Shipbucket

Good to see this AU continuing and always something interesting to see as well, especially lesser known kit.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

British Assault

Britain had hoped that the Shah would put down the militant threat to vital British oil interests. Failing that British troops would assist their Iranian brothers-in-arms. Only as a last resort would the army be sent in through Iranian military resistance to achieve that goal. Reality though had forced a fourth tier where immediate action was required, without the planned co-ordinated multi-thrust advance.
As darkness fell on Abadan calm returned to the refinery with the departure of the Swordfish and the rioters, and the bruised Iranian army regrouped. But on the Iraqi side of the Shatt al-Arab the Basra waterfront was abuzz with activity. The plan to capture the Iranian refinery had already been drafted as Operation Demon (ii), and now was hurriedly implemented as well as related Operations to secure Khorramshahr.
Advancing from the Iraqi eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab, three battalions of infantry, together with armoured cars of The Guides Cavalry and field artillery, crossed from Basra onto the Iraqi eastern bank of the Shatt al-Arab, and moved on Khorramshahr and Iran’s main naval base.
Using an assortment of naval vessels, motorboats and barges another two battalions of the 24th Indian Infantry Brigade were embarked, and slipped down the Shatt, detouring behind Om Al-Rasas Island to mask their presence from Khorramshahr, headed for the creeks and jetties of the Abadan waterfront. In the predawn gloom the British troops landed at Abadan, but they were not unnoticed. An Iranian machine gun position spotted hostiles on the main jetty and opened fire, raising the alert to the Iranian garrison. Elsewhere heavy fire caused one British squad to abort its landing spot, being pinned down using merchant ships for cover. But these actions were soon overwhelmed as a steadily increasing number of troops moved ashore, forcing the Iranian defenders to pull back from the waterfront and Abadan.
Further up the Shatt, the frigate HMS Falmouth joined the HMS Shoreham in attacking Khorramshahr from the water. Iran’s remaining sloop, the Babr was surprised and hit by multiple salvos, turning into a blazing hulk without the chance to return fire. Now on alert, the Iranian training ship Ivy was able to open fire on the Kenyan launch Baleeka, but was racked by gunfire and neutralised. On shore Iranian troops also opened fire on the British vessels, but without concern for preventing damage to facilities the British ships had no hesitation about shelling the Iranian naval barracks. British landing parties captured two Iranian gunboats still docked, and as the sun rose more troops poured ashore, securing the waterfront.
In Khorramshahr, Rear Admiral Bayendor found his small fleet wiped out and the naval base itself ablaze. In addition to the battle along the river bank, British troops and armoured cars had reached the western edge of the city. With Khorramshahr under heavy attack and Abadan falling, Bayendor could see that his position was hopeless, and made orders for a withdrawal toward Ahvaz. He divided his troops to mount a delaying action in the city, while other units were tasked to protect the naval munitions depot and vital roadpoints that would allow the army units retreating from Abadan to join the withdrawal.
Bayendor and other senior officers moved their command post to a radio communications facility to maintain contact with Tehran. As a prepared position with an anti-tank ditch, Iranian troops halted the advance of the British infantry there. However the arrival of British armoured cars with artillery and mortar support bought the fighting to close quarters, and eventually the Iranians began to fall back. As they pulled back to their next defensive position, Bayendor fell to British gunners. Aided by effective artillery from the Iranian 6th Division artillery, the Iranian troops made another stand at their position several hundred metres back. But, surrounded and with no senior officers the Iranian captain commanding the defenders soon surrendered his 150 men.



Save for snipers and pockets of holdouts, by the end of the day Abadan and Khorramshahr had fallen to the British forces, while the battered Iranian army and naval units beat a retreat to Ahvaz – itself still a battleground between the military and rioters.

