The German Contribution to the War in the Mediterranean

by Cristiano D'Adamo e Sebastiano Tringali

Introduction
Malta
Greece, Yugoslavia and Crete
The Desert War
Malta - again
North Africa
Tunisia
Sicily and Italy

Introduction

Shortly after Italy had declared war on Great Britain on 10 June 1940, combat between the two countries began in the Middle East as a series of skirmishes in Egypt and Libya. Escalating into a full-blooded confrontation. This resulted in a thrashing for the Italians that lasted through the rest of the year.

Consequently in February 1941 Axis partner Adolf Hitler sent Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel to Tripoli with the Afrika Korps, to help Benito Mussolini get his lost territory back. Thus began a long, hard slog in the Mediterranean theatre which included the Luftwatffe. The Germans, as the British and the Italians had already done, quickly discovered that aircraft operating in this harsh, hot, sandy environment were more often rendered unserviceable by the conditions than by the enemy.

Hitler was now committed to multiple theatres of war without either the logistics or the equipment this called for. His most technology-dependent service, the air force, quickly began to suffer the consequences, even while Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring kept assuring his Führer that the Luftwaffe could still achieve the impossible.

Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe's pilots and ground crews proved more than capable of meeting the Allies on terms, as many Anglo-Saxon authors report, similar to those of the Regia Aeronautica. Many german pilots became top aces here, most notable among them being Hans-Joachim Marseille, who seemed to thrive on the hardships. When the inexperienced US Army Air Force's units arrived in this theatre in mid-1942, the Axis quickly chopped them to shreds, an early indication that the 'soft underbelly' which Winston Churchill liked to talk about was in reality going to prove anything but. The real technical differences between German and Italian forces, which had already shown itself clear on land, became painful in the air were German equipment represented the very latest in aeronautical design.

Ju87 Stuka

Malta

When the Italians found that their Regia Aeronautica (Air Force) and Regia Marina (Navy) could not stop British convoys , not whole heartily enrolled German aid. The Luftwaffe, with a mission in Italy since June 1940, had been flying a number of tentative sorties but a formal co-belligerent status was not formalized until January 1941. Germany's prime interest was in assuring the security of the southern flank in the coming war against Russia, not helping Italy. In the face of strong protests from his generals, Hitler gave Mussolini his commitment.

Initially, the Luftwaffe presence was mainly in the form of transport aircraft, but combat units began to filter in steadily. The first objective was the subjugation of the island stronghold of Malta.

On 7 January 1941, ju 87s, ju 88s, He 111s and Italian SM 79s opened the campaign by striking a British convoy. Shortly thereafter the Axis air forces began systematic attacks on Malta, with airfields being the prime targets. The defenders were quickly worn down until just three Royal Navy Fulmars, six Royal Air Force Hurricanes and a single Gladiator biplane were left to face the almost daily raids. The Luftwaffe, along with the Regia Aeronautica, was able to mount between 40 and 80 sorties a day unless poor weather kept the aircraft on the ground.

All through February and March German bombers, supported by Me 110 and experienced Me 109E pilots from JG (jagdgeschwader or Fighter Wing) 26 and JG 27 hit Malta's three airfields and Valetta harbour constantly. Each time a convoy managed to get through, Stukas would hit the harbour with a vengeance, even when under attack from experienced anti-aircraft crews and an increasing number of Hurricanes sent to bolster the air defences. In mid-March, as the island seemed to be teetering on the brink of defeat, the bombing suddenly let up. The Luftwaffe units had been called away to support the coming Balkan campaign.

Ju 88

Greece, Yugoslavia and Crete

Over 400 aircraft were gathered in Bulgaria to support the Italian invasion of Greece. When the pro-Nazi Yugoslavian government was overthrown, Hitler ordered another 600 aircraft flown to Bulgaria and Rumania for a double strike. With complete air superiority, the Luftwaffe was able to cover the simultaneous invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. Both countries fell in short order and the entire operation was over by the end of the month. The speed of these successes, and the earlier glories of the Blitzkrieg in the West, lulled both Hitler and Gooring into thinling that the Luftwaffe could support any operation, regardless of difficulty.

Flushed with success, and with Hitler's express order that it be done quickly, Gbring ordered the airborne invasion of Crete under Generaloberst Kurt Student as a strictly Luftwaffe operation. With paratroops dropped from ju 52s and delivered by DFS 230 assault gliders, the invasion of 20 May was an enormous success, but a bloody one. Stuka units kept the Royal Navy at bay through continual attack, sinking a number of ships, and by the 31st the entire island, defended by over 40000 British and Greek troops, was under German control. Yet the cost had been great - some 2000 German troops killed, another 2000 missing and over 300 drowned at sea. The total of aircraft lost, particularly amongst the lumbering ju 52 transports, amounted to 220, with another 148 damaged.

