"This Waterway"

(See Cover)

There was a stiff breeze, and the blue Mediterranean waves wore little white hats. A seaman on the deck of a destroyer looked at those waves and at the shore of Tunisia beyond, and said: "I've been in three evacuations--Norway, France and Crete. I'm glad. . . ."

He was glad because now he could savor the destroyer's task: to prevent a single German or Italian from escaping by sea and by day from the beaches of Cap Bon. This was the climax of the first great British-U.S. victory in the war, and he was not the only glad man.

At first the destroyer saw nothing more than the flotsam of defeat--empty gasoline cans, a soldier's kitbag floating, part of the landing gear of a German transport plane held up by a bloated balloon tire, a rubber raft on which a dead Nazi airman lay.

From the crow's-nest came a shout: "Small boat dead ahead."

Soon there were quite a few small boats: some mere chips on the waves, with three or four rowing men, some bigger ones, holding a dozen men and driven by leg-o'-mutton sails. In the boats there were fugitives bearing weapons, water cans, cans of rations, automobile inner tubes as sea insurance. The destroyer paused and picked up the fugitives. Then she went on with her not-too-difficult job of tidying up the sea, like a lawn-keeper in a park spiking bits of blowaway paper on a stick. . .

The Record. Thus last week the Royal Navy ended its great contribution to the Tunisian campaign. If its men, so bitterly familiar with evacuations, were a little disappointed that Jerry and Eyetie collapsed for the most part on shore and did not try to evacuate in mass, their disappointment was nevertheless tempered by anticipation of future action.

One job was ended; another had already begun. The finished job was the most important the Navy had done in the Mediterranean. The new one was to be far more important. The Allies could not have won Tunisia without naval superiority. They cannot hit the beaches of Europe without naval supremacy. Before a real Second Front can be opened, there are islands to take and a sea to cross.

What the new job will be like can only be deduced (with appropriate amplifications) from the job already done. In helping to make the Tunisian victory possible, Allied naval forces under Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham had a double job to do. They had to cut the Axis supply line to Tunisia and protect the Allies' line.

With the substantial help of aircraft, they interrupted the Axis remarkably well. In the month of January, they stopped one-third of all Axis ships headed for Africa. Admiral Cunningham is not easily satisfied; he said that was not enough. Altogether, the record of sinkings from Oct. 21, 1942, two days before the attack at El Alamein started, until last week was as follows (aircraft include Fleet Air Arm):

Supply Vessels Sunk Probably Sunk Damaged

By surface craft 29 1 1 By submarines 123 30 48 By aircraft 86 26 77 -- -- -- 238 57 126

Naval Vessels

Naval ships and submarines sank 6 destroyers, 7 torpedo boats, 21 submarines, 48 miscellaneous vessels; probably sank 4 destroyers, 7 miscellaneous, damaged 2 cruisers, 4 destroyers.

Aircraft sank 1 cruiser, 6 destroyers, 2 smaller escort vessels; probably sank 1 destroyer, damaged 4 cruisers, 11 destroyers.

The job of guarding Allied supply has also been well done. Between Nov. 8 and May 8, 11,000,000 gross tons of Allied shipping got through to North African supply ports, with losses amounting to only 2.16%. When he heard that losses in the first landings were about 2%, Admiral Cunningham said: "That's nearly 2% too much."

The Task. Admiral Cunningham is dissatisfied with these accomplishments because he has an eye to the future, which he knows will be a hard one. He has defined the task: "I look forward to the day when the Mediterranean Fleet will sweep the sea clear and re-establish our age-old control of this waterway."

He uses the word waterway advisedly. Not since the Luftwaffe came down with dive-bombers to nest in Sicily has the Mediterranean served the purpose for which Britain desires control of it. The Allied supply line has had to go 12,000 miles around Africa. That line is so long that ships have been able to make only about three trips a year. Over 300 ships have been tied down merely keeping the armies of the Middle East going.

What the restoration of a secure line through the Mediterranean will mean is nearly incalculable but the accomplishment of this task will not be easy. The Mediterranean is not yet wholly open. Axis air power still sits on Axis islands. The confines of the Mediterranean make it, says Admiral Cunningham, "one of the most awkward places in the world to operate."

In fact, the Mediterranean is more than "awkward." It is a bottle with two tight necks--the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. All Allied traffic past Gibraltar can be spotted by the enemy. Near the two bottlenecks stand the only Allied naval bases which have been of any use--Gibraltar and Alexandria, 1,800 mi. apart. The rest of the sea is almost literally a channel. From the Spanish Balearics to Algeria is only 130 mi.; from Italian Sardinia to Algeria, only 110 mi.; Sicily is only 80 mi. from Tunisia; Crete is only 150 mi. from Libya. All are easy ranges for aircraft. Furthermore, the enemy has had numerous bases along the middle reaches of the channel, and along its northern coasts.

The job of opening the Mediterranean was only half done when the Allies took all of the African coast. It can be completed only by clearing the islands which dominate the channel. To help do that, Admiral Cunningham must again protect the shipping which transports landing forces, and at the same time engage the enemy. The Italian enemy has run away more often than he has fought, but the fact remains that the Italian fleet has usually been locally superior as far as weight is concerned. Admiral Cunningham's great contribution has been the intimidation and whittling down of that weight.

Italy's navy can be expected to show some fight near home. The job of licking it and still escorting convoys puts Admiral Cunningham in the position, as someone has said, of a man with a woman on his arm, fighting someone heavier than himself.