Tehran

News of the naval battle on the Shatt al-Arab was slow to get to the Shah. Initial reports had come through in the late afternoon of 6th September, but the Shah was not advised until after he had completed dining in the evening. When told of the unfolding disaster in southeastern Iran the Shah was horrified. The Iranian military was expected to be defending against Iraqi invaders, but had been engaged against anti-Iranian rebels – in an attempt to prevent war with Britain. Having watched the fall of the Iraqi rebel government, there was no doubting that Britain would be able to steamroller through Iran in the event of hostilities between the two nations. Desperate to defuse the situation, the Shah called for the British ambassador. At his residence Sir Reader William Bullard was in no position to answer the Shah’s summons. With the outbreak of hostilities communications from London and Iraq had been increased from the usual trickle to a torrent, and Bullard and his staff were fully briefed on the unfolding military situation. Further, Bullard was prepared to relay British requirements for the cessation of action. Britain had no desire to absorb Iran in to the Empire, the continuous drama of the former Ottoman mandated territories had turned even the most expansionist of British leaders against pouring more men and resources into the quagmire of the deserts of the Middle East – as long as the Soviets were kept out. But oil was the one thing that Iran possessed that Britain needed and the Royal Navy relied on, and no cost was too high to ensure its flow.
When Bullard arrived at the Sa'dabad palace the next morning things had escalated further, and the British assaults on Abadan and Khorramshahr were already pushing back the Iranian defenders. The Shah was desperate to get the situation under control. A regional revolt was not a significant event for him, the Iranian military had been crushing rebels since the start of his rule, and within a month they should have been able to return calm to southeastern Iran. But what should have been an internal security matter had now, by accident, become a war with the British Empire.
Bullard’s earlier ultimatum promised British intervention if the Shah’s forces were not able to contain the rebellion, and now that intervention was underway. Bullard now stressed that Britain had no quarrel with the Iran or the Iranian people, and that the rebellion, and its disorder, was the only foe that Britain wished to fight. The Shah was required to order a ceasefire of Iranian troops, and for them to retire from the southwest of the country. Britain would then temporarily impose military control and purge the rebellious elements. With Iranian troops having fired on British facilities and forces there was now no turning back British Imperial power.
The Shah was horrified. To surrender sovereignty of part of the nation to Britain was unthinkable and political suicide. The battles were only around Abadan and Khorramshahr, and the Shah hoped that if he could disengage his forces there from the British, and crush the rebels elsewhere, he could calm British demands and save face. But Britain’s war plan was rapidly escalating the conflict further, and by the next morning’s field reports that hope for saving the situation had faded.

Advance On The Zagros Mountains

The 14th/20th Hussars were the first tank unit to have arrived in Iraq from India. They had disembarked in Basrah before the fall of the Golden Circle, and had been rushed from Basrah to Baghdad. Arriving too late for the battle that never happened, they had lost their commanding officer and his adjutant en-route due to heat stroke. Barely having time to off-load their tanks from the re-opened Iraqi railway, the initiation of hostilities in Iran had the Hussars redirected towards Khanaqin for an assault on the oil fields at Naft-e Šah and a thrust through the Zagros mountains. It had originally been planned that their attack, when it came, would be a part of the simultaneous multi-front British assault on Iran, but now that had been pre-empted. Instead the thrust across the border had to be undertaken with hostilities already commenced, forgoing any preparation or surprise.



