Chapter 3 And the Pink Arabian Sea

III. "AND THE PINK ARABIAN SEA"

The tracks that run by Kipling's Uninhabited Island which

"Is off Cape Guardafui,
By the beeches of Socotra
And the pink Arabian Sea"

have been furrowed by the keels of British ships with regularity since even before the digging of the Suez Canal, when the Egyptian overland route linked the sea passages from Britain to India and the East via the Mediterranean. With the opening of the Canal, the traffic past Guardafui and Socotra developed tremendously, and the "pink Arabian Sea" became Britain's chief highway to and from her Eastern Empire and the Eastern Dominions, with an important branch road running up to the head of the Persian Gulf.

When the war broke out in September, 1939, the potential enemy in the Arabian Sea area was Italy. A glance at the map will indicate her position there vis-à-vis Britain's. With Aden on the northern shore and Berbera on the southern, Britain was favourably placed in the Gulf of Aden. Berbera, however, was ringed in on the landward side by Italian territory. On the East African coast, Italian Somaliland extended from the Kenya border just south of the equator, north and to the westward of Guardafui, where it met the boundary of British Somaliland. On the western coast of the Red Sea, Italian Eritrea ran from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb some 300 miles north to its coastal junction with the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Back of Italian Somaliland and Eritrea lay the new Indian Empire of Abyssinia, and Italy had powerful, well-equipped armies in the whole area, with a strong naval base at Massawa in the Red Sea, and a lesser port at Mogadiscio Just north of the equator in Italian Somaliland.

The whole question hinged on who-if Britain and Italy came to war-would control the sea in the area. Italy's weakness lay in the fact that her territories involved were cut off from land communication with the North African colonies by the Anglo Egyptian Sudan, and, while Britain maintained control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt and the Canal, the territories were also cut off by sea.

When, however, Italy did enter the war on June 10, 1940, she undoubtedly had high hopes of herself controlling the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. She had a number of submarines based on Massawa in addition to light surface forces, and anticipated air control over the narrow waters with her shore based aircraft operating from her East African aerodromes. With her large armies in Libya, and her numerical naval superiority in the Eastern Mediterranean, she expected to take Egypt and extend her dominion to the southward. But, in the south as in the Mediterranean, those hopes were dashed by British sea power, and in the upholding and implementing of that power, units of the Royal Australian Navy took an important part.

The first Australian ship to operate in the area was H.M.A.S. Hobart, who, in January, 1940, was on escort and patrol duties between India and the Gulf of Aden. Later, in February, she formed part of the escort of the First Convoy of Australian and New Zealand troops for the Middle East, on this occasion entering the Red Sea. Similar duties were carried out in March and April, in which month, in addition, H.M.A.S. Hobart paid courtesy visits to Kamaran, Hodeida and Mocha, in the Red Sea, while in May she paid a short visit to Djibouti, French Somaliland. It was later this month that she made her first acquaintance with Berbera, in British Somaliland, where later she was to perform such valuable work during the evacuation. In May, however, she was there covering and superintending the disembarkation of reinforcements for the British land forces.

Hobart was at Aden when she received the signal to commence hostilities against Italy at 2300 on June 10, and her first shots against the new enemy were fired two days later, when she opened up with anti-aircraft fire against three Italian aircraft during a raid on Aden on the 12th. Hobart's Walrus aircraft returned the compliment to the Italians on the 19th, when it was flown off and carried out a bombing attack on the Italian wireless station on Centre Peak Island in the Red Sea, some damage being caused to the station buildings. Throughout June the aircraft carried out valuable reconnaissance work while the ship was on patrol in the Bab-El-Mandeb area.

At sea the British forces were maintaining the control, but on the land the position was less satisfactory. The collapse of France had immediate repercussions in the Gulf of Aden, French Somaliland following suit shortly afterwards, and Djibouti falling to the Italians on August 3. The reinforcement of British Somaliland was pushed ahead with all possible expedition, H.M.A.S. Hobart having been there on escort work in that connection in early July, during the latter part of which month she was in company with H.M. Ships on a Red Sea sweep, on which air attacks were suffered, but without damage.