HE 111

The Desert War

After Rommel and his Afrika Korps had arrived at Tripoli on 12 February 1941, the as yet unknown 'Desert Fox' wasted no time in pushing the British back and retaking several key objectives, including El Agheila on 24 March, and by 15 April he had surrounded Tobruk. Most of this had been accomplished with little Luftwaffe support. Through March and April an increasing number of German air units arrived in Africa, and these quickly went into action with attacks on Tobruk in support of Rommel's advance. By 25 April he had driven the British back to the Egyptian border.

Despite two British counter-offensives, Rommel not only held his positions but drove the enemy back into Egypt. Much of his success in these actions was due to Luftwaffe fighter pilots maintaining air superiority over the battle area. The Me 109 was a far better fighter than the Hurricanes and the American Curtiss Tomahawks that it faced, and German pilots remained amongst the most combat-experienced in the world.

After a very long stalemate, with neither side doing much more than maintaining its front, the British Eighth Army launched a counter-offensive on 18 November 1941. The Luftwaffe's 190 aircraft were joined by 320 machines from the Regia Aeronautica, half of which were single engine Macchi MC200 and 202 fighters. The next day the British were driving hard towards Tobruk, which, after some tenacious resistance was abandoned on 7 December, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Rommel was forced to retreat to the west until he was back at El Agheila, from where he had started out a year earlier. The Luftwaffe, averaging 100 sorties per day, was kept from being any more effective by a lack of fuel resulting from shipping losses to RAF and Royal Navy aircraft flying out of Malta, the island which Hitler had allowed to remain undefeated.

Feldmarshall Albert Kesselring brought 400 additional aircraft to Sicily from the Russian Front the same month, but there were not enough airfields in North Africa for Rommel to make use of them. The 650 aircraft now under his command were therefore loosed against Malta once again, to free the Mediterranean sea lanes critical to the Afrika Korps' survival as an effective fighting force.

With renewed fuel and supply caches, Rommel broke out of El Agheila on 19 January 1942, with overwhelming Luftwaffe support remaining strong despite a large percentage of its aircraft being regularly out of commission.

Sand got into everything from engine oil to food, grinding metal parts down into uselessness. This was an enemy both sides had to contend with. Ronimel's determination, however, got him to Benghazi and then to Gazala, where he stopped. While the ground war stagnated through May, the air war heated up with the arrival of the new Me 109F, which continued to best the RAF's Desert Air Force fighters, including improved versions of the Tomahawk, now called the Kittyhawk.

Malta - again

Three Hurricane squadrons and a flight of Fulmars waited on Malta for the Germans to return, which they did with ever-increasing ferocity from 17 January 1942. On 7 March the island was resupplied with fifteen Spitfire Vs and on the 21st the Luftwaffe resumed full scale attacks on both Malta and the Allied convoys sailing from Alexandria. By 12 April German bombers had flown 2159 sorties, sending many ships to the bottom, blasting docks and facilities to rubble, and hitting both land and sea lines of communication. In just three weeks 6728 tons of bombs were dropped on Malta, with Valetta harbour soaking up 3156 tons and the rest being dropped on the island's three airfields.

The only respite came during bad weather. On 20 April another forty-five Spitfire Vs were flown into Malta, but a rapid response by ju 87s and ju 88s hitting the airfields, supported by 109s to engage those aircraft which managed to take off, resulted in half of the new fighters being destroyed.

By the beginning of May the island's aerial defenders were in dire straits, with the RAF all but grounded and anti-aircraft batteries short of ammunition. Another sixty-four Spitftres were flown in on 9 May, but the Luftwaffe launched nine raids to deal with the new threat. But when, in the middle of the month, Malta was once again close to collapse, the Luftwaffe was suddenly called away to support the renewed campaign in North Africa.

This rendered it painfully clear that the overstretched Luftwaffe- could only hope to be successful in one campaign by withdrawing units from another. With Malta allowed to recover for a second time, the loss of over 500 German aircraft in the relentless assault became a total waste, just as had the appalling losses suffered during the Battle of Britain. That Goring and Hitler could not see the obvious ramifications, which were more than evident to their Geschwader commanders, spelled doom for this mighty air force. Malta, meanwhile, survived a summer of near starvation and held on until the Luftwaffe disappeared over the horizon.
 