After racing 150km northeastwards to Khanaqin the tankers refuelled and immediately set off in the dark, joined now by 10th Division infantry units in trucks. Crossing the frontier they quickly secured the border town of Qasr-e Shirin without resistance. From there they split into 3 columns, the smaller group headed south towards Naft-e Šah where the Iranian military had occupied the oil refinery and were keeping the British workers in protective custody. The main force formed a two-pronged thrust on the two roads over the mountains to secure the roads to Kermanshah and prevent Iranian reinforcement. Even though British troops had been in action around Abadan for over 24 hours, the Iranian garrison at the refinery was caught asleep and unprepared, and the facility at Naft-e Šah was captured without any loses to either side. Although Qasr-e Shirin had fallen rapidly, the regimental commander had been able to report to Major General Mogaddam in Kermanshah that British forces were invading. Mogaddam had prepared defences for just this eventuality, and in the predawn gloom drove to Shahabad to coordinate the action against the British.
The main British force moved eastwards from Qasr-e Shirin, starting the climb up the narrow winding mountain road through the Paitak Pass, poetically referred to as “the Gates of Zagros”. But the Pass was anything but poetic for the British force, as the Iranians had deployed a full infantry regiment, supported by anti-tank guns and artillery on the hillsides. As the tanks and trucks inched forward the Iranians unleashed heavy fire from their concealed positions onto the exposed vehicles. Under heavy fire the British troops were halted, and then forced to pull back. Setting up their artillery the British were unable to dislodge the defenders along the ridgelines, and several attempts to force reconaissance groups of tanks through were beaten back.
Even the air belonged to the Iranians, as the lack of co-ordination with the RAF with the rapid deployment into the Zagros meaning that no air support was available. Halted on the narrow road between the peaks the British column found itself hit by bombing raids from Iranian Hawker biplanes. Stalled, awaiting air power to dislodge the defenders, the British column was forced to overnight exposed in the mountains.
On the southern road the British advance was more successful, but was still slowed by spirited defence. By evening they had captured Gilan-e-Gharb, 32 km’s inside Iran, and secured the southern road from Kermanshah and secured all of the oil fields.

Battle Of Ahvaz

As British troops secured Abadan and Khorramshahr, the Iranian army and naval troops pulled back to form a defence at Ahvaz. With the loss of their command staff though, the Iranians were leaderless in the field, and the retreating soldiers fell into the Iranian tankers as they were attempting to change axis from assaulting the insurgents in the city, to reforming to drive south to repel the British invaders.



Pockets of Iranian soldiers put up patchy defence lines and fought delaying actions, but without an overall command British troops advanced slowly northeastwards towards Ahvaz. Within the city of Ahvaz the situation became even more confused as the Iranian army units attempted to disengage with the civilian rioters and face-off against the advancing British.
As the sun came up the Iranian air force shifted targeting from rioters to the advancing British infantry, with Hawker Hinds and Curtiss Hawks flying out from Ahvaz to attack. But the skies were not friendly for the defenders, as RAF Blenheims and Falcons were likewise inbound from RAF Shaibah.



The Iranian pilots found themselves outclassed, with their Hawkers all falling to British guns. Even their brand-new Curtiss Hawks were not able to make headway against the nominally inferior Falcons, as none of their pilots had more than 5 flight hours on the aircraft after upgrading from the biplane Furies. By mid-morning the airfield at Ahvaz had been bombed, with the remaining Hawks pulling back to Kermanshah, leaving the British with total air superiority.
On the ground the RAF had torn into the Iranian tanks as they attempted to engage with the British troops. Again, Iranian lack of training for warfare, as opposed to civilian repression, had put the defenders at the disadvantage, and the surviving tanks attempted to pull back into the city. Within Ahvaz there was no less action though, as the rebellious mobs were still in control of large swathes of the city, and saw themselves as being in conflict with both the Shah and Britain.

Corrected spelling mistake

Masjed-e Soleyman

While the 14th/20th Hussars were positioning their tanks for their early morning assault, the 3/10th Baluch Regiment were assembling for their own dawn attack further south. The other major oilfield was about 60km east of Ahwaz, and had already suffered damage from the rebels at Masjed-e Soleyman. With the fall of that town to rebellion the British workers and their families had evacuated south to Haft Khel. Combining an airborne insertion of troops with an airborne evacuation of civilians, the British had devised a plan to expand on their successful doctrine for airborne troops.
Before dawn 31 Squadron’s weary Valentias were loaded up at RAF Shaibah, and escorted by two Falcons skirted south around the Iranian naval port of Bandar-e Shahpur for Haft Khel. The British petroleum workers there had been advised of the incoming force, and had marked a suitable landing area with white bedsheets. Unopposed the Valentias landed and deplaned their first wave of troops, before loading refugees and returning to Iraq to repeat the process. The Baluchis secured the landing ground, and with the arrival of the second wave, occupied the town and the oil facilities there. But the mission was not without casualties, as one of the Valentia pilots misjudged his second landing and rolled through the clear ground and into a ditch. Although no troops were injured the aircraft was written off.