On August 1, Hobart arrived in Berbera, escorting Army reinforcements, and remained there to organize and assist in disembarkations, and to give the necessary protection against any possible attack by the enemy. Excepting for a short sweep to sea between August 3 and August 5-during which period H.M.A.S. Parramatta paid a fleeting visit to Berbera on escort duty-she remained at Berbera throughout the evacuation period, and was the last ship to leave that port when the evacuation was completed.

On August 4, the day following the fall of Djibouti, the invasion of British Somaliland was carried out by three Italian columns, which advanced in the directions of Zeila, Hargeisa, and Oadweina. Zeila was occupied by the enemy on August 5, and shortly after he was on the move-in very strong force, including artillery and tanks - on the Zeila-Berbera coast road. From the outset the British forces were heavily outnumbered. They possessed little in the way of artillery, and very few guns competent to deal with the modern mechanized weapons possessed by the enemy. It soon became clear that, to avoid capture or annihilation, they would have to be evacuated.

Berbera was not the ideal port from which to carry out such an operation, being practically undeveloped and with few facilities. Two piers, one wooden and the other of stone, were able to accommodate lighters and ships' boats at certain states of the tide, but there was insufficient water to take anything larger, and there were no lifting appliances. This meant that all embarkation would have to be by boat or lighter out to the ships, and the task was made particularly hard by the kharif, a strong south-west wind that blows during the months of June, July, August and September, and which commences each night and blows for approximately twelve hours, frequently reaching gale force. It was, therefore, feasible to operate boats and lighters for a limited period only of the 24 hours, depending on the state of the tide in time relation to the kharif - though, during the evacuation, Hobart and other vessels concerned performed the unfeasible, and carried on, kharif or no.

With Hobart as operational headquarters, plans were well and carefully laid, and an operation was carried out in a way that would have been creditable under far more favourable conditions, and which, in the circumstances, earns the very highest of praise for Hobart, and the British naval vessels and merchant ships concerned. In common with others, Hobart's personnel had many and varied occupations during the operation. Her shipwrights and joiners completed a pontoon which served as an additional embarkation pier, and proved invaluable during the evacuation. Her signal staff provided ship to shore communication. A sea transport officer and beach master, and pier masters, were provided from among her officers.

Her personnel also provided security platoons to maintain order in the town, and during the whole of the operation of the actual evacuation, commencing on the night of August 15, her two motor boats, pinnace, and two cutters, continued to run while the tugs Queen and Zeila were manned by Hobart crews and, with the boats, operated in weather that called for the highest seamanship in order to avoid disaster. As Hobart's Commanding Officer (Captain H. L. Howden, ORE., R.A.N.) said of the work of the personnel of Hobart and other ships in this connection: "The seamanship, the courage, the resource and common sense displayed by the coxswains and crews of the tugs and boats that continued to run during the blowing of the kharif, is deserving of the very highest praise. To them a great part of the success of the evacuation of British Somaliland belongs."

In addition to the natural obstacles with which they had to contend, the ships suffered a number of enemy bombing attacks. During one of these, on August 18, Hobart was straddled by bombs, the nearest falling fifteen yards away, but no one was injured and there was no damage. Meanwhile Hobart's own Amphibian aircraft was not idle. On August 8, following an attack on Berbera by three enemy fighters, the aircraft was catapulted and, failing to find the fighters, refueling, bombed as an alternative target the Italian Headquarters at Zeila. Having dropped its bombs, the Walrus returned over the town at a height of 250 feet and machine-gunned the Headquarters and engaged enemy machine-gun posts, two of which were silenced.

She then drove a lorry off the road into a ditch, and scored many hits on Italian staff cars parked outside Headquarters, after which she returned safely to Hobart. It was the day following this episode that the Hobart landed a Quick Firing 3-Pounder Hotchkiss gun at the request of the Military Authorities, for service with the Army as an anti-tank gun. With it went a volunteer crew of Hobart personnel, Petty Officer Hugh Jones, Able Seaman Hugh Sweeney, and Able Seaman William Hurren. These three men remained with their gun with the rearguard covering the evacuation, and were captured. At first being reported missing, believed killed, they were later rescued when the British re-took Berbera in March, 1941

Hobart demolition parties destroyed everything of value to the enemy before Berbera was finally left to him. And Hobart boats were the last ashore on the final day of the evacuation, picking up stray stragglers. Three men of the King's African Rifles were the last picked up, the rescue boat reaching the beach when the kharif was blowing and a heavy sea running. The three survivors were too exhausted to help themselves, and two of the boat's crew swam ashore and swam back with them through the surf to the boat.

