Chapter 11 – Bombs and Mountains
Operation Pike
April – May 1940
On the afternoon of 28 April 1940, 96 Bristol Blenheim bombers of No. 11 and No. 45 Squadron RAF took off from RAF Habbaniya and began to fly over Iraq – and then Turkey – on the approach to the Soviet city of Grozny. The first Allied strategic bombing raid on the Second World War was now taking place. Unfortunately, many planes were unable to find their targets. Of the 96, less than 35 actually found their targets [1]. The attacks over Baku that evening by 14 Squadron were more successful with over 45% of the bombers successfully striking their targets, lighting the night sky with bright orange flames. Overall, the first night of operations for the British had been less successful than hoped for. The French strike on Batum had been most successful of the 28 April raids, with most of their Martin Marylands striking their targets, which included the port on the Black Sea [2]. During the Batumi raid, civilian areas of the city had been hit, which gave the Pravda publishing machine plenty of propaganda for the next day’s paper.
Oil refinery in Grozny hit by Allied bombers [4]
Stalin was, as expected, outraged by the attacks. He was quick to condemn the “unspeakable evil imperialist aggression” and vowed revenge for dead Soviet citizens. He ordered that anti-air defences in the Caucasus be stepped up and that any efforts to make an overture to the Allies be stopped [3]. As far as Stalin now saw it, Britain and France were his main enemies. In order to fight them more effectively, he finally settled on deepening relations with Göring’s Germany. To this effect, he dispatched Molotov to renegotiate the existing German-Soviet agreements in the hope of building a formal military alliance between the two [5].
The few daylight raids brought similar, if slightly lower, success rates. By day 4 (2 May 1940), Allied bombers had begun to face resistance from Soviet Polikarpov I-16s and I-153s who managed to shoot down 5 bombers approaching Baku. Anti-aircraft guns had also been moved into place, but few of the troops possessed the newest 37mm and 85mm guns.
Polikarpov I-16
Polikarpov I-153
On the political front, the Soviets were now attempting to persuade Turkey and Iran to stop Allied bombers flying over their territory. On the 5th, the Soviet ambassador in Ankara, Aleksey Terentyev, presented Turkish president İnönü and Foreign Minister Saracoğlu with an ultimatum threatening to bomb Turkish cities unless they stopped French and British military aircraft from violating their airspace. Not wanting to bring Turkey into the war, İnönü complied and informed the French and British governments that they would no longer be able to fly over their territory to carry out attacks on Russia. Iran did the same on the 8th.
İsmet İnönü, President of Turkey
The withdrawal of Turkish and Iranian support for the operation severely hampered Allied operations. Their main routes to Batumi and Grozny were finally cut off. Daytime raids were halted after this point. Despite this, night raids over Baku continued as the Ankara and Tehran had little means of stopping the Allies.
On 15 May 1940, the night raiding of Baku was temporarily halted as events further west now took precedent…
Footnotes
- [1] RAF Bomber Command had a terrible accuracy record in early-to-mid 1940, so this isn’t too unreasonable a success rate.
- [2] Whether by accuracy or by luck is up for you to decide since this is my first real attempt at describing an alternate military operation, and I don’t know how accurate it seems to you.
- [3] I made a brief mention of this in Chapter 8.
- [4] This is actually a picture of the Columbia Aquila refinery in Romania during Operation Tidal Wave
- [5] As of TTLs April 1940, Germany and the Soviet Union are co-belligerents fighting common enemies, and not formal allies.
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