2210
April 28th, 1941
British journalists, never short of slogans, nickname this day the Get away day, the day of the Débandade. While this is only partly true - and totally false for one of the three Iraqi fronts - historians across the Channel have ratified this name, which still hangs around in most books written on the subject.
.........
"French" Front (North) - The sporadic clashes that opposed, on the night of the 27th, the advanced elements of the three Larminat GTs to the stopper set up in front of Kirkuk airfield by the 2nd Iraqi Division ceases around 00:30 hours. The bursts of the 20 mm Vierlinge of Pfiffelsdörfer's Kampfgruppe fall silent at 01:15.
In fact, the evacuation of the German units has already begun. Authorized by Berlin around 23:15 in a message in clear text, "Aunt Irmtraud und Aunt Theresa erwarten die Neffen" (Aunt Irmtraud and Aunt Theresa are waiting for their nephews), the operation starts shortly after midnight, in small motorized groups. The leaders of the cars and trucks are given photo reproductions of the maps of Iraq with Carl Zeiss and Leitz cameras of the Bilderklärungsektion* of the base. Each vehicle is autonomous and has to choose its own route to Turkey (Çukurca) or Iran (Khosravi), where Mr. Régnier and Mr. Gulbrandsson have rushed (the vehicle leaders know that help is waiting for them, but of course they don't know who should take care of them). The departures, lights off, are staggered from 00:15 to 01:25. Pfiffelsdörfer believes that this deliberate dispersal would bring the best chances of success.
All the equipment is destroyed or sabotaged, except for the four Vierlinge in service which fire until the last second. Their ammunition reserves are doused with acid intended to recharge the batteries to make them unusable. The work is so well done that the DML will only recover, besides the four Vierlinge (with a sighting system demolished with a hammer) a small quantity of 20 mm shells (in all, less than two units of fire), six Mauser 98-K rifles, two Lugers, three MP-40s, three trucks fit for scrap and...a box of powdered sulphuric acid and pills.
When the vanguards of the three GTs set off again, shortly after sunrise, they find the air base in a state of disrepair, due as much to sabotage and voluntary destruction as much as to the air attacks. It will take a lot of work before the FAML will be able to move in. The Franco-British also realize that the 2nd Division had shown its usual cohesion. It uses the night to re-establish itself in the rear along the Rukhana River (a tributary of the Tigris). This is certainly not a get away, but a well-conducted retreat: since 22:30 only four Iraqis, three wounded and one deserter, have been taken prisoner.
06:50 - Two trucks carrying Brandenburgers and Fallschirmjägers get lost in the night. They find their way back with the dawn and take again the direction of the northeast, but they will run into the 1st CPLE headquarters, where commander de Kuhlbach and twenty legionnaires, almost all of them German-speaking are staying at. The latter faces up to the situation without panicking, satisfied even to be finally facing their real Enemy. The confrontation is as brief as violent, marked by exchanges of invectives that Homer would have appreciated (although they are uttered in the language of Gœthe). Half an hour later, the legionnaires count four dead and eight wounded, including commander de Kuhlbach, who was hit in the arm while throwing a grenade. The attackers leave seven dead and one wounded person who could not be transported, as well as a burned truck. The others, either unharmed or slightly wounded, escape at full speed to the east-northeast in the remaining truck. They are not pursued, the legionnaires leaving the air force to deal with the fugitives.
08:00 - Massiet and Larminat confer by telephone. In view of the political situation, they decide that the DML will be content to border the Rukhana, without trying to cross it. The next two days will have to be devoted to the repair of the Kirkuk airstrip and clearing the rubble from the facilities so that FAML, or at least one of its two groups, can be stationed there. In agreement with Massiet, Larminat decides that the divisional engineering companies, the personnel available in the two CPLE groups (relying on the tradition of the legionnaires builders) and the Levant battalion will be assigned to this task. In fact, the DML needs a break, to overhaul its equipment** and reorganize its logistics: from Damascus to Kirkuk, the line of communication has become disproportionately long, logistics are struggling and the absence of a real transport aviation in the Middle East has never been so noticeable, despite the efforts of the Amiot and other converted Farmans.
- Wait quietly for the English, old man, since they want to come and help out," squeaks Massiet. "No need to kill people. We hold the oil region. Let's stay there and play bridge while drinking cool.
- At your orders, General," replies Larminat. "I agree with you.
- And keep an eye on your Arbuthnot. With our friends, one must always expect whatever shenanigans. In this area, they have imagination in spades.
- I'll keep them in check, General."
Mosul - Like the DML, the FAML needs a break. With the exception of two high altitude reconnaissance missions in the morning and late afternoon, all the planes are confined to the airfield, many for repairs and all for overhaul.
