Battle for Northern Africa-interesting info

The above is a broken link. See now: BBC - History - World Wars: Animated Map: The Battle of El Alamein

FYI see also: http://www.the-map-as-history.com/

 

Itely 1943:

War production department was only given a ministerial head in February 1943, after three years of war, was a measure of the lack of coordination of the Italian war effort.

From The Brutal Friendship by F.W.Deakin

 

Clive Caldwell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On 4 July 1941 Caldwell saw a German pilot shoot and kill a close friend, Pilot Officer Donald Munro, who was descending to the ground in a parachute. This was a controversial practice, but was nevertheless common among some German and Allied pilots. One biographer, Kristin Alexander, suggests that it may have caused Caldwell's attitude to harden significantly. Months later, press officers and journalists popularised Caldwell's nickname of "Killer", which he disliked. One reason for the nickname was that he too shot enemy airmen after they parachuted out of aircraft. Caldwell commented many years later: "...there was no blood lust or anything about it like that. It was just a matter of not wanting them back to have another go at us. I never shot any who landed where they could be taken prisoner."

 

I have no respect for this debatable attitude. The German called these men Terror Flieger. By shooting helpeless airmen because ONE of his friends had been killed this way by a German is just not correct. It is against the Geneva Convention and makes whoever acts this way a war criminal . Not to mention his boldness caused a lot of trouble to many allied POWS who were falsely accused of shooting helpless pilots because of a small minority actually acted this way. Also Wiki is wrong when it claims these practises were "common". This is a myth and even though it did happen , intentionnal acts like this were fortunately exceptionnal.

 

Skipper, what part of the Geneva convention specifically proscribe killing an enemy pilot who had ejected over his own territory? The Geneva does not proscribe soldiers to kill enemy wounded in the course of an assault on an objective. My understanding is that POW status only extend to enemy soldiers whose lawful surrender had been accepted or who had been neturalized as a threat.

 

Not Skipper but this section is often used to at least in part make that claim:
The Avalon Prject - Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907

As you can see it is rather problematic. I believe there is a post war addition that declares it unlawful.
This section could by extension be used as well but again it is hardly definitive:
The Avalon Project - Laws of War : Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention (Hague X); October 18, 1907

 

" Italian industry could not produce the vehicles necessary for mechanized war in WW2. In fact the Commissiarato Generale per la Fabrica di Guerra established 150 as the maximum number of tanks per month that industry could provide. Production would reach this figure in 1941 and remain there indefinitely. Annual production would be 1,800 tanks in a year. Italy never reached this figure because of the bombing of both Ansaldo and Fiat by the Allies. So TOTAL Italian production in the Second World War was approx. 2,800 tanks and self-propelled guns using tank chassis. "

"Iron arm" the mechanization of Mussolini´s Army 1920-40, by John Joseph Timothy Sweet

 

One of the biggest problems in the occupation of Ethiopia was that it drained vitally needed resources from other places.

 

" For Morshead, Tobruk had been triumph ( the garrison period ). His steadfastness under attack had been infectious. He had met everything that Rommel could throw at him, and had inflicted two defeats on him. They were to meet in the field twice more and on each occasion Morshead would repeat the treatment. If Rommel had a nemesis ( other than Hitler ) it was Morshead."

From Tobruk- the birth of a legend by Harrison

| The Australian War Memorial



Lieutenant General Leslie James Morshead

Birth Date 18 September 1889
Birth Place Australia: Victoria, Ballarat
Death Date 26 September 1959
Death Place Australia: New South Wales, Sydney
Final Rank Lieutenant General
Service Australian Imperial Force

Reputed to be a tough commander who could be blunt with senior officers, Morshead led his division through the siege of Tobruk where his aggressive defence denied the Germans a breakthrough but earned him the ire of some subordinates concerned at the level of losses.

His success at Tobruk was followed by promotion to lieutenant general and command of the AIF in the Middle East. Morshead, at the risk of alienating his British superiors, argued to keep the 9th Division together in the face of British demands to detach individual brigades. He led the division through the battle of El Alamein, where the 9th Division's contribution was considered vital to the victory. During the battle, he regularly visited both the front and the wounded behind the lines.

