The wisdom behind Merkur

[Dili]

BTW, establishing a bomber base in Crete works in reverse also. The Suez Canal was within bomber range of Crete. The German Navy could have mined the canal shut if they had chosen to fund a naval air fleet.

They shut the Suez several times. And they didn't need Crete for it, they could do from Italian Dedocanese.

[phylo_roadking]

Dili, when was that and what were the circumstances? I've been through Roskill for 1942 and 1943 and can't find any mention of it.

[Urmel]

Dili, when was that and what were the circumstances? I've been through Roskill for 1942 and 1943 and can't find any mention of it.

Mines in 1941/42 I believe. Basically after every raid they needed to shut traffic to allow them to check for mines being dropped in the canal, at least that's my understanding. The risk of having a vessel run onto one and blocking it was too great.

[OHara]

In 1941 German aircraft operating from Rhodes closed the Suez canal with mines for 21 days in February and 15 days in March. In May they closed it for 17 days. Between January 1941 and July 1942 the canal experienced 64 air raids, sinking sixteen ships in transit and eleven other vessels. I dug this out of the staff history, the Royal Navy and the Mediterranean Volume II. I would be interested to hear from Dili to what degree Comando Ergo participated in that effort.

Vince

[dcmatkins]

I think it seemed quite logical. From a geographical perspective. It allowed the Axis powers to try to command and control the Eastern Med sea.

[phylo_roadking]

I meant to mention this to Dave earlier, but in the meantime several other posters have referred to it; Crete wasn't necessarily for this - Rhodes was already a developed forward base for Axis aircraft, and one that the British declined to attack directly due to its proximity to the Turkish coast, hence SOE's covert interest in the air bases there on several occasions. Rhodes was also a virtually identical crow mile distance from the Canal.

Between January 1941 and July 1942 the canal experienced 64 air raids, sinking sixteen ships in transit and eleven other vessels. I dug this out of the staff history, the Royal Navy and the Mediterranean Volume II.

Yes....but not necessarily launched from Crete! During 1942, for example, there were long periods when the Delta was within range of LW and RA bombers with fighter escorts OVERLAND from the west...or from even further to the west without; from Roskill -

On the 24th Sollum was evacuated and the Army of the Nile fell back to Mersa Matruh; possession by the enemy of the frontier airfields endangered the naval base at Alexandria, which could now be attacked by fighter-escorted bombers. Admiral Harwood therefore sent all unessential warships and merchant ships south of the Suez Canal. On the 27th the battleship Queen Elizabeth was undocked and sailed for Port Sudan. Her temporary repairs had been successfully finished by the dockyard staff under most difficult conditions. By the middle of July she was well on her way to America for permanent repairs. The destroyer depot ship Woolwich, the fleet repair ship Resource and six destroyers also moved south of the Canal. The rest of the fleet was divided between Haifa and Port Said, except for the 1st Submarine Flotilla which moved to Beirut. It should here be remarked that, had we not possessed the use of the rearward bases in Egypt, Palestine and Syria at this difficult juncture, there could have been no alternative but to withdraw the whole fleet through the Canal. Possession of these bases gave us room, albeit very little room, in which to maintain our tenuous hold on the eastern basin.

from Richards...

The Axis air forces were almost equally busy. Among other activity they raided Tobruk and the forward area, made sporadic attacks on Alexandria and the Canal, and ran a supply service from Greece and Crete to Derna.

[phylo_roadking]

I'm also not 100% sure about how long it was closed...

