Raids on Asmara and fighting at Keren

On 28 February 1941 British aircraft bombed Asmara, the capital of Eritrea and the main seat of Italian authority in the northern part of Italian East Africa. According to accounts written down by the colony’s Italian residents, bombs fell on the city centre, destroyed many buildings, killed eighteen civilians and injured sixty-four. It was neither the first nor the heaviest raid on the Eritrean capital. The British official history records a heavy attack on Asmara and its airfield as early as 19 February, and from the middle of the month British and South African aircraft had been systematically destroying Italian airfields, workshops and supply lines throughout Eritrea. The raids were part of the preparations for the decisive assault on Keren, the mountain fortress that guarded the only road to Asmara. Beneath its granite peaks the 4th Indian Infantry Division had twice since 3 February tried to break through the Italian defences and had twice been thrown back. At the end of February General William Platt was building up supplies and bringing up a second division, while over Keren and Asmara an air war was being fought that the Italians were losing ever more clearly.

The wall at Keren

The offensive that Platt opened on 19 January with the capture of Kassala moved fast for its first two weeks. After the victory at Agordat his troops set off in pursuit along the road to the east. Beyond Agordat the retreating Italians blew the bridge over the Baraka river and mined the approaches, so it was not until the afternoon of 2 February that the leading elements of Colonel Frank Messervy’s Gazelle Force came up against the wall of rock that cuts off the Keren plateau from the Ascidera valley. It was pierced only by the Dongolaas gorge. The road ran along its eastern side, and along its western side the narrow-gauge railway from Agordat to Asmara. Deep in the gorge the Italians had blown down overhanging rock and buried the road under boulders over a long stretch. Attempts to get through with tanks came to nothing: the roadblock was impassable as long as the defenders commanded it from the mountains.

And there were many mountains. On both sides of the gorge rose peaks more than six hundred metres above the valley floor. To the west lay Mount Sanchil, and beyond it ran a ridge with summits the British named Brig’s Peak, Saddle, Hog’s Back and Flat Top, as far as the Samanna massif. Sanchil and Brig’s Peak were of particular importance, because from them the whole road could be seen all the way to Keren. In front of them lay a lower ridge, Hill 1616, soon to be called Cameron Ridge. East of the gorge rose Dologorodoc, with a concrete fort on its summit, Falestoh and Zeban, and beyond them Zelale, which the British called the Sphinx. Between Falestoh and Zelale a track led across the jagged ridges to Keren over the Acqua Col pass. Whoever held the peaks could see every movement in the valley and direct artillery and mortar fire onto it.

The Italians had long regarded Keren as the key to the defence of the Eritrean highlands. The commander of the northern sector, General Luigi Frusci, decided to fight the decisive battle there, and the Viceroy, Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, sent his best units from the reserve in Addis Ababa to Keren. The 11th Savoia Grenadier Regiment, with two grenadier battalions and a battalion of Bersaglieri, drove non-stop by lorry from Addis Ababa and, according to the Indian official history, reached Keren on 1 February. The 11th Colonial Brigade had arrived earlier on foot. The 42nd Colonial Brigade got away from Agordat almost unscathed, followed by the remnants of Orlando Lorenzini’s 2nd Colonial Brigade. They were soon joined by the Uork Amba Alpini battalion, further colonial brigades and Blackshirt battalions. Command of the whole front was taken by Brigadier General Nicolangelo Carnimeo, commander of a colonial division that had earlier covered the Red Sea coast. The sources differ on the number of his division: the British official history speaks of the 1st Colonial Division, Italian and some English-language accounts of the 2nd. Carnimeo and Lorenzini, the “Lion of the Sahara”, whom the askaris believed invincible, became the soul of the defence of Keren.

The first attack

Platt disliked the idea of a frontal assault on such a position, but there was no other way to Asmara. Throughout February patrols of Gazelle Force and the Indian cavalry searched for a way round to the north and south of Keren and always came up against trackless country where lorries carrying supplies for larger forces could not pass. The route through Arresa in the south was so bad that the Italians retreating from Barentu had abandoned all their vehicles on it. The mountains above the gorge had to be taken.

