British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

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Tom from Cornwall
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British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#1

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 14 Sep 2016, 14:53

Hi,

I'm interested in the attempts by the RAF to bomb Italian communications in Albania between Nov 40 - April 41. I've got the Operational Record Book of the RAF in Greece which will tell me what how many planes the British sent and to where, but wondered if there are any good sources that describe the damage caused to Italian shipping, ports and land communications.

Anyone have any ideas as to likely sources? Do any of the Italian Official Histories go into any detail?

Regards

Tom

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jwsleser
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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#2

Post by jwsleser » 15 Sep 2016, 18:43

Tom

Neither the Air war for Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete, 1940-41 by Chris Shores or Courage Alone: the Italian Air Force, 1940-1943 by Chris Dunning provides much on the effect/impact of the UK ground attacks (bombing or strafing). Those two books are pretty much focused on the air war.

I don’t have the Italian Air Force histories; not my focus of research and fairly rare (i.e. expensive if you can find them). They likely will not provide much on this topic.

The Army history discusses the impact of air during the initial Italian offensive (Le cooperazione aeroterrestre tomo I pgs 234-241). Here the main issue was the lack of support from the RA, both in terms of ground support and protecting the ground forces from Allied aircraft. The former is significantly more important that the latter. Air is not addressed as a problem in the chapter on logistics (Lo sforzo logistico tomo I pgs 831-899). None of the documents in tomo II appear to address the air situation, but I only skimmed table of contents.

I didn’t check the UK officials last night (I will try to do so tonight). They might provide some information.

John Carr’s The Defence and Fall of Greece 1940-41 provides some details on the impact of the Allied air operations (it is a major focus in the book). In all, Carr states that the Allies never had the size force needed to affect Italian operations. Complicating the situation was the battle between strategic/operational attacks (ports, supply lines, etc. - the UK position), and tactical ground support (what the Greeks were asking for).

In all my readings, Allied air was more a minor problem that appeared worst than it really was due to the many other problems the Italians were experiencing. Shores' book does show that the Allied air didn't have free rein over Greece/Albania. The RA did significantly limit the impact of Allied air operations more than the RA is given credit.

Carr is worth reading. He also addresses Greek naval operations.

I hope this helps.

Pista! Jeff
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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#3

Post by Dili » 15 Sep 2016, 19:33

Regia Aeronautica story in WW2 (in 2 volumes) written by Santoro and is available in Avia.it

It says against Valone were done 3 attacks in November, 14 in December, 2 in January, 1 in February

pag 125 to 200 deals with Greece land operations - not including Egeo.

He considers the British action irrelevant impact on land, but praises the RAF capacity to operate at night and with bad weather.
He says RAF seldom operated outside anti-harbor(specially praised) and main anti-airport objectives Valona, Durazzo, Devoli , Tirana but without big results that anti air operations.

He lists 14 aircraft destroyed by bombing in airbases, 10 heavily damaged that needed a SRAM(workshop) repair, 61 light damaged but repairs could be made at squadron level. Of these 9 heavily damaged and 11 light was due to Valona naval bombardment.

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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#4

Post by jwsleser » 16 Sep 2016, 03:18

Thanks Dili!

That is what I understood. The Allies transitioned for interdiction to ground support in late Jan-early Feb 41.

In all, the Allied effort was too small to have a significant impact.

Pista! Jeff
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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#5

Post by Dili » 16 Sep 2016, 14:55

I don't think there was any proper interdiction effort.

He says RAF had opportunities to disrupt the already messy arrivals to the front but nothing was done. He justify his criticism to say that when seen from the air many troops could be seen in Italian side while the Greeks where better camouflaged/organized and/or the terrain was better for that propose.

While they probably could do more in my personal opinion RAF had not enough assets for a sustained campaign and bombers had severe losses. Wellingtons soon went only for night missions probably due to being slower.

Regarding air combat he also says that RAF arrival forced Regia Aeronautica to escort bombers and to have permanently fighters in the air and at diverse altitudes instead off being on alarm.

