John Schettler - Grand Alliance

Kinlan thought about that. “Well,” he said at last. “I’ve a good deal on my plate just now, the least of which is advising my men on this situation.”

“For the moment, sir, I would recommend considerable discretion concerning that. We can discuss it later, but it would be best to keep things quiet.”

“Well they’ll have to know, Captain. This isn’t exactly news that will be in any way easy to explain or deliver.”

“I understand… Come with me on the helicopter. I can leave my men here if you suspect any foul play, though I assure you, I am your friend and ally, perhaps the best friend you will have here. I can help you, General, and you can help us all-immensely. Come with me. You’ll get good situational awareness, and I can discuss all this further.”

Kinlan waited, thinking, then decided.

While Fedorov’s team had been waiting out the storm at Bir Basure and making these encounters, events in the north became more precarious for the British with each passing day. O’Connor’s disappearance left the ragtag 2nd Armored to fall back on Tobruk, and when he had been reported missing Wavell gave a quiet order that the tough 6th Australian would go no further. They would dig in along the strong fortified lines outside Tobruk and make a stand there. Two light motorized brigades of Indian troops covered their southern flank, and all the remaining armor drifted back towards Bardia, along with the 9th Australian Division.

Rommel took one look at Tobruk’s fortifications on a map given to him by the Italians and made a fateful decision. He would not stop and commit his German troops to a static battle of attrition here, though he had no confidence that the Italians could take the place on their own. Even so, he invested the port with four Italian infantry divisions, Pavia, Pistoia, Bologna and Savona. The Sbratha division was held in reserve, and the remaining two Italian divisions, being more mobile, would continue east. These were the Trento Motorized Division, and the Ariete Armored Division, which alone possessed more operational tanks than the British had in all of Egypt at that time. In fact, the British 2nd Armored had taken to fleshing out its thinned ranks with captured Italian tanks taken during O’Connor’s whirlwind drive in Operation Compass.

Now, however, the compass needle was pointing the other direction, and Wavell was trying to throw together the semblance of a defense along the Egyptian border. His first thought was to position the Australian 9th Infantry Division in a wide arc covering Bardia and Sollum, and place the armor on the southern desert flank, but the German buildup on the border seemed more than a single division could hope to contain. Like a poker player stolidly throwing chips onto the table with a bad hand, he first thought to yield Bardia, shortening the 9th Division’s lines at Sollum, then finally realized his best play was to fold and hold the narrow defile near Halfaya Pass instead. The ground was so constricted there that he might post a single brigade on defense and have the other two available for other duty.

From Sollum and Halfaya Pass the rugged escarpment stretched south and east for nearly 80 kilometers, ending about 25 kilometers south of the coastal town of Sidi Barani. The escarpment was a godsend, like a stony castle wall that could not be outflanked by the fast moving German columns. So into this castle Wavell moved the bulk of the 9th Australian Division, and all the service and support troops that had been clustered around the ports. He knew he was yielding the small advantage of using Bardia and Sollum to supply his troops, but knew that if he had left them there, they would have been invested along with their brothers in Tobruk.

Even as he made these dispositions, Wavell was hastening the remainder of his ANZAC Corps west in the 2nd New Zealand Division. Instead of making the dangerous sea transit to Greece, he now had this division to stand on a defensive line well south of Sidi Barani, but it was his last full division reserve of any strength in Egypt. He might cobble together one more division sized force with the Carpathian Infantry Brigade, and the British 22nd Guards that were now mustering to the defense. Added to the 2nd Armored, no more than a brigade, this was all that he had left, and that unit would be lucky if it could muster thirty operational tanks.

Rommel invested Tobruk on January 25th, and then showed every intention of crossing the border soon after he was satisfied the Italians were in position. He now had two strong German units at hand, the 5th Light being reinforced by the early arrival of the 15th Panzer Division. Keitel had made good on his promises to Rommel in more than one way. He had sent him that second division, and was even now gathering elements of what would become the 90th Light Division, and sending them to Tripoli.

At the same time, the Fallschirmjagers on Malta had been slowly building up strength, enough to clear most of the northwest quadrant of the island, occupy a defensive position known as the Victoria Lines there, and seize the vital airfield at Ta’qali. This allowed the Germans to land much needed supplies there, and move troops onto the island more rapidly. The Italian Folgore Paras had also landed on the smaller island of Gozo to the north, and were preparing to take the main town of Victoria. The remainder of the defenders had fallen back on the vital port of Valetta to make their final stand. The meager air defenses had been pounded to dust by the intense combined German Italian air campaign, and what remained of that force was now grounded or evacuated.

To speed the battle there along, the Germans decided to send a single regiment of the 1st Mountain Division, which landed at the small fishing ports in the north between Gozo and Malta. From there they quickly moved south to join the Fallschirmjagers, which were building up to near division strength on the island by nightfall on January 28th when Rommel made the decision to cross into Egypt. That was the day Fedorov had organized his rescue mission for General O’Connor with Popski, and the fleet put to sea on the 29th.

The following day, while Fedorov’s group hunkered down in the desert sandstorm, Rommel was pushing his two divisions east with the two Italian motorized units. 1st Battalion, 61st Motorized of the Trento division were the first troops to reach Bardia, jubilantly reclaiming that coastal fortress for El Duce. The Armored cars of the 7th Bersaglieri Battalion pushed on ahead and swept into Sollum by mid day on the 29th of January. They still had 23 operational Autoblinda 41 armored cars out of the 30 they had started with way back at Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte, a maintenance feat that was seldom equaled in this harsh terrain.

On their right, the tanks of the Ariete Division pushed quickly through the undefended fort at Capuzzo, and reached Halfaya Pass. There they stopped to refuel and repair while they waited for the divisional artillery to come up. A reconnaissance had shown them the Australian Brigade digging in just beyond the pass, and they knew that they would need those guns before any attempt could be made to storm the narrow defile.

And so, positions that might have proved very difficult to take if adequately defended were all in hand by the morning of the 30th when Fedorov made his fateful encounter with Lieutenant Reeves of the 12th Royal Lancers. They would take that whole day to sort the situation through, but Brigadier Kinlan finally decided to take Fedorov up on his offer to use the KA-40 to have a look around. If nothing else, he would either prove or disprove the impossible premise he had been led to believe. Fedorov had one final trump card to play in that game. He thought they could have a quick look at Giarabub Oasis. If it was held by the Italians, that would run the table. The evidence of a hostile force there with old WWII equipment would be incontrovertible, but what they saw there was far more than Fedorov expected.