The first to try was Brigadier Reginald Savory’s 11th Indian Infantry Brigade of General Noel Beresford-Peirse’s 4th Indian Infantry Division. On the afternoon of 3 February the 2nd Battalion of the Cameron Highlanders, a Scottish regiment, climbed onto the shoulder of the ridge above the railway tunnel, and on 4 February took Hill 1616. From then on it was called Cameron Ridge. On the night of 4–5 February the 3rd Battalion, 14th Punjab Regiment, took Brig’s Peak, and in the morning one of its companies got onto part of Sanchil. Then began what was to be repeated over the following weeks. Italian artillery and mortars, hidden behind the ridges, smothered the summits with fire, communications with the rear broke down, the forward artillery observer was killed, and a counter-attack by askaris and grenadiers drove the Punjabis first off Sanchil and then off Brig’s Peak. The battalion lost 116 men. On 6 February the Italians counter-attacked Cameron Ridge five times, but the Scots and the 1st Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles, held the ridge. From then on it was the attackers’ foothold, exposed on three sides, to which water, food and ammunition had to be carried up several hundred metres on men’s backs.

The conditions of the fighting were exceptionally hard. The British artillery could hit the forward slopes but not the positions just behind the crests, where the Italians kept their reserves and mortars. The infantry climbed in the heat over rocks, scree and thorny scrub, covering the last few dozen metres without support, because the artillery had to lift its fire, and the defenders would then come out of cover and shower the exhausted soldiers with grenades. Even when a summit fell, its captors were too few and too tired to beat off the counter-attack, which almost always came, and came quickly. In some battalions one company did nothing but carry supplies and wounded.

On the night of 7–8 February the 5th Indian Infantry Brigade tried its luck on the other side of the gorge. It was reckoned that Acqua Col was held by only two colonial battalions, many of whose soldiers were deserting, and that a night attack through the Scescilembi valley, ironically dubbed Happy Valley by the soldiers, would open the way to Keren from the east. The 4th Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles, took the pass and a neighbouring hill, but in the darkness, under mortar and machine-gun fire, the companies became scattered, ammunition ran out and counter-attacks drove them back. In the morning divisional headquarters called off the attack.

Brig’s Peak and Acqua Col

On 10 February Beresford-Peirse, with Platt’s approval, attacked again, this time on both sides of the gorge. In the afternoon the 3rd Battalion, 1st Punjab Regiment, took the ridge from Brig’s Peak to Hog’s Back and held it for twenty-four hours under incessant shelling and counter-attacks. By the evening of 11 February the battalion had dwindled to fewer than two hundred men. On the night of 11–12 February some four hundred Italians broke into the gap between its companies as far as battalion headquarters, and at 2.30 a.m. the Punjabis had to come down from Brig’s Peak. At dawn on 12 February the 4th Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles, and the 4th Battalion, 11th Sikh Regiment, advanced on Acqua Col behind a barrage from several dozen guns. Some of the Sikhs reached the ridge, but grenades and mortars drove them down, while the Rajputanas were pinned below the summit. Subedar Richhpal Ram, who had already led the night attack of 7–8 February, kept leading his platoon forward until a mortar bomb blew off his foot. He died before he could be carried back. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. At 11.20 a.m. the divisional commander called off the attack. According to the Indian official history, the Rajputanas lost 37 killed, 176 wounded and 4 missing that day, and the Sikhs 9 killed, 84 wounded and 9 missing. On the night of 13–14 February the troops were withdrawn from below Acqua Col.

The Italians, too, paid a high price. Italian descriptions of the battle speak of battalions reduced to 150–200 men, the strength of a company, and of dead who could not be buried on the soilless rocky slopes. But the defence held. Contrary to what the British had learned since December at Sidi Barrani and in Libya, the Italians at Keren did not give way after the first heavy blow. Not only the metropolitan infantry fought well, but also the battalions of Eritrean askaris, led by officers they trusted. Between 3 and 14 February Platt’s troops took only Cameron Ridge and a few lower hills.

