Fantasque Time Line (France Fights On) - English Translation

[Wings]

March 27th, 1941

Washington - Signature of the "ABCF-1" staff agreement between the United States, Great Britain, France and Australia.
The agreement (which obviously remains secret since the United States are still officially neutral) stipulates that "the Euro-Atlantic region is the decisive military theater. The principal military effort of the United States will be exercised in this theater (...)". Having promised to "defeat Hitler first", the American government indicates that in case Japan attacks France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Australia (or, of course, the United States), the American Pacific Fleet would "support defensive operations on the Singapore-Saigon line by attacks against the Marshall Islands and raids against Japanese naval communications and Japanese positions. The Asiatic Fleet would operate in coordination with the British, French and Dutch navies. In this eventuality, the French delegation agrees to place the Forces Navales françaises d'Extrême-Orient (FNEO) - at that time two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, several large avisos and nine submarines - under British command.

 

[Wings]

March 27th, 1941

Rome - Mussolini agrees to the "plan for armed intervention in Iraq" that the Chief of Staff of the Regia Aeronautica, Francesco Pricolo, has just prepared on his orders. Under
this martial name hides a relatively limited operation: the sending to Baghdad of a squadron of Fiat CR.42 fighters, transported one by one (and dismantled) in the vast cargo holds of the SM.82.
The presence in the ranks of the Iraqi air force of mechanics trained on Fiat engines should facilitate the reassembly and subsequent maintenance of these aircraft, which will be accompanied by an Italian maintenance team. This is not the kind of action Jeschonnek had in mind when he asked for Italian help, but the descendants of the Romans are not going to be satisfied with lending cargo planes to the Germans!

 

[Wings]

March 27th, 1941

Central Atlantic - The Kormoran meets the submarines U-105 and U-106. Captain Detmers receives with obvious relief a new load of special alloy. In exchange, he gives the submariners a map of the defensive minefields of the port of Freetown captured on a tanker that had been boarded a short time earlier.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

North: Australians and French - Amba Alagi - Faced with the coordinated action of the French and Australian troops, Mount Triangle falls at 08:00. The defenders have no choice but to withdraw to Amba Alagi itself. The heart of the stronghold is now completely surrounded. However, the assault of the main position is going to be costly.
However, there will be no battle for Amba Alagi. At noon, an emissary of General Frusci, Colonel Tramontano, is received by General Lavarack. The Italian officer's mission is to obtain a truce to allow the evacuation of the many Italian wounded. After having warned La Ménardière, Lavarack replies that it is impossible for him to accede to this request if the entire garrison does not capitulate.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

Washington, D.C - Several special Franco-American agreements are signed in the wake of the ABCF-1 agreement on the Far East.
In exchange for the concession to the US Navy of stopover rights at Fort-de-France, Nouméa and Tahiti, the French Navy obtains 100 G-36B (F4F-4) for delivery to the Aéronavale before May 1942 (this order is in addition to the 50 aircraft of the same type ordered in January). In addition, the US government agrees to the delivery or transfer to the French Navy of four modern Farragut-class destroyers to the French Navy: the Alwyn, Dale, Dewey and Macdonough will be renamed respectively Le Corsaire, Le Flibustier, Le Téméraire and L'Aventurier. In addition, four merchant ships under construction by Sun Shipbuilding will be converted into escort carriers to compensate for the loss of the Béarn.
The first ship is to be available by the end of 1941. Finally, 24 PC-boats (173 feet) and 24 PT-boats (Higgins class), intended for coastal missions in the Mediterranean, will be delivered to the French Navy.
Another agreement signed that day concerns aviation and covers the "infiltration" practices of USAAC personnel in the Armée de l'Air. The latter now uses a large majority of
of American-made aircraft and with a wealth of experience in fighting with these aircraft, the American government accepts to "infiltrate" under the mask of the Foreign Legion some USAAC pilots, navigators, gunners, bombers... into the French combatant groups. This infiltration facilitates a certain rotation of the French crews, helping the French Armée de l'Air to send experienced personnel as instructors to the training units, to prepare a new generation. For its part, the USAAC benefits from first-hand operational experience. This process is officially approved by an unpublished executive order from President Roosevelt himself.
The infiltration operation is to start with the GC II/5, heir to the traditions of the Lafayette squadron, formed during the First World War with American volunteers.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

