10 March 1941. Athens, Greece.
The arrival of the forward party of 1st Armoured Brigade had reinforced for the British Military Mission in Athens the problems of Operation Lustre. Sending a British Expeditionary Force to Greece was looking more and more difficult. The mining of the Suez Canal had closed it again, so that some of the ships necessary to bring the troops from Egypt weren’t able to enter the Mediterranean. This would slow the planned build-up of the forces.
The reconnaissance troops from 1st Armoured Brigade, working in civilian clothes and borrowing civilian transport, reported that the roads up to the Aliakmon Line would be almost impossible for the cruiser tanks to use. They asked explicitly if anyone in General Wilson’s command had actually looked at the situation? It seemed to the men on the ground that the planning had been done using large scale maps, and possibly some aerial photography. Not only were the roads unsuitable, it was noted that the passage of tanks would likely destroy them more or less completely for anyone following them.
The alternative was to move the tanks by rail to Larissa, but the Greek railway was already under a great deal of pressure. It wasn’t clear whether the railway had enough flat cars to be able to move the tanks. Worse was the news that far fewer of the promised Greek Battalions were actually manning the Aliakmon Line. There were some Greek troops there, and since the rest of the promised forces would be marching, it wasn’t looking as if the Greek promises would be kept, at least to the timescale agreed. It also seemed that the idea of withdrawing troops from the Albanian front to reinforce the Aliakmon Line wasn’t happing with any rapidity.
One part of the reconnaissance had gone all the way to the Yugoslav border to look at what was known as the Monastir Gap. Here, it became clear that this was the fundamental threat. While, with enough time and enough troops and anti-tank guns the Aliakmon position could be a strong position it had a very clear Achilles heel.
When Brigadier Harold Charrington looked over the reconnaissance report with General Wilson, the British commander of the Greek operation, it became clear that there was a lot of wishful thinking and not a great deal of actual planning going on. Charrington had been hearing whispers from General Wavell’s staff that there was a team working on a plan for evacuating the British force, almost alongside the team planning the arrival of the same forces.
Knowing what had happened in the fall back to Dunkirk, Charrington made the suggestion that his Brigade, with the elements of the Support Group he had, should be based at Vevi. If the Germans did attack through the Monastir Gap, then his 150 tanks had the best chance blunt that attack, allowing the infantry forces to pull back from the Aliakmon Line to the south. There was the chance that he could leap-frog his three Regiments back through a serious of rear-guard positions all the way to Larissa.
General Wilson, who had been attempting to keep a low profile since arriving in Greece, was aware that he hadn’t walked the ground that the men under his command would be expected to fight on. The reports he was receiving were painting an ever-blacker picture.
The original plan for Charrington’s Brigade was to out in front of the Aliakmon Line, covering the demolitions and slowing down the expected thrust coming from Bulgaria. The problem with that, like everything else, was the danger of attacks by the Luftwaffe. There were too many choke-points and vulnerable bridges or gorges, where a well-placed Stuka raid could cut off or slow down a retreating force. On the other hand, one Regiment of Cruiser Tanks might slow a German attack, giving the New Zealanders and Australians a bit more time to get organised.
General Wilson and his RAF liaison had already had various conversations about the air cover needed for the disembarkation from the ships and then for the troops travelling to their positions. The problem was that the RAF was really short of effective aircraft. The Gladiators were holding their own against the Italians, but they would be sitting ducks for German fighters. The Hurricanes were better but they weren’t really front-line aircraft anymore. While the nation was grateful for the RAF’s victory in the Battle of Britain, it had given a false impression that the RAF would be able to do wonders. General Wilson was constantly being told that his hopes for continual and effective air cover were always going to be dashed.
The Quartermasters were looking at building up Field Supply Depots, as they had in the Western Desert, but they were faced with a very different set of circumstances. The numbers of actual roads in Greece suitable for heavy vehicles were few and far between. The spring rains had made anything else that might be described as a road to be little more than a mud track. Many of the ‘roads’ were steep and winding, needing a very different set of driving skills from that of the desert. The real needs were for pack animals, something that the British army didn’t have, and the Greeks had none to spare.
Charrington’s plan for preparing for a withdrawal made Wilson look again at the plan. The first New Zealand Brigade to arrive was still getting itself sorted out before heading towards the area around Mount Olympus. Because of the problems of shipping, the equipment was coming by merchant ship, and the men being carried in Royal Navy cruisers and destroyers. Anthony Eden had quoted Churchill’s remarks about another ‘Norwegian fiasco’, and General Wilson could see the potential of that being the case. He therefore agreed with Brigadier Charrington’s assessment of the Monastir Gap, but decided that only two of the armoured regiments would be based there, with one more out ahead of the Aliakmon Line. He would however, reinforce the 2nd Support Group to give the Vevi force a more rounded balance of tanks, infantry and artillery. He also urged Charrington to reconnoitre, and prepare, his fall back positions to Larissa and beyond.