In 1941 German aircraft operating from Rhodes closed the Suez canal with mines for 21 days in February and 15 days in March

from Contre-Amiral Lucas (Chef De Transit)'s article in Revue Maritime in 1958 -

Air defences were very weak to start with but gradually improved with the siting of gun batteries, searchlights, flares and eventually radar installations to combat both day and night fighters - and in 1942 barrage balloons (secured each evening to Canal buoys) hampered bombing runs and reduced their accuracy. The latter were not present in 1941 when mines delivered by parachute at low level were laid. The number, location and nature of these night attacks were unknown and appropriate countermeasures against contact, magnetic, acoustic and ship-count devices could not be determined. Captains and Pilots therefore had to accept great risks whilst the Royal Navy attempted to clear the Canal. Each day aircraft with solenoid devices, minesweepers and Company barges manned by RN personnel swept the length of the Canal and some became casualties: a Company barge and 'Le Dard', a motor boat modified as an acoustic minesweeper, were lost. A system of nets strung across rocky parts of the Canal was used to try to pinpoint weapon drops, but best detection results came from the observation of points of impact by Signal Station personnel. As a result, special lookout stations were constructed along the Canal, sited close enough together to fix points of water entry of delivered weapons by two bearings. The lookouts were manned by Egyptian soldiers under the command of Dessouki Pasha; they conducted their task well and significantly contributed to the defence of the Canal.

If "Captains and Pilots therefore had to accept great risks" , that to me would mean they were still taking their vessels through! So - looking elsewhere in his article then, talking specifically about February 1941 we find Lucas saying -

An attack on 30th January 1941 in which parachute deployed mines were dropped for the first time caused the most serious damage. Nine of them were spotted from the banks when some landed on sand and did not explode (enabling their eventual type identification) but the number actually landing in the Canal was not clear. After sweeping operations by aircraft and Naval minesweepers, traffic which had been stopped in the South resumed passage on 1st February...

That's two days only at that point;

...On the following day 'Dominion Monarch', 27,000 tons, at the head of a convoy, narrowly missed disaster when a mine exploded 300m ahead of her following a safety sweep by a solenoid-equipped Wellington bomber. On 3rd February 'Derwenthall', 5th ship in a Southbound convoy, hit a mine which damaged her rudder and caused a leak aft; she was successfully put aground and then towed to safety by Company tugs 'Hercules' and 'Atlas'. On 4th February an old ship, the 'Aghios Georgios', 13th in convoy, was wrecked by a mine explosion at Km 141.8. 'Hercules' and 'Atlas' did well to shift her stern out of the channel but the 10m deep pass was narrowed in width to 30m. Finally, on 6th February three setbacks occurred: 'Barge 34' was sunk at Km 138.7, 'Barge 39 equipped as a minesweeper was blown up at Km 137.5, and an anti-magnetic barge towed by tug 'Conrad' was wrecked at Km 84.5.

It was later assessed that 20 mines had been dropped on the 30th January - eleven of them in the Canal resulted in the loss of four sea-going ships and damage to a fifth, but the worst consequence was the restriction of passage only to ships drawing less than 8m for which the channel was reduced to just 26m width. Repair work commenced without delay, cutting out or righting the wrecks, and dredging to widen the channel abreast of each one. On 11th February, after thirteen days of standstill and accidents, convoy traffic resumed.

In other words, it was only closed to certain types and tonnages of traffic. And what necessitated that was the wrecks, not the mines!

In fact, ship traffic was disrupted for only 76 days in total during the entire war - after the February events mentioned above, only one other ship was ever lost to mines again IN the Canal, the SS Tynefield on 5th October 1941. On the contrary, the majority of service breaks were due to destruction of facilities and other blockages etc. -

In the entry ports and the other towns of the Isthmus, enemy air raids did not achieve significant results though some damage was sustained ashore. In Port Said harbour a large warehouse was burned down at Bassin Cherif, 'Patral' was sunk and three other ships - 'Protopappas', 'City of Calcutta' and 'Thistleford' - were damaged. In the approach channel three other ships - 'Hav', 'Mount Olympus' and 'Fred' - were blown up by mines, but none of them obstructed the exit. Ismailia was less militarily valuable but suffered three bombardments. German air attacks concentrated on Port Tewfik and Suez harbour with oil refineries and ships landing troops or war equipment as prime targets. Almost all air raids ended with attacks at the Southern end of the Canal, and further casualties were the ss 'Georgic' (28,000 tons) on 14th July and 'L'Escaut' torpedoed off El Adabiya on 1st August 1941. Two warehouses were also destroyed on 12th September that year. Finally, 'Jersey' and water barge 'Cascade' were blown up by mines on 23rd April and 6th July 1942 respectively

