Dark Earth: The History of the Aircraft Carrier

You mean the Ottoman Empire.

Not Italians.

   simon darkshade ,

A little bit more of a teaser:


In the Mediterranean, the setbacks delivered to the Italians on land and sea had lead to reinforcement by Germany and Austria-Hungary in the form of the Austro-German Mediterranean Squadron moving their heavy units to Ancona and a cruiser-destroyer force to Taranto and the preparation of an expeditionary force for service in North Africa. The most direct form of assistance came in the deployment of the German X and XII Fliegerkorps and the Austro-Hungarian V Fliegerkorps with a total of over 850 aircraft to airfields in Sicily and Southern Italy. They would have their first test against aircraft carriers in Operation Excess, a complicated British operation designed to reinforce the aerial defences of Malta from both Alexandria and Gibraltar. The Marine Royale would provide a diversionary raid on Sardinia to draw out Axis airpower, but this proved to be less successful than the attempts of the previous year. A large escort provided by the Mediterranean Fleet would accompany Convoy MW 5, consisting of 11 freighters, from Alexandria to Malta, whilst a force from the Atlantic Fleet would sortie from Gibraltar alongside the 8 ships of Convoy MC 4. Italian reconnaissance aircraft located the Mediterranean Fleet task force, which consisted of Ark Royal, Eagle and Illustrious on the afternoon of January 7th and initial attacks were launched the next morning, with 37 SM.79s broken up by carrier fighters. From the west, the Royal Navy's Atlantic Fleet's Force H, consisting of Formidable and Indomitable came under heavier attack from the initial German staffeln of Heinkel He-111s flying out of Sicily, which succeeded in hitting both carriers and crippling a destroyer. The advantage rendered by the large numbers of Fleet Air Arm carrier fighters allowed each task force to fight its way through moderate land-based opposition with comparatively light losses, but it signaled that the Central Mediterranean was now very much contested airspace and that the days of operating there with impunity were over. This was shortly followed by Unternehmen Sonnenblume, the movement of German and Austro-Hungarian troops to Italian North Africa from Sicily, a process that was unimpeded by aerial operations from the Royal Navy, several of whose Mediterranean based carriers were undergoing urgently needed maintenance in Alexandria and Haifa after the punishing pace of operations of late 1940. The Admiralty had considered launching a daring carrier raid on Genoa to attack Regia Marina battleships under repair and construction, but it was viewed as simply too risky in light of the increased Axis airpower deployed to Italy. Instead, there was to be a reckoning with two of the lesser enemy states at either end of the Mediterranean.

Ottoman Turkey, flush with confidence in light of German successes in Western Europe, had declared war on the Allied powers on July 1st, as France teetered on the edge of collapse and Britain looked set to join them. Their invasions of Syria and Iraq had encountered initial success before the combination of the terrain, parlous supply lines, heavy attacks by the Royal Air Force and skilled resistance by the forces of Middle East Command ground them to a halt in early September along the line of the eastern mountains of Syria and northern Iraq. The siege of Mosul focused much of both Turkish and British attention throughout October, as reinforcements from India joined the Arab Legion, Templars and irregular cavalry of General T.E. Lawrence's Ninth Army. The Imperial Ottoman Army, reinforced by token German forces and operating older Italian and Austrian tanks, deployed over two dozen divisions across the 500 mile front against only 11 British, Israeli and Indian divisions and were poised to fall down upon the plains of Assyria like a wolf on the fold. The major constraint upon their offensive capacity came through the limited railways through the rugged border mountains, placing exceptional importance upon the coastal routes from Alexandretta through to Antioch and Aleppo. Defending this vulnerable flank was the task of the Imperial Ottoman Navy, operating out of its great bases at Mersin, Antalya and Alexandretta and deploying a strong fleet of four new battleships, Süleymaniye, Osmâniye, Mahmûdiye and Mecidiye, the Italian built battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, seven modern cruisers, twenty-six destroyers, thirty torpedo boats and seventeen submarines. Their strategy was one of denying the seas to the Royal Navy and ultimately sought to accomplish this through the capture of Cyprus, but British land and air reinforcements had made this approach moot by September 1940. A large build up of shipping and aircraft was begun, with a view towards an invasion in early 1941, and these preparations were evident to long range RAF reconnaissance aircraft observations.

Prime Minister Churchill declared that such a setback would imperil the Imperial position in the Eastern Mediterranean and ordered the Admiralty to prepare a plan for the neutralisation of the Turkish Navy. Admiral Cunningham's staff in Alexandria soon formulated an approach that would facilitate this outcome with the least threat to the vital carriers and capital ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, Operation Beowulf. In the final week of January, RAF Middle East launched several daylight raids with its precious four-engine Vickers Wellington bombers on targets deep inside Turkey, including one on Angora itself, whilst hitting Ottoman airfields around Lake Van with tactical fighters, leading to suspicions of a push on the battlefield to finally break the siege of Mosul. This had the effect of drawing Turkish airpower to both the defence of its industrial heartland and towards the battlefront of Northern Iraq, weakening its fighter defences of its southern flank for a sharp and deadly blow.

On January 25th, a fleet of 6 aircraft carriers, 8 battleships, 12 cruisers and 40 destroyers slipped out of Alexandria, ostensibly to escort a large troop convoy to Crete. Once at sea, it swung back to the east and headed for Cyprus at top speed. Two airstrikes were launched from Ark Royal, Victorious, Eagle, Formidable, Invincible and Illustrious on January 27th shortly after nightfall on Mersin and Antalya, consisting of 72 and 76 Fairey Swordfish respectively. Operating at the very edge of their range, the British aircraft struck each Turkish naval base shortly after midnight on January 28th, encountering a large volume of light anti-aircraft fire and heavy torpedo net defences. These proved to be an effective defence against aerial torpedoes, but not against the new weapons being employed on that night, the 1600lb armour piercing bomb and the 1250lb enchanted incendiary bomb. Large areas of the dockyards were set afire by the devastating fire bombs and the upperworks of all of the battleships were severely damaged. Only three torpedo hits were achieved, two on Mahmûdiye and one on Süleymaniye, which caused both to suffer a severe list. During the raids, RN submarines had laid several minefields in the approaches to both ports to further discombobulate efforts to either sortie or repair the damaged vessels. The next morning, rather than withdraw to safety, Cunningham sent in his two battle squadrons to bombard each port from a range of 72,000 yards, whilst covered by his carrier fighters and RAF and RNAS Spitfires and Beaufighters operating out of Cyprus. His Swordfish and Buccaneer strike planes launched several raids on the railway station at Alexandretta and nearby rail bridges throughout the day before he retired back through the Levantine Sea in the late afternoon, the Turks having been dealt a stinging blow that they would never fully recover from. Beowulf was a small precursor to the success of the British Army and Royal Air Force in Operation Swiftsure in April, but it demonstrated the ability of a strong carrier force to inflict heavy damage on an enemy without sufficient air cover.

Here, he stays in the Army in the Middle East, developing quite a high profile and maintaining extensive contacts and influence in the Arab monarchies. He has a fair bit of influence and cachet in the region.