With Haft Khel taken without a shot fired, the British troops moved northwards on foot towards Masjed-e Soleyman clearing the countryside as they advance along the oil pipeline. The main centre of Iranian military resistance and rebellion of Ahvaz was now pinned with British troops to the east and west.

Plan R4

The signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on the 23rd August 1939 had been a shock to the Entente, as they had been trying to negotiate a similar treaty with the Soviet Union for months. Of course the secret protocol within was unknown to the rest of the world at that time, and so the Soviet invasion of Poland was unexpected. With this military co-operation in the two-fronted invasion of Poland, Britain and France now faced a potential Germano-Soviet alliance against them. In response British military planners started to consider plans to neutralise the Soviet threat before a German-Soviet human wave could be mobilised to conquer Europe.
With the Soviet attack on Finland in the Winter War the Entente saw their fears of Soviet aggression realised. Entente planners now considered options to support Finland in its war with the Soviet Union. The absolute lack of ability to support Poland due to geographic constraints featured heavily in the planning, as Finland had no simple path to allow the movement of men or materiel. Britain requested from both Norway and Sweden permission for a transit corridor to Finland, but was refused by both countries. Instead military planners came up Plan R4, a scheme to seize military control over northern Norway and northern Sweden to provide a land corridor into Finland. Although this would clearly be an act of war against both Norway and Sweden it was optimistically assumed that neither nation would resist. Embedded within the plan was also British seizure of Swedish iron mines and facilities to deny their exports to Germany. Germany quickly became aware of British plans and the threat to her iron supplies and in response planned Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway and Denmark.
Unknowingly Norway was now caught between a hammer and an anvil, as both the Entente and Germany planned to invade the country. Britain initiated action by mining the still neutral Norwegian coastal waters. British troops were preparing to sail to capture Narvik when word was received that a German invasion fleet was already in Norwegian waters with the heroic action of the destroyer HMS Glowworm against the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper. The Entente now changed to the defensive, and due to a fluke of timing Germany became the aggressor in the battle for Norway. Then with the initiation of Fall Gelb and Finland’s peace with the Soviet Union, further action on Plan R4 became unnecessary.
Although the details of Plan R4 were never made public, Soviet intelligence was well aware of the lengths that the Entente was willing to go to oppose Soviet military actions.

Operation Pike

With the supply of oil to Germany being its Archilles Heel, the Germano-Soviet alliance provided Berlin unhindered access to the Caucasian oilfields. The French government initiated an investigation into potential actions to deny German access to Soviet oil, and in February 1940 General Gamelin reported that an air force campaign against the oilfields near Baku would also cripple the Soviet military, industrial and agricultural sectors. Britain advanced the planning, and by April plans were completed for Operation Pike, a bombing campaign on oil production facilities near the Caucasian cities of Baku, Batum and Grozny by a combined Anglo-French bomber fleet from bases in Iran, Iraq and Syria.
On 30th March the RAF initiated the first phase of the Operation, with clandestine photographic reconnaissance flights over the Caucasian oilfields in a military Hudson Mk.I, disguised to resemble a civilian Lockheed Super Electra and painted in a custom high altitude low visibility scheme.



All reconnaissance flights were completed by early April, and work was commenced on upgrading Syrian airfields for supporting the French bomber force. However the German attack on France in May 1940 derailed the operation and further deployments halted. After the Armistice and the chilling of Anglo-French relations, in light of Britain’s inability to enforce a return of Polish sovereignty, the potential of joint military action against the Soviet Union dwindled. Additionally French aircraft loses during Fall Gelb made France incapable of fielding the required offensive component to a joint force, making the campaign moot anyway.
Operation Pike, like Plan R4, was no secret to Stalin. Soviet intelligence had agents embedded at all levels through both British government and military, and details of both plans had been passed to Moscow. The Soviet Union was well aware that Britain and France were mere days away from launching a crippling attack on her vital infrastructure and had already commenced upgrading the defences of the Transcaucasian Military District. Additionally Soviet troops positioned in the Azerbaijan SSR and the Turkmen SSR were reinforced to protect against any attempt to mount a land-based assault on the Soviet underbelly.