(not IN the Canal - my note)

It's also interesting exactly how simple - and effective! - the countermeasures taken against minelaying really were -

A system of nets strung across rocky parts of the Canal was used to try to pinpoint weapon drops, but best detection results came from the observation of points of impact by Signal Station personnel. As a result, special lookout stations were constructed along the Canal, sited close enough together to fix points of water entry of delivered weapons by two bearings. The lookouts were manned by Egyptian soldiers under the command of Dessouki Pasha; they conducted their task well and significantly contributed to the defence of the Canal.

In fact, in the process of finding the above, I came across a guy's memoir of his childhood in the Delta during the war; he remembered one of these guards shooting his rifle at a descending parachute mine, thinking it was a man....and getting the shock of his life when it blew!

[Jon G.]

According to C. B. A. Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, appendix XXXII p 241, the Suez Canal was closed to through traffic for 82 days in 1941 alone, namely:

30.01 - 13.02 (14 days)
18.02 - 10.03 (20)
11.03 - 22.03 (11)
08.05 - 23.05 (15)
24.05 - 30.05 (6)
10.07 - 16.07 (6)
06.09 - 12.09 (6)
07.10 - 09.10 (2)
04.11 - 06.11 (2)

The effects of Luftwaffe mining were more indirect, but profound: every time the canal was closed, ships were piling up at either end; in the Mediterranean, where they made targets for Axis bombers, and at Suez, where they couldn't easily discharge their cargoes. That was serious, for by spring 1941, the Middle East was the recipient of about 100 ships per month, from all corners of the globe.

[phylo_roadking]

30.01 - 13.02 (14 days)

We've already seen this one - two days closed totally, then another period of width/draught restricted transit. Louis Lucas ( who was after all Chef De Transit for the Suez Canal Company after the war, as well as working for the Company when war broke out) gives the date for resumption of "full" service as the 11th rather than the 14th.

There seems to be two issues here - total closure, and closures to what Behrens describes as closure to through traffic - what I assume Lucas means by "convoy traffic" I.E. size limitations. Does Behrens describe his term of reference?

Or where he drew his figures from?

[Jon G.]

Well, it might be a case of someone judging his own efforts in his own memoirs vs. an anal number-cruncher (Behrens' book was compiled long before the advent of the pocket calculator) assembling data. I wouldn't offer any opinion on who is right, but my instincts would tend to go with the HMSO version over the memoirs of a potentially biased autobiographer.

'Through traffic' seems accurate enough to me; of course sections of the canal were opened up before others, or traffic in one direction may have been possible when it was closed in the other etc.

Behrens (pp 215) describes the practices of the organisations tasked with handling the loading and unloading of cargoes at Suez as complete pandemonium, until a suitably-empowered man with insights into port handling was sent from London to rectify matters in the spring of 1941.

[phylo_roadking]

in his own memoirs

Lucas' article isn't a memoir, it was a historical article on the Canal in wartime in in Revue Maritime. According to his article, most of the Canal Company staff in the Delta stayed on -

France's defeat in June 1940 created further difficulties for the Company, cutting it off from the head office in Paris and causing understandable doubt and confusion amongst the French personnel. They received conflicting news and reports - especially from General Mittelhauser's orders and counter-orders - and they were requested to adopt strict neutrality. Admiral Pipon, commanding maritime defence of the Canal, remained steadfastly loyal to the French community at this time. He understood the shock and concern felt by his colleagues about their families and properties in France, and their fear of possible retaliation (which some families did indeed experience later on). In the event, the majority of French personnel refused to abandon their duties and responsibilities, and assurances were given that signature of the Armistice would not change the Company's attitude or loyalty towards British authorities. This earned them the appreciation of Allied forces, and General de Gaulle's appeal on 18th June also boosted morale - they were not alone in the war any longer.