Platt’s decision

Beresford-Peirse concluded that after such losses he had no right to renew the attack, and Platt agreed with him. The enemy was defending very well on a strong position and had a great many mortars and machine guns. Further attacks by single brigades would only bleed the division white. Platt therefore decided to prepare one great assault by both Indian divisions, with all the artillery and aircraft. Until then the 4th Division was to hold the positions it had won, although it was losing men every day to fire from the mountains. General Lewis Heath’s 5th Indian Infantry Division, except for one brigade, had already been sent back after the first fighting to the Kassala area, near the railhead, where it was easier to supply. There it spent several weeks training in mountain warfare.

The pace of the preparations was set by the lorries. From the railhead to the front was nearly three hundred kilometres of poor roads, and fuel and food for two weeks and enormous quantities of ammunition had to be brought up to the line. The railway was extended to Tessenei to shorten the haul, and every vehicle was kept running non-stop. Near the front dumps, access roads and telephone lines were built, and a stretch of the Eritrean light railway was brought back into use to evacuate the wounded. All this was done at night, because by day every movement in the valley was watched by observers on the peaks.

In the background lay grand strategy. On 10 February the Chiefs of Staff in London told Archibald Wavell that he must be ready to send the largest possible land and air forces to Greece. Wavell decided that the campaign in East Africa would continue for the time being, but ordered Platt to confine himself to taking Eritrea and warned him that once it was taken he would lose two or three brigades. At the end of February, as the British committed themselves ever more deeply in Greece, Wavell had to consider whether to break off the battle for Keren altogether. Platt, however, was convinced that a renewed attack could succeed, and Wavell judged that admitting defeat might encourage the Italians to counter-attack. The operation went on. Platt approved the general plan on 1 March.

From the north: Briggs and the Free French

At the same time Brigadier Harold Briggs’s 7th Indian Infantry Brigade was advancing from the north along the Red Sea coast. It set out from the Port Sudan area and on 9 February took Karora on the Eritrean border almost without a fight, and on 10 February the small anchorage of Mersa Taclai. From there, over a wrecked jetty, it was supplied with stores and petrol by lighters and Arab dhows, since an overland route from the Sudan could not have kept even a brigade going. On 16 February the 3rd Bataillon de Marche from Chad, a Free French unit from Equatorial Africa with French officers and African soldiers, arrived at Mersa Taclai aboard the Indian warship Ratnagiri. It belonged to the Brigade d’Orient (Eastern Brigade) of Colonel Raoul Magrin-Vernerey, known as Monclar. On 27 February its second battalion landed there: the 14th Battalion of the Foreign Legion from the 13th Demi-Brigade.

On 21–23 February the Chad battalion, supported by a British battery and Punjabi carriers, fought for the Cub Cub valley, which was held by the Italian 112th Colonial Battalion with four guns. The first attack broke down, and a British column that was to cut off the Italians’ retreat lost its way and ran out of fuel. Only on 23 February did the defence crack: 436 prisoners, four guns and a large supply dump were taken. For the Free French it was one of their first victories over Axis troops. The pursuit reached Chelamet by night, and on 25 February the leading armoured cars came up against the blocked Mescelit pass, some twenty-odd kilometres north-east of Keren. On 1 March Briggs’s force passed through the pass. It lacked the artillery to attack Keren on its own, but it threatened the fortress from the north and the port of Massawa from the west, and forced the Italians to keep reserves there that were needed in the Dongolaas gorge.

The war in the air

In the air February 1941 brought a turning point over Eritrea. The capture of Agordat and Barentu allowed the British air units to move closer to the front, and the Hawker Hurricane fighters of No. 1 Squadron, South African Air Force, could now reach the main Italian air bases. The Italians still struck back. Their Fiat CR.42 fighters attacked British landing grounds at low level, and on the airfield near Agordat they destroyed or damaged thirteen aircraft. One of these raids, on 9 February, was led by Captain Mario Visintini, the most successful Italian fighter pilot in East Africa. Two days later, on 11 February, after a fight with Hurricanes over Keren, Visintini took off again to look for his wingman, who had force-landed during a storm, and in bad weather crashed into Mount Bizen near Nefasit, about 24 kilometres from Asmara. Italian authors consider that after his death the Italian fighters ceased to be a serious obstacle to the British air force.