Baghdad - Former Iraqi Prime Minister Rashid Ali al-Gaylani is entertaining some friends at his villa, still poorly guarded. Indeed, despite the warnings of Colonel Carbury, who is still worried about the situation in Iraq, Major Patrick O'Flanaghan, Royal Marines, acting boss of MI-6 between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, does not believe that Rachid Ali -" a balloon inflated, he says, with petroleum gas" - could pose any danger.
The major, a true Irishman, is not named Patrick or O'Flanaghan. But his stint in the Erin police force during the worst of the clashes between the British and independence supporters made so many enemies that his superiors thought it best to disguise his identity. He replaces for a few months an MI-6 officer more experienced than him, Lieutenant-Colonel Angus Mac Whirter, of the Royal Scots Greys, an expert in explosives, whom his cousin Lord Lovat had urgently called back to Scotland to review the training of his No. 4 Commando after various mishaps that occurred during the raid on the Lofoten Islands. As for Major O'Flanaghan, he is generally considered to have more talent for action than for intelligence.
The composition of tonight's meeting would, however, disturb his serenity, for the friends hosted by Rachid Ali are almost all from the Golden Square. These plotters take for truth the promises aligned by Herr Grobba, guest of honor. It is true that the special envoy from Berlin distributed to them bundles of sterlings with the effigy of King George VI. The bundles of tickets travelled by train through Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest, before crossing the Black Sea by steam from Constantza to Istanbul, and then again by train to Ankara, where they were loaded onto two Turkish cement trucks en route to Baghdad via Mosul.
But the meeting does not go quite as well as Mr. Grobba had hoped. Despite his calls for caution and promises of "more and more" German aid over time, the conspirators are determined to launch their movement as quickly as possible - and not, as Hitler hoped, in coordination with the German offensive against the USSR. They are delighted to have learned of the arrival of elite German troops in Albania, they are certain that they will drive the Allies out of the Balkans and want to take advantage of the situation, especially since they fear that the regent Abd al-Ilah, despite his indolence, will have them arrested. The latter could indeed take advantage of the beginning of a reversal of the country's public opinion in the face of the serious defeats suffered by the Italians in Africa and the Mediterranean, which the success of Operation Merkur has not erased. Moreover, they may be overestimating the quality of the Iraqi troops who should be supporting them: "Thank you for giving us the funds we lacked and for the technical support you will provide," says Rachid Ali to Grobba. "As for the men, we have them!"
Speaking of men, Major O'Flanaghan has not quite wasted his time since his arrival. He managed to have one of his agents, Selim Bassidj, infiltrate the Golden Square, who fears, not without reason, that pan-Arabism may degenerate into pan-Islamism. This one, who attends the meeting, sees with concern the war coming closer to his country.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

Brest - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau enter port without further mishap. The bow of the Scharnhorst will be repaired in a few weeks in the Laninon basin and the Gneisenau, which needs some minor repairs and a scheduled overhaul of its machinery, must put briefly in dry dock. This is the end of Operation Berlin.
Two of the most beautiful jewels of the Kriegsmarine are now somewhat stuck in Brest, under the nose of the Royal Air Force, all for an unfortunate score of 13 sunken merchant ships. Raeder needsall his diplomacy to explain to Hitler that the fault lay with the number of large ships in the Royal Navy, which was free to concentrate on Germany, since (he said with some exaggeration) the French were enough to subdue the Italians...