At 0745 on the morning of Monday, August 19, the Hobart commenced bombarding Berbera. The bombardment rounded off the work of the demolition parties, and an hour later, her task completed, the ship weighed and proceeded to Aden, leaving British Somaliland under the temporary control of the Italians. A difficult operation had been carried out with success, success which was due to the ability, endurance, initiative and courage of the personnel of Hobart, and also, as Captain Howden stated in his Report, of the personnel of His Majesty's Ships, Hospital Ships, Transports, and Ships of the Mercantile Marine present, all of whom were eager to assist in any way possible. A number of Hobart personnel received awards for their work on this occasion, and Captain Howden was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The Italian control of British Somaliland was short-lived. The Navy participated in its recapture in March, 1941. But although Australian units were not there on that occasion, they were busy in the "Pink Arabian Sea" area later in the year, when they took part in a brilliant exploit in the Persian Gulf. The situation had arisen which emphasized the need of Britain to maintain her freedom to use these waters as and when required. For some considerable time the German infiltration of Iran had been a source of concern to Britain.

The German invasion of Russia showed that the drive to the East had begun in earnest, with the oil of Iran and Iraq as the immediate goal, and the placing of German agents in those two countries was in line with the general German procedure. Numerous representations had been made on the matter, but had produced little or no response, such replies as had been received having been evasive and imprecise. Military action therefore became inevitable, and in the morning of August 2-5, 1941, British and Soviet forces entered Iran from south and north respectively.

On the same morning, naval action was taken to immobilize Iranian warships lying in the entrance to the Karun River, and to land troops to occupy and hold the Naval Barracks; and to capture Axis merchant ships which had been interned at Bandar Shapur, these two points lying close to each other right at the head of the Persian Gulf. A mixed force was employed, including sloops of the Royal Indian Navy, ex-Yangtze gunboats, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's tugs, an armed trawler, a dhow, an R.A.F. picket boat, the Armed Merchant Cruiser H.M.S. Kanimbla, manned by R.A.N. personnel, and H.M.A.S. Yarra.

H.M.S. Kanimbla, which ship had left Australia in December, 1939, had had a varied commission which had taken her up as far as Japan before she settled down to a spell of patrol and escort work in the Western Indian Ocean previous to the Persian Gulf occasion. H.M.A.S. Yarra had sailed from Australia in August, 194o, and had divided her time between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf on escort and patrol duties. Her sojourn in the Persian Gulf to date had not been without incident, as during May she was engaged in the operations against Iraqi forces on the Shatt-EI-Arab.

The Kanimbla took part in' the Bandar Shapur enterprise, and the story is best told in the words of one of her ship's company.

Zero hour at Bandar Shapur was to be at dawn on August 25. The first and middle watches passed quietly as the flotilla moved darkly up the Khor, with no sign of the enemy. A faint glow from her hot engine showed the dhow at her appointed station and waiting for us at No. 13 Buoy. We were approaching the strait now, and Kanimbla slowed down to allow the flotilla to go ahead to their objectives. With all the pride of a mother duck, Kanimbla watched her brood go into action. The first part of her task had been accomplished with the safe arrival of the flotilla at the head of the Khor.

The morning watch proved eventful. As Kanimbla turned into the strait in the wake of the flotilla, a sheet of flame enveloped the German ship Weissenfels. A burst of machine-gun fire was heard from the Sturmfels, followed by a pillar of smoke from her after hold. Then the lights of the town went out, and fire broke out in the three Italian ships.