Paul Stehlin is aware of the fatigue of his crews and the ground staff.
In a report to the staff in Algiers, of which he sends a copy to Massiet and Larminat, he indicates that even before the end of the current campaign, it is necessary to consider, in addition to sending reinforcements, the replacement of at least half of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men who, for the most part, have not had any real leave since April 1940 and are at the end of their physical and moral resources. Some of them had been successively in Palestine, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Rhodes, before coming back to Lebanon, all in often precarious conditions of comfort.
Whatever employment the command envisages for my two groups," he writes without hiding the truth,"it must be said that they are currently at 60% - at best - of their potential. I believe they are unfit for further use in active operations until two months after their physical and mental fitness has been restored, provided they are provided with fresh personnel and new aircraft."
.........
Fallujah (Central Front) - The last elements of the 1st and 3rd Iraqi Divisions are withdrawing on the road to Baghdad, west of the capital. Counting on the Iraqis to ignore the disproportion of forces in their favor, Major-General Clark chooses to cautiously advance part of his force towards the capital, while the most mobile elements have to branch off to the northeast to reach out to the DML, but also to open a second axis of attack on Baghdad.
For its part, the Arab Legion moves northward to the vast region of Jezirah, located between the Euphrates and Tigris, to incite the tribes to rebel against Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. This is the moment chosen by the Iraqi air force, which had hardly been thought of before, to show up again. A dozen planes (a few Nisr, two Gladiators, two Breda 65s and three Douglas 8A-4s) bomb and strafe without much profit. A self-propelled gun, however, is destroyed by a lucky bomb that pierces the engine shutters and sets fire to the fuel. The Habbaniyah Gladiators, called to help, arrive too late to intercept the Iraqis. The latter withdraw to a makeshift airfield at Al Miqdadiyah (northeast of Baghdad).
Furious, Smart launches a raid on Rasheed in the afternoon. But the base is in such a state that the allied planes can hardly spot the intact planes among the wrecks. Two Italian CR.42 are nevertheless destroyed.
.........
Southern Iraq - The 4th Iraqi Division retreats by any means necessary, too fast, in most cases, for the brigades of Slim's 10th Indian Division to catch up. Indeed, despite the river convoys being pushed full steam ahead on the Tigris and the Euphrates, a noria of trucks and the use of the railroads, the British logistics take time to keep up. The information gathered by the Intelligence Officers from the prisoners indicate that the Iraqi command hopes to re-establish itself on a line Kut - Dalma marshes - Ad Daghaharah, whose first works, entrusted to fellahs requisitioned without mercy, have begun with the advice left by the German specialists before their departure.
Some of Shaibah's Gladiators operate from a makeshift site near Ar Rifai. Without tiring, they attack the Iraqi columns, where civilian and military trucks of various ages and origins, horses, mules and even dromedaries, which hardly find any possibilities to camouflage themselves in the open country.
.........
London, 12:00 - The Foreign Office spokesman, Hon. Matthew Burnham-Sanders, is holding his daily briefing for accredited journalists. He suggests, for those who know how to decode his language, that developments in the Iraqi crisis may soon lead Britain to redraw the political map of the Middle East. "Britain and its allies" he specifies for form's sake, with a pout that can only be acquired after studying at Eton and Oxford and long years spent in the service of His Majesty.
Algiers, 17:00 - Secret telegram from General de Gaulle, Minister of National Defense, to General Massiet: "If France does not have the goal to occupy Iraq, you will not hold back to evacuate the northern provinces before all - I repeat all - Franco-British disputes, especially over oil, have been settled. Keep an eye on the activities of the Americans, who, we were told, would play a murky game in the region. Be prepared, if need be, to garrison Mosul and Kirkuk for weeks, if not months."
.........
Turkish-Iraqi border, 23:25 - A large Humber limousine occupied by two Brandenburgers, including Feldwebel Dieter Plattenkreutz, group leader, and two Fallschirmjägers, all four in uniform, arrives at the Nusaybin border crossing. They had left Kirkuk in a beat-up Austin van and had exchanged their vehicle for a more efficient means of transportation. The small gifts that Mr. Régnier distributed without holding back to the policemen produce their usual effect and the soldiers ae taken with discretion by a civilian-looking truck to Çukurca. A collection base is organized there for the Germans in retreat.
The Humber, plates changed, will complete the remuneration of a lieutenant-colonel of the gendarmerie of Ankara.
* Photo interpretation section, which had to be fed by the photos taken by Bf 110 equipped with a camera instead of the guns.