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

United States, East Coast - Since the end of November 1940, the Italian authorities feared a toughening of the position of certain neutral countries. These fears begin to be confirmed today, the United States having decided to freeze a certain number of merchant ships blocked in their ports since June 1940. The first to be affected by this measure are the three cargo ships Belvedere (6,889 GRT), Clara (6,131 GRT) and Confidenza (6,458 GRT), seized respectively in Philadelphia, Savannah and Jacksonville. Only the crew of the Clara has time to sabotage its vessel, which will only delay its entry into service for the United States (under Panamanian flag, like the two other cargo ships and most of those that follow).
.........
Brazil - On the same day, the first two ships blocked in Brazilian ports since Italy's entry into the war, the oil tankers Franco Martelli (10,535 GRT, 14 knots), of the Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (AGIP) and Frisco (4,902 GRT, 11 knots) leave Recife and Fortaleza respectively to reach Saint-Nazaire.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

Indochina - A French squadron sails from Cam Ranh and begins to comb the Gulf of Siam to interdict any new delivery of Japanese arms to Thailand. It brings together most of the French Naval Forces of the Far East. This force, consisting of light cruisers Duguay-Trouin, Lamotte-Picquet and Primauguet (6th cruiser division), the destroyers Léopard, Lynx, Panthère and Tigre (4th division of destroyers) and the destroyes Ouragan, Simoun, Tramontane and Typhon (7th division), is commanded by CV Régis Bérenger.
Indeed, Rear Admiral Jules Terraux, who at the beginning of the year was in command of the naval forces in Indochina, became commander of the French Navy in the Far East when Admiral Decoux was appointed governor of Indochina. He should have had to hand over command at sea to Rear Admiral Jacques Avice, who arrived with the Duguay-Trouin and the Lamotte-Picquet, but he had to be hospitalized a few days earlier, victim of a serious case of malaria*. This is why Terraux entrusted the squadron to the CV Bérenger, flag captain of the CA Avice, who was familiar with the waters of the Far East and is the oldest of the captains of vessels present.

* It will finally be necessary to "repatriate" him to Algeria.

 

[Wings]

March 28th, 1941

Off the Faraman lighthouse (Camargue) - It is the turn of the submarine HMS Utmost (Lt-Cdr. R.D. Cayley) to be successful: despite the presence of an escort, it succeeds in sinking the German cargo ship Heraklea (1927 GRT) which was going from Barcelona to Marseille.

 

[Wings]

March 29th, 1941

North: Australians and French - Amba Alagi - General Volpini takes over the negotiations on behalf of General Frusci. A "capitulation with honor" is finally accepted. In exchange for the surrender of the stronghold without further destruction, the Italian troops are granted the honors of war.
It is then that the Allies learn that, although Amba Alagi's defense potential was still almost intact, an anonymous Australian artilleryman struck a fatal blow by destroying a gasoline pipe: indeed, the fuel went to pollute the only source of drinking water of the garrison. Without water, the situation of the defenders, from difficult, became desperate.

 

[Wings]

March 29th, 1941

Phnom-Penh - Violent Thai air attack against the airfield. Some MS-406 fighters try to intercept the attackers, although they were alerted late. They lose three aircraft to the much more numerous Thai Nakajima Ki-27.
RAF Sqn 243, just trained at Seletar on Brewster Buffalo, redeploys to Saigon-Tan-Son-Nhut.

 

[Wings]

March 29th, 1941

Albania - The Italian forces, hard pressed, withdraw to the north bank of the Shkumbin river, where are grouped surviving units of this first month of fighting, scattered and exhausted, and fresh divisions arrived from Italy (2nd Alpine Division Tridentina, what remains of the 47th ID Bari and part of the 48th ID Taro), which are deployed in great disorder.
These troops form a defensive line between Peqin and Elbasan. Fugitives, mingling with the civilians, flow into Tirana and Durres. In the east, heterogeneous elements try to stop the Greco-British in the Librajd pass; repulsed after a desperate resistance, they are encircled in Librajd. In the west, the British armored corps progresses slowly and methodically, making its way over the muddy terrain.
The Greek Cavalry Division should have supported the tanks' advance towards Durres, but an order, the exact origin of which is disputed, diverted it towards Cërriku and Elbasan, leaving a gap between the Allied vanguards*. This gap does not escape Rommel's observers...
For the first time, the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica launch massive raids against RAF-occupied areas in Albania and northern Greece. The Stukas of the Xth FliegerKorps bomb British positions in central Albania.
.........
Oran - The first elements of the 1st DC embark on the transports which are to take them to Piraeus.