Soviet Invasion of Iranian Azerbaijan

While the Soviets had been secretly building up their forces along their border with Iran to repel an expected Anglo-French invasion, Stalin had been watching the unfolding political and military drama in Iraq and Iran with interest. Since the days of Catherine II Russia had been nibbling into the territory of Persia, with Baku itself having been taken by the tsar in 1828. The loss of the secessionist Persian Socialist Soviet Republic to Iran had been more of a tactical withdrawal rather than a strategic defeat for communism in Iran, and the resulting Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship in 1921 had given Stalin the ability to invade Iran under the protection of international law in the event of destabilisation within the country. The Italian-inspired rebellion had provided just that pretext, and with Britain acting to secure its interests in the south, Stalin threw in his lot too, to ensure the Soviet Union got its share of the dismemberment of Iran.
The Soviets attacked on the morning of the 9th September, with the western wing of Major General Vasily V. Novikov’s 47th Army crossing the border at Pol Dasht, with the intention of striking south to take Rezaiyeh and secure the Turkish border and Iranian Kurdistan, while the eastern wing crossed the border at Jolfa to sweep southeast towards Tabriz, securing Iranian Azerbaijan. Formed from the previous 28th Mechanised Corps, the 47th Army was a massive force of 40,000 soldiers and nearly 1,000 tanks, and vastly outnumbered the whole of the Iranian military in every aspect.
Despite their overwhelming military superiority and the weaknesses of the defenders, the Soviets still faced determined opposition. A handful of Iranian border guards managed to hold off the entire Soviet invasion force at the bridge across the Araxes River at Pol Dasht for several hours before being wiped out by the 63rd Mountain Infantry Division. After the delay a detachment of Soviet infantry supported by T-26 light tanks of the 54th Armoured Division raced westwards for Maku and the Turkish border, with the town already having been bombed by Soviet aircraft.



The Iranian 17th Infantry Regiment at Maku took up defensive positions along the rugged gorge of the Zangmar River, and held out until evening, before being overwhelmed by the Soviets. Iranian survivors used the cover of night to retreat south to Rezaiyeh.
Soviet bombers were the spearhead of the advance, striking towns in northern Iran in advance of the Soviet ground forces. An initial success of this tactic allowed the main force of the 63rd and 54th Soviet Divisions to push unopposed southwards towards Khoy. Although the Soviets had not managed to reach the town by nightfall, the Iranian cavalry force there had already deserted en masse and fled towards Turkey.
By the time that the Soviet aircraft had turned their attention to Rezaiyeh all elements of surprise had been lost, and the 4th Infantry Division had its few anti-aircraft guns manned and ready for the Soviet bombers. Unfortunately for them their fire only revealed the location of the Division’s headquarters, allowing the air attack to concentrate on the barracks. The Divisional commander, Major General Moini, attempted to mount a defence, but lacking troops, weapons and ammunition the position was untenable. He sent out a call for army reservists to report for duty and waited in vain for a convoy of munitions trucks to arrive from Tehran.



