get reinforcements and supplies in place first would have a huge advantage. The Italians had to ship everything from Italian ports either north of Scilly and via narrows with Tunisia or south of Scilly passing by Malta. For the British and their allies, first everything had to be shipped to Egypt, then moved over a thousand miles from the delta by a combination of road, rail and coastal shipping. Rail as yet could only take supplies as far as Mertha Matruth, though the New Zealand railway pioneer units were breaking records to push the track west, the rest of the way was by truck or ship. Ships were of course more efficient but only if they had secure ports to dock in. Torbruk was now running at capacity, as were Bomba and Derna for what they were worth. Getting Benghazi operational and providing it with an effective air defence both by fighters and anti aircraft guns was now to be a major priority.
