Book Review - Six Victories: North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean Convoy War

Six Victories: North Africa, Malta, and the Mediterranean Convoy War November 1941 - March 1942 provides an in-depth account of the naval action in the Mediterranean during fall 1941 and winter 1942. The book covers a critical period in the war from the arrival of Force K at Malta through the Second Battle of Sirte. The book's title is based on six key victories, three British and three Axis, that happened during this time. The author, Vincent O'Hara, draws from British, German, and Italian archives to cover the information from both sides. 

 

The book starts out with an overview of sea power in the Mediterranean in 1940-41and then moves to a chapter on communications, intelligence, and logistics. This second chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book and some new information (at least to me) on communications and intelligence capabilities for both sides. Most English histories of the war talk about Ultra and the British code-breaking skills, making it appear that the British had the upper hand. But O'Hara reveals that the Germans and Italians both had successes in breaking the Royal Navy's tactical codes and merchant ship codes. In the overall intelligence fight, O'Hara gives the Axis powers the edge, with statistics to back up his conclusion. The logistics portion of the chapter also has some interesting facts. The Mediterranean naval was was basically a war of logistics, with both sides trying to get supplies through the enemy to keep their forces in North Africa or Malta in supply. One thing that is rarely discussed is the port capacities for the destinations, which greatly affected the size and timing of convoys. In 1940, the two primary Axis ports, Tripoli and Benghazi, could only support off-loading five cargo ships or three cargo ships respectively. By December 1941, Tripoli had increase capacity to six or seven large ships, but Benghazi remained limited to three ships. These numbers were lowered even more by bad weather and enemy air attacks. This helps explain why Italian convoys were generally small and run more often than convoys to Malta. The final part of the chapter talks about the Italian Navy's fuel situation, which ended up limiting training, escort sizes, and operations against Malta convoys. 

 

With the stage set, the remaining chapters cover the action, starting with the arrival of Force K at Malta. The time period from the end of October through the middle of December 1941 was the high point of Royal Navy operations. During that time less than a third of the supplies shipped from Italian ports arrived in Libya. Shortages of ammunition and fuel forced the Afrika Korps to retreat four hundred miles. Then, in the space of thirty hours, this all changed. First, Italian naval forces broke the blockade by fighting through a major convoy that arrived in time to blunt the British advance; next, Force K plowed into a minefield that basically removed them from action; and finally, a daring attack by Decima (X) MAS, specialized Italian commandos, crippled the Royal Navy's battleships in Alexandria. The swing in fortune was immediate and dramatic. After this Axis forces would implement a blockade of Malta and maintain maritime superiority until the arrival of Anglo-American forces for Operation Torch in November 1942. 

 

Overall I found Six Victories to be a good read, especially for anyone interested in naval operations in the Mediterranean. Some of the battle descriptions are not as detailed as other books I've read, but the information on convoys and other operations more than make up for this. Vincent O'Hara has written a lot of interesting naval books and Six Victories is a good addition to that group.

 

From a wargamer's point of view, this book can provide some great ideas for setting up battles or a mini-campaign. It provides a good commander's eye view of the battles that can be used to implement some good "fog of war" rules for battle scenarios.