Inferno - Max Hastings [173]
Most British battleships were old, slow and could not be adapted for bulky modern fire-control equipment. The Dutch navy’s triaxially stabilised Hazemeyer system represented the most advanced antiaircraft gunnery technology in the world, to which the Royal Navy gained access in 1940. It was fragile and unreliable, however, and a British version entered general service only in 1945; antiaircraft fire-control remained sadly ineffective meanwhile. Britain had more carriers than the U.S. Navy until 1943, but there were never enough to meet global demand, and they were too small to carry powerful air groups. Fleet Air Arm pilots displayed notable courage, but their performance was indifferent in both air combat and antishipping operations. The RAF, doctrinally committed to a strategic bomber offensive, resisted the diversion of resources to support operations at sea. Throughout the conflict, the Royal Navy displayed the highest standards of courage, commitment and seamanship. But until 1943, it struggled against odds to fulfil too many responsibilities with too few ships, all vulnerable to air attack.
Churchill’s decision to make a major British military effort in North Africa obliged the navy to conduct operations in the Mediterranean with negligible air cover, and in the face of strong Axis air forces operating from fields in Italy, Sicily, Libya, Rhodes, Greece and Crete. Able Seaman Charles Hutchinson described an attack on the cruiser Carlisle in May 1941:
The bombers came and attacked us wave after wave. They seemed to single a ship out and deliver a mass attack on it, diving vertically and from all angles. A huge bomb exploded in the water near our gun. Tons of water crashed down on us, tearing us away from the gun and tossing us around like straw—I was certain we would be swept over the side. One thought flashed through my mind: “My God, this is the end.” After what seemed an eternity, we picked ourselves up, blew up our lifebelts and kicked away our shoes, as I for one expected to abandon ship. But in a short time we were firing again, as we were still being attacked. Huge pieces of shrapnel lay around. There was a huge column of black smoke amidships and a direct hit on number two gun. There isn’t a gun now, just a piece of charred metal … Nearly all the gun’s crew were wiped out, most of the lads trapped underneath the gun or blown against the splinter shield. It was a ghastly sight. We’ve lived and slept all as a family for a year and a half: laughed, quarrelled, joked, all gone ashore together, discussed our private lives … Poor old Bob Silvey is still under the gun—I’ve seen him, but it’s impossible to get him out.
Malta, the only offshore outpost in the central Mediterranean from which Axis supply routes to North Africa could be interdicted, faced three years of siege. Under almost continuous bombardment from nearby Sicily, at times the island became unserviceable as an offensive base for submarines and surface ships, but it remained a vital earnest of Britain’s will to fight. Hitler blundered by failing to seize Malta in 1941, and huge efforts and sacrifices were made to sustain it thereafter. Between June 1940 and early 1943, the Mediterranean was largely unusable as an Allied supply route, but Churchillian war making emphasised assertion of the navy’s presence and engagements of opportunity, especially against the Italian fleet. Some of the fiercest naval fighting of the war, which resulted in heavy British losses, took place in those limpid waters. The Axis faced increasing pressure on its own sea link to North Africa, but the passage between southern Italy and Tripoli was short; only in mid-1942 did shipping losses and fuel shortages begin to exert an important influence on Rommel’s fortunes.
The Atlantic