Kanimbla picked out the Italian tanker Brante as the ship in most need of assistance. She was blazing amidships. With all hoses rigged, Kanimbla went alongside port side, and poured volumes of water into her. A foothold was obtained on board Bronte after the first rush of flames was beaten back, and in some three hours the ship was saved. Other ships of the flotilla were dealing successfully with other of the Axis ships, on a number of which the White Ensign was already flying, while Kanimbla had 16 officers and 111 men away on boarding parties around the harbour.

At o8oo, the Iranian gunboat flagship decided to come alongside to tender the surrender of the Senior Naval Officer, Bandar Shapur, and the Port Commandant. At noon, Kanimbla got under way, and berthed on to Bandar Shapur jetty and started unloading stores on to railway trucks. No one had then been to bed for some 30 hours, and the temperature in the sun, where all work had to be done, was 136 degrees Farenheit. However, there was no rest in sight yet. Boarding parties had to be relieved in all captured ships, guards posted, and a guard boat organized; while burning and wet cargo had to be shifted-by hand, since there was no power-from one of the captured vessels which was loaded with grain. But by noon on the 27th, the back of the job had been broken. The next item on the programme was to clear the harbour as soon as possible, and this was accomplished in record time to everyone's satisfaction, after a great deal of hard work.

While all this was going on, Yarra, who with H.M.S. Falmouth, was one of a somewhat similar "flotilla", was in the Karun River, slightly to the westward, immobilizing Iranian gunboats and covering the landing of troops to occupy Abadan. Operations with Yarra opened at 0400 on August 25, with her arrival off Khoramshahr. Within an hour, Yarra had silenced opposition from the Iranian gunboats, and her boarding parties had secured the decks of the ships and taken their crews prisoners, while the British land forces had carried out their part of the programme successfully. Everything was quiet by the early forenoon, with the situation well under control, and later in the day Yarra was despatched from the force to deal with Axis shipping further down the Gulf. At 2130 on August 25, she slipped and proceeded for Bandar Abbas on the northern shore of the Strait of Ormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Yarra arrived off Bandar Abbas on the evening of August 27, to find the Italian ship Hilda, which had been scuttled and set on fire by her crew, blazing fiercely at anchor off the town. She was too badly on fire, and too hot, for anything to be done that night, but the following evening Yarra went alongside her, and after cooling her and extinguishing the fires as much as possible, put boarding parties on board and got the fires under control, later taking the ship in tow and doing a very fine salvage job.

A sidelight on the episode is given by the then Commanding Officer of Yarra (Commander W. H. Harrington, R.A.N.) in one of his descriptions of the Hilda.

Among the ashes of the Saloon were found eating utensils which had apparently been used for the breakfast meal. This leads me to suppose that breakfast on August 27 was the last meal eaten on board, and I believe that the fires were then started, not all of them being successful. Perhaps the smoke and flames caused them to lose their nerve. fn any case the after structure was undamaged, and one kitten, two pigeons, and an animal of unattractive appearance and surly disposition, thought to be a Barbary Ram, were there found alive. The pigeons were released and the kitten taken inboard, but as the animal had already wounded in in the knee and made an entirely unprovoked and most unexpected attack on my First Lieutenant, I forbade its entry into H.M.A. Ship under my command.

Subsequently, however, justice was tempered with mercy, for, after the Yarra had finally disposed of the Hilda and handed her over to other authorities the question of the surly animal is again touched on. Commander Harrington's comment runs;

The animal in the Hilda had been fed and watered as requisite, but it was necessary to arrange for its disposal. I therefore took it on board and landed it at Khor Kuwait in charge of the caretaker of the oil fuel barge. Subsequent investigation had established that it was a "Sind Gazelle".

Apart from the other side of these combined operations, seven Axis merchant ships were salvaged successfully, and, as the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies (Vice-Admiral G. Arbuthnot) said in a congratulatory signal to ships from all parts of the Empire which took part: "The safe arrival in India of four prizes in tow and three under their own steam represents an achievement of which those taking part may be justly proud." Those taking part represented many sections of the Empire, for, in the operations, ships and men from the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Indian Navy, and New Zealand, Canada, Kenya and South Africa, were present. Among the awards made on this occasion was that of the Distinguished Service Order to Commander Harrington.