In the first half of February British and South African aircraft supported mainly the 4th Division at Keren: they patrolled over the front, photographed Italian positions, and bombed gun positions, dumps and the railway from Asmara to Keren. From the middle of the month, as both sides prepared for the decisive round, the air force was given two tasks: to weaken the defenders of Keren and to destroy what was left of the Italian air force. Eight Vickers Wellesley bombers of No. 223 Squadron RAF dropped nearly five tons of bombs by night on the Caproni aircraft workshops at Mai Edaga near Dekemhare, and two days later Wellesleys and Hurricanes attacked them again by day. According to the British official history, Asmara and its airfield were heavily bombed on 19 February, the airfield at Massawa on 21 February, and on 23 February the airfield at Mekele, attacked from a distance of about 240 kilometres, where eight aircraft went up in flames. Thousands of leaflets in Amharic and Tigrinya were also dropped over Eritrea, calling on the askaris to abandon their service. According to prisoners’ statements, many of them did.

The Italian air force in East Africa, cut off from Italy, had nothing with which to make good its losses. In mid-February it had 188 aircraft, of which only 67 were serviceable. A month later 39 out of 150 were serviceable. The British official history states that the air offensive of February and March practically drove the Regia Aeronautica out of Eritrea. At Keren the defenders were increasingly exposed to bombing, and in General Frusci’s reports to the Viceroy the air raids figured among his greatest worries.

Asmara under the bombs

Asmara, lying on the plateau at an altitude of over two thousand metres, was the seat of the Governor of Eritrea and of the northern sector command, and an important road and rail junction. Tens of thousands of Italians lived there, alongside the city’s Eritrean population. The airfield outside the city, the workshops, the barracks and the station of the railway to Keren and Massawa were natural targets. But the raids also hit residential districts.

The raid of 28 February, the one recorded in war chronologies, is described above all in the accounts of the colony’s Italian residents. According to a study by Eros Chiasserini, published by an association of former residents of Eritrea, the bombing caused extensive damage in the city centre, killed 18 civilians and injured 64. The same account claims that in the last months before the city fell, bombs were falling not only on military targets but on various districts, with the aim of breaking the population’s spirit and indirectly weakening the will to resist of the soldiers at Keren. British sources describe the raids on Asmara as attacks on airfields, workshops and communications. What is certain is that in March the raids became almost daily. According to Chiasserini, the last, on 30 March, killed another twelve people and injured 35. The local press, such as Il Corriere Eritreo, wrote to the end about the heroic defence of Keren, but the news from the front and the bombs over the city spread growing doubt among the Italian residents.

Place in the war

February at Keren showed that the Italians could defend themselves and that the rapid pursuit seen in Libya, where the remnants of the Italian Tenth Army had surrendered at Beda Fomm on 7 February, would not be repeated in East Africa. In the south Alan Cunningham was advancing through Italian Somaliland and on 25 February took Mogadishu, but in Eritrea, Italy’s oldest colony, the British were stuck for more than a month. Time was against them, because Wavell needed troops for Greece, and the first German units were landing at Tripoli.

The great assault began on 15 March. The 4th Division again failed to hold Sanchil and Brig’s Peak, but on the night of 15–16 March Messervy’s brigade of the 5th Division took Fort Dologorodoc and held it against seven Italian counter-attacks. On 17 March Orlando Lorenzini was killed by a shell splinter. On 25 March Indian and British infantry seized the heights above the roadblock in the gorge, the engineers cleared the road in a day and a half, and on the night of 26–27 March the Italians withdrew from Keren. According to the British official history the victors lost 536 killed and 3,229 wounded, and the Italians, according to Frusci’s report, about three thousand killed. On 1 April Asmara surrendered without a fight, and on 8 April Massawa capitulated. On 11 April President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that the Red Sea was no longer a combat zone, which opened it to American ships carrying supplies to Egypt. The 4th Indian Division returned to the Western Desert, and the East African campaign shifted south, towards Amba Alagi, where the Duke of Aosta surrendered in May 1941.