Their choice was to accept military authority from their own country, and 80% joined the Free French movement with a representative and office in Ismailia. At the start of the war with Italy a number of French ships had been retained in the Canal area and, with British Admiralty agreement, they were requisitioned in June 1940 by the Free French authorities who undertook their organisation and re-manning after the departure of crew members who wished to return to France. They were supplemented by Reserve Officers from the Canal staff who became available when normal traffic levels decreased. French pilots who had ceased ocean-going duty some years before took command of 'Cap Saint Jacques', 'Esperance', Felix Roussel', and 'President Doumer'.

...including the then-Reserve Captain Louis Lucas. Later, as Admiral Pierre Marie Louis Lucas of the FNFL he went off rapidly to greater things, including a period on DeGaulle's staff in London. I've no reason to presume Lucas was biased, except in this respect -

Company personnel had to choose between passivity or action; most of its members wanted to join fighting units and 72 of them were authorised to do so, the remainder staying to keep the Canal open and defended. The attitude of the Suez Canal Company both before and during the Second World War was exemplary.

....and it may be of note that he wrote this article in 1958!

Do I take it that this -

...an anal number-cruncher (Behrens' book was compiled long before the advent of the pocket calculator) assembling data. I wouldn't offer any opinion on who is right, but my instincts would tend to go with the HMSO version

...means he doesn't source his figures as such?

[Jon G.]

He does, but unfortunately not very precisely. For the Canal closure dates, his table is 'compiled by the author from data in the Ministry of Transport'

It doesn't bother you that Lucas doesn't source any of his own figures, and that they substantially seem to disagree with what has been brought forward by British OHs Playfair and Behrens?

BTW, there's no way of knowing from what you linked to that he wrote his article in 1958. Only that it was published that year.

[phylo_roadking]

It doesn't bother you that Lucas doesn't source any of his own figures

Actually, I don't know if he did or not; the complete 1958 article is exerpted into another memoir, sans foot notes, so I have no way of knowing if it was footnoted or not in the original location.

It doesn't bother you that...they substantially seem to disagree with what has been brought forward by British OHs Playfair and Behrens?

Do they? What Lucas notes is the 30th January 11th February 1941 period of closure and the names of the various vessels lost or damaged by mines in that time, and that only one more vessel was actually lost to a mine during the war (and one tug damaged by a mine going off too close to its screws)

Where's the disagreement - apart from the two days discrepency between Behrens and Lucas - which account of the 30th January-11th February 1941 closure is more detailed? Behren's list doesn't exactly say why each of the service breaks occured, does it? Her list isn't detailed enough to throw up more discrepencies.

Does her book say any more ships were actually lost to mines IN the Canal apart from the Tynefield?

[Jon G.]

Behren's scope is much wider than Lucas' To give you an idea of Behrens' perspective, she only very rarely goes into as much detail as to state actual ship's names; hers is a book about GRTs, convoy codes, considerations about how best to utilise shipping space, and general shipping management and control during war.

Similarly, Behrens does not concern herself overly with the whys and hows the Canal was mined, but rather with the effects the mining caused. Which, by her description, seems to have been much like kicking an anthill.

EDITed to fix Behrens' gender.

[phylo_roadking]

Behren's scope is much wider than Lucas' To give you an idea of Behrens' perspective, she only very rarely goes into as much detail as to state actual ship's names; hers is a book about GRTs, convoy codes, considerations about how best to utilise shipping space, and general shipping management and control during war.

Similarly, Behrens does not concern herself overly with the whys and hows the Canal was mined, but rather with the effects the mining caused.

So, apart from those two days' discrepancy from February 1941 - you can't really say from the section I've posted up from Lucas how substantial the differences really are between what he detailed, and what she noted - except that one factoid?

Her list doesn't for example confirm if those were real minelaying incidents - or service breaks to allow precautionary clearance after a false alarm...the effect, a break in through-traffic - is the same...which she has recorded. But that doesn't say that Lucas is wrong either in saying that the "Tynefield" was the only other ship lost to mines in the Canal.