** On average, ten man-days of work would be required to refurbish each R-35 and four to refurbish each truck.
British journalists, never short of slogans, nickname this day the Get away day, the day of the Débandade. While this is only partly true - and totally false for one of the three Iraqi fronts - historians across the Channel have ratified this name, which still hangs around in most books written on the subject.
.........
"French" Front (North) - The sporadic clashes that opposed, on the night of the 27th, the advanced elements of the three Larminat GTs to the stopper set up in front of Kirkuk airfield by the 2nd Iraqi Division ceases around 00:30 hours. The bursts of the 20 mm Vierlinge of Pfiffelsdörfer's Kampfgruppe fall silent at 01:15.
In fact, the evacuation of the German units has already begun. Authorized by Berlin around 23:15 in a message in clear text, "Aunt Irmtraud und Aunt Theresa erwarten die Neffen" (Aunt Irmtraud and Aunt Theresa are waiting for their nephews), the operation starts shortly after midnight, in small motorized groups. The leaders of the cars and trucks are given photo reproductions of the maps of Iraq with Carl Zeiss and Leitz cameras of the Bilderklärungsektion* of the base. Each vehicle is autonomous and has to choose its own route to Turkey (Çukurca) or Iran (Khosravi), where Mr. Régnier and Mr. Gulbrandsson have rushed (the vehicle leaders know that help is waiting for them, but of course they don't know who should take care of them). The departures, lights off, are staggered from 00:15 to 01:25. Pfiffelsdörfer believes that this deliberate dispersal would bring the best chances of success.
All the equipment is destroyed or sabotaged, except for the four Vierlinge in service which fire until the last second. Their ammunition reserves are doused with acid intended to recharge the batteries to make them unusable. The work is so well done that the DML will only recover, besides the four Vierlinge (with a sighting system demolished with a hammer) a small quantity of 20 mm shells (in all, less than two units of fire), six Mauser 98-K rifles, two Lugers, three MP-40s, three trucks fit for scrap and...a box of powdered sulphuric acid and pills.
When the vanguards of the three GTs set off again, shortly after sunrise, they find the air base in a state of disrepair, due as much to sabotage and voluntary destruction as much as to the air attacks. It will take a lot of work before the FAML will be able to move in. The Franco-British also realize that the 2nd Division had shown its usual cohesion. It uses the night to re-establish itself in the rear along the Rukhana River (a tributary of the Tigris). This is certainly not a get away, but a well-conducted retreat: since 22:30 only four Iraqis, three wounded and one deserter, have been taken prisoner.
06:50 - Two trucks carrying Brandenburgers and Fallschirmjägers get lost in the night. They find their way back with the dawn and take again the direction of the northeast, but they will run into the 1st CPLE headquarters, where commander de Kuhlbach and twenty legionnaires, almost all of them German-speaking are staying at. The latter faces up to the situation without panicking, satisfied even to be finally facing their real Enemy. The confrontation is as brief as violent, marked by exchanges of invectives that Homer would have appreciated (although they are uttered in the language of Gœthe). Half an hour later, the legionnaires count four dead and eight wounded, including commander de Kuhlbach, who was hit in the arm while throwing a grenade. The attackers leave seven dead and one wounded person who could not be transported, as well as a burned truck. The others, either unharmed or slightly wounded, escape at full speed to the east-northeast in the remaining truck. They are not pursued, the legionnaires leaving the air force to deal with the fugitives.
08:00 - Massiet and Larminat confer by telephone. In view of the political situation, they decide that the DML will be content to border the Rukhana, without trying to cross it. The next two days will have to be devoted to the repair of the Kirkuk airstrip and clearing the rubble from the facilities so that FAML, or at least one of its two groups, can be stationed there. In agreement with Massiet, Larminat decides that the divisional engineering companies, the personnel available in the two CPLE groups (relying on the tradition of the legionnaires builders) and the Levant battalion will be assigned to this task. In fact, the DML needs a break, to overhaul its equipment** and reorganize its logistics: from Damascus to Kirkuk, the line of communication has become disproportionately long, logistics are struggling and the absence of a real transport aviation in the Middle East has never been so noticeable, despite the efforts of the Amiot and other converted Farmans.
- Wait quietly for the English, old man, since they want to come and help out," squeaks Massiet. "No need to kill people. We hold the oil region. Let's stay there and play bridge while drinking cool.
- At your orders, General," replies Larminat. "I agree with you.
- And keep an eye on your Arbuthnot. With our friends, one must always expect whatever shenanigans. In this area, they have imagination in spades.
- I'll keep them in check, General."
Mosul - Like the DML, the FAML needs a break. With the exception of two high altitude reconnaissance missions in the morning and late afternoon, all the planes are confined to the airfield, many for repairs and all for overhaul.