* The Greek horsemen would have received the order, either from general in chief Papagos, or directly from Prime Minister Koryzis, to march on Tirana rather than on Durrës in order to establish there a provisional pro-Greek authority which would have accepted the cession to Greece of what the Greeks name Northern Epirus (Komninos Pyromaglou: The Trojan Horse. The national and political crisis during the occupation, Athens, 1958).

 

[Wings]

March 29th, 1941

Adriatic - The submarine RHS Proteus (CC M. Hadjiconstantis), which has just relieved the Triton, intercepts a new Durazzo-Brindisi convoy, 40 nautical miles east of the latter
port. Its commander does not skimp and launched by its front tubes a spray of four torpedoes, two of which hit and sink the liner Sardegna (11,452 GRT). Unfortunately, the lightening caused by the departure of the torpedoes is badly compensated and the bow of the Proteus briefly breaks the surface. One of the escorts, the torpedo boat Antares (LV Senese)*, then directs its fire on it. Its first salvo of depth charges damages the submersible, which has to emerge. Very maneuverable, the Antares returns without delay to its prey and rams it: the Proteus disappears with all hands.
After recovering the survivors of the liner (the loss of life was relatively light, the Sardegna was only carrying its crew and a few passengers, again because it was a return trip), the torpedo boat joins Brindisi. It will be unavailable for several weeks, the time to repair its damaged bow.

* Unit of the Spica class. Belonging to the 12th squadron (2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla), the Antares should have participated in Merkur, but machinery problems kept it in Messina. Once these were repaired, it was sent to reinforce the escort of the Italy-Albania convoys.

 

[Wings]

March 30th, 1941

North: Australians and French - Amba Alagi - In application of the agreements made, the Italian troops are honored by detachments of the 7th AIF Division and Groupement M. The Australian divisional band plays, among others, The flowers of the forest to accompany the parade of Italian troops: 185 officers (including several generals) and 4,600 soldiers.
"March 30th was considered a historic day," notes La Ménardière. "Perhaps it was, but seeing the Italian survivors march past, one can only feel compassion."
.........
South Central: the East African offensive - From Addis Ababa to Dalle and Gimma - The first Column of 22nd East African Brigade captures Bubissa and cuts the Sciasciamanna-Soddu road. However, an Italian counter-attack forces it to retreat to the Gidu River.

 

[Wings]

March 30th, 1941

Adriatic - Once its mines are laid, the HMS Rorqual heads northwest, to the height of Montenegro. It spots and attacks a small convoy Venice (Marghera)- Durazzo, composed of the single tanker Laura Corrado (3,645 GRT) escorted by the torpedo boats Palestro and Ernesto Giovannini. Its attack is successful: the tanker is sunk while Commander Dewhurst withdraws his ship from the escorts' reaction.
Not far from there, in the southeast of the Montenegrin port of Antivari (Bar), the submarine RHS Katsonis (CF Ath. Spanidis) dispatches the small cargo ship Nuraghe (633 GRT), which was carrying out, without escort, a commercial link between Albania and Yugoslavia.

 

[Wings]

March 31st, 1941

Baghdad - The regent Abd al-Ilah, warned of the plot of the Golden Square by his argousins - whom he trusts only moderately - and by the American consulate - which he does not like but considers credible - flees the capital and takes refuge in the Royal Air Force base of Habbaniyah, some eighty kilometres from Baghdad. The British, who are keen to keep him in good health but consider him rather cumbersome, immediately exfiltrate him by plane to the Shaibah base, near Basra.
After some hesitation about the best accommodation for their host - "about the best waiting-room", Wavell wrote in a report - the regent and his small suite are taken, still by plane, to Amman*. They will stay there in a palace, in fact a plush villa, but nothing more, lent by Emir Abdallah, the regent's brother.
Coming out of his abulia for once, Abd al-Ilah promises the worst punishments to his enemies.
Thanks to Reuters and then to Havas Libre, his threats are known to them the very next day.

* The transfer to the gunboat HMS Cockchafer, cruising in the Persian Gulf, was a very practical solution, but less comfortable.

