Page 251 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

THE NORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN, NOVEMBER 1942 · MAY 1943 237

The British who were responsible for naval operations in the western Medi-
terranean, were too pre-occupied with consolidating the Allied army in the Algiers
area and occupyng the ports to the east - Bougie, Philippeville and Bone - to
spare any major effort against the early Axis movements to Tunisia.
The latter suffered no loss to direct action during November, but the Allies
lost over 180 000 tons of shipping in the first eight days of Operation "Torch"
to German and ltalian aircraft and submarines - a rate of loss which far exceeded
the worst period of the Battle of the Adantic, which was simultaneously coming
to its climax. The surprising feature is that none of the losses had more than a
very brief local effect on the development of the North African campaign and Bri-
tish military and air force casualties were very slight - {3 7 British soldiers an d
airmen killed or missing between 8 and 13 November, compared with 624 naval
perso n nel].
By 26 November, the leading British Army units had thrust as dose 40 km
as 25 miles to Tunis in a bid to take the port by a coup de main. This failed against
a hastily-organised last-ditch defence and the British withdrew to await rein-
forcement and resupply. The ports along the Algerian coast were quickly put to
work and by mid-December they were handling a total of lO 000 tons of fuel,
ammunition, stores and rations per day. Unfortunately, the logistic support had
been calculated on the basis of occupation, not offensive operations and not until
mid-December did the motor transport capacity reach that intended figure of 6600
tons. There was a railway, but {under the terms of che Allied agreement with the
French administration] this was operated by the French (using coal shipped from
Britain) and had to be shared with civilian traffic who seemed to be accustomed
to the 650km journey from Algiers to the Algerian-Tunisian border taking up to
six days. Not surprisingly, the British Army, which was responsible for the capture
of Tunis while the US Army guarded against a Spanish invasion, was unable to
mount a serious offensive before the end of the year.
With the Army' s supplies guaranteed as far as the ports, a t least, the Royal
Navy units in the western Mediterranean were able to begin offensive operations
against the Axis shipping plying between Sicily and Tunis.
The immunity of attack enjoyed by this traffic ended abrupdy and brutally
on the· n.ight-of l:/2 December;wherra·cruiser and destroyer force, despatched on
the basis of intercepted enemy signals, sank all four laden merchant ships of a con-
voy as one of che escorting ltalian destroyers; the same night, a torpedo-bomber
from Malta sank a loaded tanker. This surface raid was not repeated until the clo-
sing stages of the campaign and instead of the possibilities of annihilation which
this form of attack offered, the Royal Navy employed weapons of attrition-sub-
marines, torpedo-aircraft and mines laid inside che defensive fields by fast mine-
layers, while the Allied air forces, which had arrived in North Africa without any
specialist anti-shipping units, bombed the loading and unloading ports by day and
night, whenever the particularly bad winter of 1942/43 allowed.