At the beginning of World War II’s Mediterranean campaign, the British faced a number of challenges in the region.

At the beginning of World War II’s Mediterranean campaign, the British faced a number of challenges in the region.

 Amongst these was the arduous task of providing reinforcements and materiel support to their forces in Egypt and Palestine. Realizing the impracticality of conducting regular supply runs through the central Mediterranean given Italy’s dominance in this area, the British opted to route their logistical operations around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Red Sea.

 By doing this, the British bypassed the main areas of danger posed by the Regia Marina and Regia Aeronautica but added an additional 8,500 miles to each trip thus constituting a supply line stretching 11,608 miles from London to Alexandria. Other than perhaps the United States, no other combatant of the era could have carried out such an undertaking, but Britain, with its sizable merchant fleet of 3,535 ocean-going vessels worth 20,477,000 tons as of June 1940 and worldwide logistical infrastructure made this a feasible option.

Still, to truly make this successful, the British had to overcome one final adversity that had the potential of derailing the entire undertaking. At the conclusion of each passage to the Middle East, the transiting British supply ships had to pass through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. These were classic choke points. 

Making matters worse, these choke points bordered vast stretches of Italian-controlled territory in East Africa that could be used to launch attacks against the transiting British convoys. Of particular concern, the Italians maintained a naval squadron at Massawa in Eritrea that consisted of seven destroyers, two torpedo boats (small destroyers) eight submarines, a minelayer, two armed merchant cruisers and a handful of MAS motor torpedo boats at the beginning of the conflict.

 Also present in the region at this time were about 325 assorted Italian aircraft. To put the size of this force in perspective, this was roughly equivalent or superior to the British forces that generally operated from Malta in 1941 and caused such mayhem to the Axis supply efforts in the central Mediterranean during that time. If the Italian forces in Massawa and East Africa were even half as effective as their British counterparts in Malta, they had the potential to be a significant threat to the passing British convoys.

Fortunately for the British, this threat never really materialised as their own forces were generally able to hold the Italians at bay. On 11 June 1940 (the first full day of the Middle East war) British bombers destroyed 780 tons of irreplaceable aviation fuel at Massawa thus putting Italian air units in East Africa at an immediate disadvantage.

 In the days and weeks that followed, British aircraft continued periodic raids against Italian airfields and infrastructure targets thus further neutralising the Italian air threat to the extent that it immediately became a non-factor in the local maritime contest. The situation was much the same when it came to the local Italian submarine force. 

Within two weeks of the start of the conflict, no less than four of the eight Italian submarines present in the region were lost. Of these, Galileo Galilei, Evangelista Torricelli and Luigi Galvani were captured or sunk by British escorts while Macalle was lost due to an accident. With the loss of half of their number, the remaining Italian submarine soon departed the area.

As for the Italian surface warships at Massawa, these sortied on numerous occasions but never succeeded in scoring any successes against the British. Of their efforts, the most notable occurred on the night of 20-21 October 1940 when four Italian destroyers attempted to attack a 32-ship convoy passing through the Red Sea. Engaged by the convoy’s escort, which included the cruiser Leander and the destroyer Kimberley, the attack was repelled, and one of the Italian destroyers, Francesco Nullo, was driven aground where it was destroyed the next morning by Kimberley. 

While Italian warships remained active in the region for a few more months, all Italian forces in the Red Sea either evacuated the area or were destroyed by April 1941. Included in the latter were six destroyers, two torpedo boats, a minelayer, an auxiliary merchant cruiser and five MAS boats.

With this development, the threat in the Red Sea was quelled, and the British secured their vital seaborne lines of communication to the Middle East. This critical route would remain in effect for almost two more years thus providing the British with the materiel support they needed to eventually prevail in all of Africa. Pictured here is the aforementioned Italian submarine Galileo Galilei shortly after being captured by British forces including the destroyer Kandahar on the right.

 Also Pictured is the cruiser HMNZS Leander, which saw extensive action within the region and was responsible for the destruction of the Italian auxiliary merchant cruiser Ramb I. Royal Navy official photographer, Public Domain. 

For more information on this and other related topics, see Blue Water War, the Maritime Struggle in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1940-1945.