Me 109

North Africa

On 26 May 1942, Rorrm-lel once again burst out from his defensive positions and headed for Tobruk, and then deep into Egypt towards El Alamein, determined to push through the Nile Valley to Suez. Over 300 Luftwaffe and almost 400 Regia Aeronautica aircraft, with additional ju 88s operating from Crete and Sicily, faced 320 RAF Desert Air Force machines, only two-thirds of which were combat ready.

During that first week of the offensive the Luftwaffe put in its greatest effort of the entire North African campaign, with some 300 to 350 sorties per day. Tobruk fell in just ten days, and the Eighth Army fell back to defend El Alamein, leaving Rommel with what must have seemed just a small leapfrog to get to Suez.

Both JG 27 and JG 53 were clearing the sky of Allied aircraft, the leading practitioner a young Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Marseille. With his seventy-fifth kill on 6 June, then his joist just twelve days later, Marseille was a virtuoso. During several sorties on 1 September he scored a record seventeen kills as Rommel headed for Alam Haifa.

However, during a Stuka escort mission on 30 September his Me 109G-2 caught fire for no apparent reason. Baling out, Marseille apparently hit the tail and was killed, his final score resting at 158 kills, made in just 382 sorties.

At the height of his push, Rommel got bogged down west of El Alamein. His supply line from the sea was cut off and he was forced to allocate fuel to his Panzers instead of the 290 Luftwaffe aircraft in the desert with him. His opponents' air forces, meanwhile, had been boosted to 750 aircraft by the arrival of several American fighter and bomber units, well supplied with fuel and spares.

This imbalance in resources proved the undoing of the German aircrews, giving General Bernard Montgomery the air superiority he needed to push the Afrika Korps back, beginning with the Battle of El Alamein on 23 October. By 2 November Rommel was in full, frustrating retreat, but the worst was yet to come-. Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Me 110

Tunisia

Hitler knew that the Allies, under pressure from Churchill, would launch a second front invasion somewhere in the Mediterranean, so from late August 1942 a host of Luftwaffe combat units were transferred from Russia, France and the eastern Mediterranean.

The anticipated Allied assault eventually materialised in the form of landings at Oran, Algiers and Casablanca on 8 November, code-named Operation Torch. German reinforcements continued to flow in until December, when peak Axis aircraft strength across the theatre reached 1220, a figure only achieved at the expense of Hitler's other fronts.

The newest fighters available were the Me 109G and the Fw 190A, needed to cover the extensive airlift operations conducted across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Tunisia by ju 52s, Me 323s and Go 242s.

The ground attack units continued to fly Ju 87s and Hs 129Bs. The Americans had meanwhile introduced a number of groups from England flying P-38s, B-17s and B26s, aircraft new to the North African theatre. They joined other American units flying P-40s, B25s and C-47s.

Luftwaffe fighter pilots found their American opponents inexperienced and at their mercy most of the time, but that didn't stop the well-supplied Allied air crews, who learned quickly. Leading ace Oberleutnant Erich Rudorffer, who had twenty-six kills to his credit in Tunisia alone, was shot down by Americans flying reverse lend-lease Spitfires.

On 23 January 1943 Tripoli fell, and Rommel found himself, just like the Luftwaffe, under increasing Allied onslaught in numbers that could not be matched. Luftwaffe units were steadily withdrawn to Sicily as Tunisia was lost, until the Axis finally quit the African continent, admitting defeat, on 13 May.

The Luftwaffe crews, tired and ragged, shot to pieces and ill supplied, were given a little time to rest and recuperate while new aircraft were delivered south, but it didn't take long for things to heat up again. The Allies, growing from strength to strength, were now able strike at multiple points, thinning Axis air cover even more.
 

Italian Ju 87 "Picchiatello"

Sicily and Italy

Once again the British and Americans structured the often flashy but quite capable leadership of Montgomery and George Patton, invading Sicily on 10 July. Kesselring, an able leader, could match wits with his counterparts Arthur Coningham (RAF) and Jimmy Doolittle (USAAF), but could not hope to compete with their steadily multiplying squadrons.

After the pummeling of Pantelleria and Sicily, Kesselring withdrew his headquarters to Foggia, Italy. Sicily was lost by late-August, and with its fall the peak era of German air opposition in the Mediterranean theatre came to an end. Though the Luftwaffe nevertheless continued to fight the RAF and USAAF fiercely where it could, it was unable to prevent Allied landings taking place at Salerno in Italy on 9 September 1943, just days after the once-fascist Italian government had ousted Mussolini and capitulated. This left the Germans to occupy the land of their former partner as conquerors. Many Italian units opted to side with the Germans after their government's surrender to the Allies, but that did not halt the inevitable. The glory days of the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean were over.