 

Some great pics here.
"It was a mission in which 47 highly-trained men launched a daring raid on an Italian stronghold in North Africa.
Operation Caravan – carried out in September 1942 – saw members of the elite Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) attack the town of Barce and its accompanying airbase, in northern Libya, during the Second World War.
Acting from behind enemy lines, the men stormed into the base and town in the dead of night with orders to 'cause the maximum amount of damage and disturbance to the enemy.'
They destroyed or damaged 23 Italian planes which were being used to drop bombs on Allied troops.
The men also destroyed transport, fuel and ammo supplies – severely hampering the Italian operation in North Africa, which Adolf Hitler's Nazis relied upon to keep Britain and its allies at bay in the region.
Incredibly, whilst ten members of the force were captured and 11 were injured, no one was killed. Out of the 17 vehicles they set off with, only three made it back.
Now, rare images show the elite troops in the build-up to and aftermath of the raid.
The previously unpublished pictured are revealed in book The Long Range Desert Group in Action 1940-1943, written by military historian Brendan O'Carroll and published by Pen & Sword."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9317041/Photos-elite-Allied-soldiers-storming-Italian-airbase-Libya-1942-Operation-Caravan.html

 

Merano Conference
13 Feb 1941 - 14 Feb 1941


An Italo-German naval conference had originally been planned for Dec 1940, but but British successes against the Italian Navy necessitated postponements. The Merano Conference finally took place at Merano in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of far northern Italy, close to the border of German-occupied Austria, between 13 and 14 Feb 1941. The German delegation was led by Grand Admiral Erich Reader; Counter Admrial Kurt Frike and Captain Kurt Aschmann were its other members; the Italian delegation was led by Admiral Arturo Riccardi; Counter Admiral Raffaele de Courten, Counter Admiral Emilio Brenta, and Counter Admiral Carlo Giartosio were its other members. In this meeting, the participants discussed the interception of Allied shipping in the Atlantic Ocean, the elimination of the British fleet based in Gibraltar and Egypt, the conquest of Malta, the supply route between Italy and Libya, operations in the Aegean Sea, the potential usefulness of using Greek islands as forward naval and air bases, and the poor Italian fuel situation. As the list of topics would suggest, although not immediately perceived as so at the start, the Merano Conference marked the beginning of Italy losing her ability to make her own strategic decisions, allowing Germany to eventually dictate Italian policy.



Conference of Merano, (left side table): Arturo Riccardi led the Italian Royal Navy delegation, along with Raffaele de Courten, Emilio Brenta, and Carlo Giartosio. (Right side table): Erich Raeder (third from the right).

File:Conferentie van Meran.jpg

Merano Conference

 

The total number of C.202´s in Africa peaked at 93 on 15 July 1942. In all, the RA had 25 bombers, 90 ground attack aircraft and the 93 C202´s, 46 C.200´s and 43 G.50´s, a total of 297 aircraft ready for the decisive battle at El Alamein.

Macchi C.202 in action by Gentilli&Gorena

" Italian industry could not produce the vehicles necessary for mechanized war in WW2. In fact the Commissiarato Generale per la Fabrica di Guerra established 150 as the maximum number of tanks per month that industry could provide. Production would reach this figure in 1941 and remain there indefinitely. Annual production would be 1,800 tanks in a year. Italy never reached this figure because of the bombing of both Ansaldo and Fiat by the Allies. So TOTAL Italian production in the Second World War was approx. 2,800 tanks and self-propelled guns using tank chassis. "

"Iron arm" the mechanization of Mussolini´s Army 1920-40, by John Joseph Timothy Sweet

 

The French submarine Souffleur was a Requin-class submarine built for the French Navy in the mid-1920s. Laid down in October 1922, it was launched two years later and commissioned in August 1926. Souffleur was torpedoed and sunk on 25 June 1941 off Beyrut, Lebanon in position 33°49′N 35°26′ECoordinates: 33°49′N 35°26′E by the British submarine HMS Parthian.

French submarine Souffleur (1924) - Wikipedia

 

Italy mid-September 1940 and North Africa

What was more crucial for the Italians, was the fact that, encouraged by their initial success in occupying Sidi Barrani, they had declined German aid. They wanted to launch the attack on Egypt alone.
From Rommel´s intelligence in the desert campaign 1941-43 by Hans-Otto Behrendt

 

Rommel in Africa:
Typical of Rommel`s speed was that on 14th February 1941 at six-thirty p.m. the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion and 39th Anti-Tank Battalion arrived at Tripoli harbour;they were unloaded by night under searchlight, and finished disembarcation within twelve hours;on 15th February both formations were already at Misurata;on the next day at three p.m. the leading groups of the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion had already arrived at Sirte. In other words, just forty-eight hours after their arrival in harbour German troops were three hundred miles east of Tripoli- and operational.
Rommel´s intelligence in the Desert campaign 1941-43 by Behrendt

 

In April 1941, German troops would capture a British Intelligence survey issued at this time, analysing the strength and morale of the Italian troops in North Africa. Its author came to the conclusion that in spite of all general re-equipment and better arms, and although the morale of the troops had been raised by Mussolini, the seeming strength of the Italians might well be an illusion. Its last sentence read: "Behind all this remains Caporetto". ( At Caporetto, in October 1917, the main failure was that of the Italian High Command).
Rommel´s intelligence in the Desert campaign 1941-43 by Behrendt