9 April 1941. Cairo, Egypt.
Although the invasion had only begun a few days before, to General Wavell it was already clear that the Greeks were doomed. Despite their excellent efforts at the Metaxas Line, the chances of holding back the Germans at the Aliakmon Line were diminishing by the minute. The news that the German mountain troops had managed to get behind the Greek Line was an obvious sign that the Greek’s ability to resist would be undermined. This, with the news from Yugoslavia that the Germans had already taken Skopje, hopes that the Yugoslav army would hold up the German invaders for any length of time seemed to be fading.
Generals Wilson, Blamey and Freyberg were pushing as hard as they could to get their units into position, but it was becoming clear that some of the New Zealanders and nearly all the Australians weren’t going to have enough time to settle themselves in good defensive positions before they were confronted by the German advance. The A13 tanks of the 4th Hussars were working between the Aliakmon Line and the Axios River in conjunction with the Greeks, and were tasked with slowing the German advance to the Aliakmon Line as much as possible. The previous day they had supervised the destruction of bridges over the Axios River. The reports mentioned some long-ranged sniping by the British tanks, but no clear outcomes were observed. The tanks were supporting the Greek 19th Division (barely a Brigade by British standards), but it was feared that the German advance towards Salonika would have little or nothing in its way to stop it. Wavell was reassured that the 4th Hussars had clear orders to fall back to the Aliakmon Line rather than get involved in any futile effort to prop up a Greek failure.
General Wilson had already asked General Blamey to hold the Australian Brigades, not yet in position on the Aliakmon Line at the Servia Pass. This bent the planned Aliakmon Line out of shape, but provided some degree of protection from a thrust down the Monastir gap. The other two tank regiments of 1st Armoured Brigade (1st Kings Dragoon Guards, 3rd Hussars), along with the other forces working around Vevi were to play a similar role of trying to blunt a German attack from that direction. A reconnaissance force had reported that there was a build up of German tanks on the north side of the River Crna, north of Monastir. The bridge there had been destroyed, but it couldn’t be long before the Germans would resume their advance. Brigadier Charrington had the route the Germans were likely to take well reconnoitred, and had set the 3rd Hussars, with elements of 2nd Support Group, the task of slowing the German advance, withdrawing back to the main positions at Vevi. General Blamey had ordered the incomplete Australian 19th Brigade to reinforce this position, but only the 2/4th Battalion were in position, the 2/8th Battalion were still arriving.
General Wavell didn’t want to second guess Wilson, but he wondered if it would be better for those forces not yet in their designated positions to begin fortifying the narrower positions at Thermopylae. Air Chief Marshall Longmore pointed out that holding a line at Thermopylae, the RAF would lose most of its airfields in the Plain of Thessaly. Wavell agreed that this would be a significant problem, but already the RAF was struggling to keep any kind of umbrella over the lines of communications. Wavell suggested that Longmore began to look seriously at his plans for withdrawing the bulk of his command to Crete, and possibly back to Egypt. One of the staff remarked that it would be wise to prepare demolitions so prevent the Luftwaffe from using them too quickly once they were overrun. This was noted to be passed on the RAF Commander in Athens.
There were obviously problems of communication in Greece, and Wavell was disturbed at the way General Wilson was organising things. He judged it would be better if Wilson stayed back in Athens, with the Air Force and Naval Commanders in a joint headquarters, leaving Blamey as 1st Australian Corps Commander to command the units of W Force. Instead, Wilson had split his HQ into two, and more often than not he was incommunicado because of failures in the Signals Corps capacity to deal with multiple Headquarters. This also impacted on the time it took for the British and Greeks to communicate with each other, and there was a dearth of translators. The British officers were using their best public-school French to try to bridge the language gap, a recipe for disaster. It also seemed to Wavell that Wilson and Blamey could be at cross purposes, especially if Wilson agreed to change things to suit the Greek Army without consulting Blamey.