The 47th Army’s eastern thrust poured across the Araxes River to seizing the Iranian town of Jolfa, the southern half of the border-straddling town of Julfa/Jolfa. In the provincial capital of Tabriz the soldiers of the Iranian 3rd Division were assembled for morning parade when Soviet bombers appeared overhead. The Iranians were able to recover and return anti-aircraft fire, blunting subsequent attacks and even bringing down a soviet airplane. In the post-action lull the Iranians assembled armed, and prepared to deploy – only to discover that the Division only had enough ammunition to give 5 rounds to each soldier, and no rations.
An aerial reconnaissance flight spotted hundreds of tanks, vehicles and infantry moving unopposed towards the town of Marand. With no hope of advancing to mount a delaying action, the Divisional commander Major General Matbooi prepared to pull the Division back to the fall-back position at the Shibli Pass, which was already fortified and the road mined. When word arrived of another Soviet attack along the Caspian Sea coast Matbooi realised that his line of retreat to Tehran was being severed, and that the defence of Tabriz was untenable. He instead ordered his Division to retreat to the southwest, towards the southern shores of lake Urmia and towards Turkey.
In Tabriz, Colonel Shaybani the commanding office of the Iranian 2nd Air Regiment, had not been advised that Tabriz’s ground troops had pulled back from the city. Finally that night he received orders from the Army Chief of Staff to pull back to Tehran through Zanjan. With Soviet air superiority making daylight flight impossible, and a lack of airfield lights making night flight similarly suicidal. To maximise survivability the 13 pilots took the best of the Regiment’s Hawker Audax’s and departed in the pre-dawn, planning to reach Zanjan shortly after sunrise. Eleven aircraft arrived at Zanjan, with 2 having come down in the mountains. After refuelling the Regiment departed for Tehran, barely having left before Soviet bombers struck Zanjan.

Soviet Invasion of Gilan

While the Soviet 47th Army closed the Turkish border, the 44th Army and Soviet Caspian Flotilla mounted a simultaneous attack along the coast. News of this thrust was what made Major General Matbooi decide that northwestern Iran was lost.
Advance elements of the 17th Cavalry Division crossed the River Astarachay from the Soviet town of Astara into its Iranian neighbour at dawn. Rather than a heavy assault, this was instead a small force tasked with securing the main Astara-Ardebil road to isolate the regional Iranian garrison there. The Soviet troopers were detected by an Iranian cavalry patrol, who were able to retreat with news of this invasion back to Ardebil. Before the retreating cavalrymen could get back to their barracks, Soviet bombers raided Ardebil. Brigadier General Qaderi scrambled his two Divisions of the Iranian 15th Division to deploy to the southwest to the readily defensible road bottleneck at Nir. The troops were sent off on foot, and in their absence Qaderi ordered the ammunition and supply trucks to be unloaded, and instead filled with his personal furniture and household contents. By late afternoon Qaderi arrived at Nir, and instructed his troops to reposition another 10kms further along the road. After promising to send more food and supplies Qaderi deserted and abandoned his isolated Division. For the motivated but under-resourced soldiers of the 15th Division luck was on their side though, as the Soviet 44th Army was not moving inland towards them, but was instead advancing along the now undefended coastal strip.



While the Soviet advance elements were crossing the frontier, the bulk of the 44th Army were steaming south from Baku on vessels of the Soviet Caspian Sea Flotilla. The Soviets had built the Army to defend the oil fields, not mount an invasion, and so were short of transport vehicles. Instead the Army was forced to deploy by sea using Soviet naval vessels.
An initial landing was made on the sloping sands at Astara, with Soviet transports running themselves up onto the beach. Troops and equipment raced ashore and secured the town, soon linking up with the advance force that had secured the road to Ardebil. With the Iranian army inland the landings were unopposed, and by noon the small force had consolidated and started to move slowly down the coast. Although there was no military resistance, the countryside itself was hostile to the invaders, and the lush, wet, and undeveloped coastal strip prevented anything other than a lethargic creep.
Further south at the Caspian Sea port of Bandar-e Pahlavi, news of the Soviet amphibious assault at Astara was relayed to Iran’s naval commander for the Caspian, Captain Morteza Daftari. Shortly after Soviet light bombers struck the port, to soften up the city as the bulk of the Soviet Caspian Sea Flotilla approached. Rather than breaking their will, the Iranian defenders mobilised and set themselves up for a strong defence. The 36th Infantry Regiment established themselves in a protective line along the harbour, backed up by four 75-mm guns. Meanwhile on the water a dredge was scuttled to block the harbour entrance, while the three small patrol boats were positioned so their anti-aircraft guns could be used against targets on land or water.
Just after nightfall the arriving Soviet flotilla was greeted by coordinated fire from the Iranian artillery. Briefly returning fire, the Soviet vessels pulled back, not willing to mount a night landing against strong opposition. With the an almost complete collapse of the Iranian northwest, this was the only success in Iranian arms.