The Admiral. If anyone can do the job--and do it gallantly--it is Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham.

World War II has demanded so much of its high commanders that very few have been able to stand the pace. But almost alone as a persistent survivor among the top commanders of World War II--on either side--stands the man whom many Britons call A.B.C. With the exception of one brief tour of duty in Washington last year, while the North African campaign was being planned, he has been commanding in the Mediterranean ever since June 1939. British tars have taken to calling the Mediterranean "Cunningham's Pond."

A.B.C. has held his job because he is tough, salty and skillful. He has spent 46 of his 59 years in the service of the sea. Navy men set much stock by the fact that he was so long a destroyer man. To ride those little ponies of the sea takes strength, wisdom and the ability to make quick decisions. A.B.C. commanded the Scorpion for seven years, and gave her sting. Once in the Aegean he took her right into the mouth of an enemy harbor with bridge defenses rigged, the upper deck clear of men, and seamen with rifles manning the bridge loopholes and mess-deck scuttles; and he conducted a rifle action against land troops at a range of 50 yards.

Admiral Cunningham first fought as a midshipman in the Boer War. In World War I he was at Gallipoli, and assisted in one of the great exploits of naval history, the bloody blocking of the Zeebrugge canal. Two other assignments in the Mediterranean, between World Wars I and II, taught him the capes and caprices of that sea.

He has the boldness of Nelson, without that hero's flamboyancy. His voice is so loud that he has no need for bull horns in battle. His eyes have a mariner's sadness, but he has plenty of wit. His pleasure is the sailor's hobby, gardening, and his hero is a fiery Scot, James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, one of the most colorful fighters, and a vigorous poetaster, of the 17th Century. His principal indulgence is the sending of very British dispatches, and in those dispatches lies the flavor of both A.B.C. and World War II in the Mediterranean.

The Lean Years. The day after Mussolini declared war, A.B.C. put to sea with a task force of two battleships, a carrier, five cruisers and several destroyers, and swept right up until he almost tickled the instep of the Italian foot. He got no reaction. Such sweeps became the pattern for his fleet. Whenever his ships found Italians, they whipped them. On one occasion Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville on the Nelson knocked the Italians and escaped with nothing worse than a scare from an Italian torpedo, which missed. Flashed A.B.C.: "Flag to Nelson. Success of your operation should console you for nearly getting slap in belly with wet fish." When Admiral Somerville was given a second knighthood, A.B.C. signaled "Congratulations. Twice a knight. And at your age, too."

Taranto (Nov. 11-12, 1940) was his first great triumph. There his torpedo bombers crippled the Italian battle fleet, in an action that was a model for Pearl Harbor. Just before sending off the carrier Illustrious, he flashed a message to its commander which was British in every monosyllable: "Good luck then to your lads. . . ."

While Taranto was in progress, Vice Admiral Sir Henry Daniel Pridham-Whippell trounced an Italian convoy in the Strait of Otranto, and A.B.C. signaled: "I trust you had many opportunities of using your heavy mashie." The Vice Admiral, a naval golf champion, flashed back "a detailed affirmative."

Matapan (March 28, 1941), a night action south of Greece, was Cunningham's greatest pitched battle with the Italians--because he was able to ambush them and force a fight. Just before the action he flashed to his ships: "We are going to have some fun." They did. They sank three cruisers and two destroyers.

From then on things went from bad to worse for the Navy. The Luftwaffe's dive-bombers went to work on Malta; A.B.C. ordered: "These pests must be swept from the sky." Greece fell, then Crete, and when A.B.C. was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, he said: "I would rather they had given me three squadrons of Hurricanes." His losses off Crete were terrible: at the end of May 1941 there was not a single undamaged British cruiser or battleship in the whole sea.

Through all this, Cunningham never lost his nerve. He announced that if Bengasi fell to Rommel he would no longer be able to take convoys through to Malta. Bengasi fell. He called his staff together and said: "Gentlemen, you have just heard that the Germans have taken Bengasi. We'll run a convoy next week." When Rommel crept within 65 miles of Alexandria, reporters asked A.B.C. what its loss would mean. He said: "Oh, I don't think we are getting out yet."

And the Fat. The British did not get out. A.B.C. was commander of the Naval Expeditionary Force which landed Americans and Britons in North Africa. As General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery advanced across Egypt and Libya, the Royal Navy came jangling along the coast, as if with a ring of keys, unlocking the doors of supply from port to port. Submarines made nuisance bombardments of road and rail along the coast, and naval task forces shelled the retreating troops. Then began the double duty of the Tunisian campaign, until, last week, destroyers skimmed along by Cap Bon, permitting only the slightest leakage of the forlorn refugees from Axis Africa.

By such fighting and such spirit, the lanes of the "sea in the middle of the land" have been cleared as much as sea power can clear them. Now it remains to finish the job by land-sea-air power, which must drive enemy planes from the islands of the sea. For Admiral Cunningham's naval forces, the job will not be inexpensive, for there will be many operations under the shadow of Axis air power. But it is a job which will be done--partly because the British Navy in the Mediterranean is imbued with the idea in a stanza by A.B.C.'s favorite, Montrose. It stands printed in Admiral Cunningham's quarters whenever he goes to sea:

He either fears his fate too much Or his deserts are small That dares not put it to the touch To win or lose it all.

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