Wavell also noted that the Luftwaffe raid on Piraeus the previous night, which had sunk some ships, but thankfully not affected the port’s capacity too much, would likely be repeated. He was conscious that more of Blamey’s Australians (four Infantry Battalions and one Artillery Field Regiment) and their equipment had just put to sea from Alexandria that morning, and he had expressed the view that these would be better sent to Crete, rather than Greece. The chances of holding a position on mainland Greece, with the Greek army already exhausted was too much to ask the Australians and New Zealanders alone. Re-routing the last of the 6th Australian Division would leave Blamey shorthanded, but the chances were that they would otherwise be fed piecemeal into the ongoing battle. Strengthening the British 14th Brigade in Crete with a reinforced Brigade of seasoned Australians might be a better use for them.
When this idea had been communicated to General Blamey, along with the information that due to shipping problems, the 7th Australian Division and the Polish Brigade were being held back in Egypt, it had left the Australian General furious. In his cable to Wavell, he noted that this decision would put the 6th Australian and 2nd New Zealand Divisions in grave peril. The task given to him, as Corps Commander, would barely be achievable, even with if he had a full Corps of troops. To have just five Infantry Brigades and one Armoured Brigade to attempt to do the job was impossible. Wavell relented and the rest of the Australian battalions were routed to Pireaus rather than Crete. The Polish Independent Brigade Group was currently in Haifa, awaiting transport to Greece. One of staff suggested sending this unit to Crete, if Wavell wanted to reinforce that island. That would give CreForce two Brigades, without giving General Blamey the extra headache of another language barrier. It was clear that this would depend on the Royal Navy and their timetable, but Wavell agreed.
The 7th Australian Division, like the 9th in Cyrenaica, were still short of equipment, training and transport. Wavell felt that if he sent the whole 7th Australian Division to Greece, they would be in danger of hardly having arrived before it would be necessary to evacuate them. Wavell still was concerned with the German build up at Tripoli. Intelligence had confirmed that the German General commanding the ‘Afrika Korps’ was Erwin Rommel, formerly commander of 7th Panzer Division. There was a surprising number of clashes in the area between the British and Italian/German main positions, with mixed results. For the most part these were being described as ‘reconnaissance in force’ running into the British positions. Wavell had supposed that it would take time for the Germans to acclimatise and train in desert warfare, but it seemed that the new German commander wasn’t keen on sitting around waiting for something to happen. Therefore, Wavell wanted to keep the 7th Australian Division was part of his strategic reserve, until the 4th Indian Division arrived from Abyssinia and had time to rest and refit.
General Hutchison reported on the timetable of the expected unloading from the convoy which was just beginning to arrive at Suez. There were enough Infantry Tanks to re-equip the 7th Armoured Division. The arrival of the 9th (Highland) Division to take over responsibility for the Canal Zone, would free up the newly reformed 22nd Guards Brigade and three more Regular Battalions to reform 23rd Brigade, these two would join 16th Brigade in a fully established 6th Infantry Division. This would give General O’Connor a full Regular British Infantry Division to be used offensively, along with 7th Armoured Division, even if it was equipped with Infantry Tanks. With the 9th Australian Division, an Armoured Brigade and the Indian Motorised Brigade, Wavell believed that O’Connor would have a strong enough force to finish the job.
The three Landing Ship Infantry conversions, HMS Glengyle, Glenroy and Glenearn, with the Commando force under the command of Colonel Robert Laycock had arrived in the Great Bitter Lake. Wavell had earmarked these for another attempt at mounting an offensive with Rhodes as its main goal. The problem was that the Royal Navy was over-stretched already protecting the convoys to Greece, that getting Operation Cordite up and running would have to take a back seat for the moment. These three ships however would be handy, even if it was just to transport the Poles to Crete quickly. The Royal Navy’s representative took a note of it and agreed to look into it.
Wavell could see that come May, General O’Connor should have everything he needed to knock the Italians and the Germans out of North Africa, whatever happened in Greece. However, things in Iraq were beginning to deteriorate, and the Vichy French in Syria were something of a distraction. If the situation in Iraq continued as it was, then he would need at least a Brigade, preferably from India rather than his own command, to keep a lid on it. The situation in East Africa continued to improve, with General Cunningham’s long march north from Kenya being something of a masterstroke. The sooner that was wrapped up the better. Having both the South African Division and the 5th Indian Division would give Wavell a degree of flexibility that he hadn’t had before.
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