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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#6

Post by LColombo » 16 Sep 2016, 16:43

As for damage on shipping, I have the following on the raids carried out by Fairey Swordfish (815th Squadron Fleet Air Arm) torpedo bombers on Valona. All were night attacks.

14 March 1941
Five Swordfish from Paramythia, led by Lt. Cdr. J. Jago, attack Valona at 5:30. Jago's plane is shot down (he is captured), but one torpedo hits and sinks the steamer Santa Maria (3,539 GRT). One crew member is killed, two ae wounded. The ship is refloated in September 1941 and towed to Venice for repairs.

At 23:15 three Swordfish from Paramythia, led by Lt. M. Torrens-Spence, attack again the ships in Valona. The hospital ship Po (7,289 GRT) is hit by a torpedo and sinks in less than ten minutes. Po was darkened because of curfew rules, so she was not recognized as a hospital ship during the night attack. 24 men were killed, including three Red Cross nurses, and 216 survived, among them Edda Ciano (working on board as a volunteer nurse). Luckily the ship had no patients aboard when torpedoed.

17 March 1941

A single Swordfish from Paramythia (Lt. A. S. Macaulay) torpedoes the torpedo boat Andromeda (Spica class, 630/1020 tons) around 00:02. The ships breaks in two and sinks whitin three minutes. 50 men are killed out of a crew of 137.

15 April 1941

At 00:40, six Swordifsh from Paramythia, led by Lt. Torrens-Spence, attack again the ships in the Valona roads. One Swordfish is shot down, but the steamers Luciano (3,329 GRT) and Stampalia (1,228 GRT) are torpedoed.

Stampalia (Master Paolo Gambinafici) had arrived in Valona on 12 April, carrying 650 tons of fuel, five vehicles and other supplies; part of the cargo was still aboard. She was hit by some bombs, after which the crew of 34 abandoned the ship; immediately thereafter she was also hit by a torpedo, and by the following morning she was sunk.

Luciano (Master Marco Martinoli) had 2,000 tons of ammunition on board when she was torpedoed. She blew up, killing 24 of her 35 crew members, including Martinoli.

I think there were no other shipping losses caused by British planes in Albania.

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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#7

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 23 Sep 2016, 20:24

Hi all, many thanks for all these replies - apologies for the slow reply but I've been away from home.

I'll see if I can get a copy of the war diary of the 815th FAA Squadron next time I'm at the UK National Archives and see what they report from their missions. In addition, I'll post up some of the mission details for the Wellington and Blenheim missions launched by the RAF.

My interest was sparked by an article in the RAF's journal "Air Power Review" - "A Greek Tragedy? The Royal Air Force's Campaign in the Balkans, November 1940 to April 1941" by Group Captain Byford. He suggests that "empirical evidence" showed that the "interdiction campaign" was "effective" as "captured Italian soldiers admitted that the supply situation was so bad that they received food only once every three or four days, although it is not clear whether this was due to the RAF, inadequate Italian logistics or, most likely, a combination of the two". I'll have to check again whether he mentions that much of the damage was done by the Fleet Air Arm!

http://www.airpowerstudies.co.uk/sitebu ... l15no1.pdf

Regards

Tom

Tom from Cornwall
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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#8

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 23 Sep 2016, 21:03

I've just checked the RAF ORB and the FAA attacks are briefly recorded eg

"14 March:
Note:- 3 F.A.A. SWORDFISH attacked shipping at VALONA with torpedoes, registering 1 hit."

Regards

Tom

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Re: British Bombing of Albania in 1940-41

#9

Post by Dili » 26 Sep 2016, 19:53

That had nothing to do with RAF. The panic in the Italian Government made them send whatever was at hand rushed, priority was to send the combatant part, the whole logistic and support train remained in Italy. So that units without own support had to resort to the already strained logistic system in place.

Choosing to invade near winter in mountainous terrain, a road system that could not coupe with so many soldiers made things even worse...

A part of Italian bomber force had to supply units in frontline - when weather allowed - that could not be supplied otherwise.

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