 

[Wings]

March 31st, 1941

Battle of Koh-Chang - While the Thai troops are advancing towards Sisophon, the Bérenger squadron (three light cruisers, four destroyers and four torpedo boats) surprise the fleet near the island of Koh-Chang. The large coastal defence ships Dhonburi and Sri Ayudhya are sunk*, as well as the three torpedo boats Chonburi, Songhkli and Trad. Later, the aviso Tachin is sent to the bottom by the submarine Bévéziers (CC Pierre Lancelot).
The Thai fleet is practically wiped out**! This feat earns Régis Bérenger the title of Rear Admiral a few weeks later.
During the day, RThAF (Royal Thai Air Force) aircraft counter-attack. The pilots are probably Japanese and are all the more furious because several Japanese naval officers had been killed on board the Thai ships. The Lamotte-Picquet is damaged by two 125 kg bombs and the Duguay-Trouin is hit by a third. The Lamotte-Picquet has to be sent to Singapore for three weeks of repairs, escorted by the four destroyers of the 7th Division. The Duguay-Trouin is more lightly hit, but it is able to hold its position (it will be repaired only after the end of the "Spring incident").

Thai torpedo boat HTMS Chonburi, Battle of Koh-Chang, 1941

* The Sri Ayudhia was refloated a year later with the help of the Japanese.
** This does not prevent Thai historiography from affirming very seriously that the battle of Koh-Chang was a victory for the Thai fleet, since the impious Westerners did not invade "the sacred territory of the Fatherland".

 

[Wings]

March 31st, 1941

Greece - The French expeditionary corps now numbers more than 30,000 men. Partly constituted from the Groupement Mobile des Forces du Levant of General Dentz, it is renamed "Armée d'Orient" for obvious propaganda reasons, in reference to the glorious precedent of the Great War. The army general Henri Giraud, a prestigious leader, takes the lead, with General Pierre Dentz as his deputy.
In barely a month, the services and support units set up a main base in Piraeus, where the main ships carrying troops and especially heavy equipment are unloaded, and they have begun to set up an advanced base in Larissa, with the necessary field hospitals, repair shops, and other fuel and ammunition depots. In order not to be completely dependent on the Athens-Larissa railroad line, which was already saturated, since it supports all the supplies of the allied armies engaged in Albania, the French army organizes a maritime link with small coasters between Athens and Volos.
The combat units that regrouped north of Larissa, along the Aliakmon line, include :
- General Sarrade's 191st DIA (with three infantry regiments, the 24th RMIC, 12th and 16th RTT; one artillery regiment, the 41st RAC with three 75-group towed guns; and the 191st GRDI);
- the 6th GRCA under General Clouet des Perruches (with, in particular, four squadrons of self-propelled guns, a squadron of mounted dragoons and an anti-tank battalion);
- the 149th RAL (with two groups of 155 L18 guns);
- the 14th DBLE;
- the first elements of the 1st DC.
The remainder of the 1st DC and the entire 4th DMM are being embarked or transported and are due to join the Armée d'Orient in the following weeks.
The operational units of the Armée d'Orient are due to move to their area of operations in April, in the north of the allied system: depending on the situation at that moment, they will have to deploy to Thrace to block a German advance via Bulgaria, or to move up the Varda valley towards Skoplje to lend a hand to the Yugoslav army, or finally to garrison the defences of the Mount Olympus area.

 

[Wings]

March 31st, 1941

Adriatic - While Greece has only been at war for a month and a half, coordination between the three allied navies is not yet perfect. Each being unaware of the other's presence, the Rorqual and the Katsonis find themselves together off the Albanian port of San Giovanni di Medua. It is the British submarine that first spots its fellow whale, which had come to the surface. In the fading daylight, Commander Dewhurst, convinced of having to deal with an Italian submarine, goes on the attack without hesitation. By chance (and thanks to an excellent lookout, which spots the wakes of the first pair), the Katsonis manages to avoid, by maneuvering tightly, the four torpedoes that the Rorqual shot at it in two goes. Commander Spanidis does not doubt that he has been attacked by an Italian submersible; it is only much later that the unfortunate truth will be known...