Paul Stehlin is aware of the fatigue of his crews and the ground staff.
In a report to the staff in Algiers, of which he sends a copy to Massiet and Larminat, he indicates that even before the end of the current campaign, it is necessary to consider, in addition to sending reinforcements, the replacement of at least half of the officers, non-commissioned officers and men who, for the most part, have not had any real leave since April 1940 and are at the end of their physical and moral resources. Some of them had been successively in Palestine, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Rhodes, before coming back to Lebanon, all in often precarious conditions of comfort.
Whatever employment the command envisages for my two groups," he writes without hiding the truth,"it must be said that they are currently at 60% - at best - of their potential. I believe they are unfit for further use in active operations until two months after their physical and mental fitness has been restored, provided they are provided with fresh personnel and new aircraft."
.........
Fallujah (Central Front) - The last elements of the 1st and 3rd Iraqi Divisions are withdrawing on the road to Baghdad, west of the capital. Counting on the Iraqis to ignore the disproportion of forces in their favor, Major-General Clark chooses to cautiously advance part of his force towards the capital, while the most mobile elements have to branch off to the northeast to reach out to the DML, but also to open a second axis of attack on Baghdad.
For its part, the Arab Legion moves northward to the vast region of Jezirah, located between the Euphrates and Tigris, to incite the tribes to rebel against Rashid Ali al-Gaylani. This is the moment chosen by the Iraqi air force, which had hardly been thought of before, to show up again. A dozen planes (a few Nisr, two Gladiators, two Breda 65s and three Douglas 8A-4s) bomb and strafe without much profit. A self-propelled gun, however, is destroyed by a lucky bomb that pierces the engine shutters and sets fire to the fuel. The Habbaniyah Gladiators, called to help, arrive too late to intercept the Iraqis. The latter withdraw to a makeshift airfield at Al Miqdadiyah (northeast of Baghdad).
Furious, Smart launches a raid on Rasheed in the afternoon. But the base is in such a state that the allied planes can hardly spot the intact planes among the wrecks. Two Italian CR.42 are nevertheless destroyed.
.........
Southern Iraq - The 4th Iraqi Division retreats by any means necessary, too fast, in most cases, for the brigades of Slim's 10th Indian Division to catch up. Indeed, despite the river convoys being pushed full steam ahead on the Tigris and the Euphrates, a noria of trucks and the use of the railroads, the British logistics take time to keep up. The information gathered by the Intelligence Officers from the prisoners indicate that the Iraqi command hopes to re-establish itself on a line Kut - Dalma marshes - Ad Daghaharah, whose first works, entrusted to fellahs requisitioned without mercy, have begun with the advice left by the German specialists before their departure.
Some of Shaibah's Gladiators operate from a makeshift site near Ar Rifai. Without tiring, they attack the Iraqi columns, where civilian and military trucks of various ages and origins, horses, mules and even dromedaries, which hardly find any possibilities to camouflage themselves in the open country.
.........
London, 12:00 - The Foreign Office spokesman, Hon. Matthew Burnham-Sanders, is holding his daily briefing for accredited journalists. He suggests, for those who know how to decode his language, that developments in the Iraqi crisis may soon lead Britain to redraw the political map of the Middle East. "Britain and its allies" he specifies for form's sake, with a pout that can only be acquired after studying at Eton and Oxford and long years spent in the service of His Majesty.
Algiers, 17:00 - Secret telegram from General de Gaulle, Minister of National Defense, to General Massiet: "If France does not have the goal to occupy Iraq, you will not hold back to evacuate the northern provinces before all - I repeat all - Franco-British disputes, especially over oil, have been settled. Keep an eye on the activities of the Americans, who, we were told, would play a murky game in the region. Be prepared, if need be, to garrison Mosul and Kirkuk for weeks, if not months."
.........
Turkish-Iraqi border, 23:25 - A large Humber limousine occupied by two Brandenburgers, including Feldwebel Dieter Plattenkreutz, group leader, and two Fallschirmjägers, all four in uniform, arrives at the Nusaybin border crossing. They had left Kirkuk in a beat-up Austin van and had exchanged their vehicle for a more efficient means of transportation. The small gifts that Mr. Régnier distributed without holding back to the policemen produce their usual effect and the soldiers ae taken with discretion by a civilian-looking truck to Çukurca. A collection base is organized there for the Germans in retreat.
The Humber, plates changed, will complete the remuneration of a lieutenant-colonel of the gendarmerie of Ankara.
* Photo interpretation section, which had to be fed by the photos taken by Bf 110 equipped with a camera instead of the guns.
** On average, ten man-days of work would be required to refurbish each R-35 and four to refurbish each truck.