Italy and oil reserves

Skipper, I don't think mazout (heavy fuel oil) is exactly what you put in tank and lorry engines... <_<

 

you got a point there. But weren't they short on both ?

 

One of the problems for the Germans & Italians in the Mediterranian & North African theators was the ability of the British operating out of Malta to sink a high percentage of the tankers attempting to supply the North African theator. The loss of these tankers not only meant the loss of the petrolium but also it meant the ddestruction of petrolium infrastructure: i.e. the tankers.

My old WWII professor spoke several times on the subject of how this was done. It was due to code-breaking. And through an elaborate system of "accidental discovery" the vulnerability of the codes was never questioned.

The reason why the tankers were important was they were necessary for the internal transportation of oil in domestic Italy, up and down the length of the penisula.

 

Yes Malta was a pain in the neck for the Axis. Have you got more information on this code breaking story?

 

In any case there would be a limited number of harbours in Italy with P&O load/unload facilities, so it would be a matter of regular air reconnaissance.

I remember reading in a book "The Great Ships Pass" (Peter C. Smith, publ. William Kimber, expensive in Abebooks!) about a raid led by a battleship (Warspite, IIRC?) that went into Livorno (Leghorn) and did wreak a lot of destruction. The Admiral commanding was annoyed when he saw the lighthouse crashing! I suppose not many tankers coming out of there after that! And in any case the Italian oil fleet should be rather limited in numbers initially.

 

This should be an interesting book to read. Most harbours on the west coast were indeed systematically attacked and those in the south were rapidly conquered after the allied invasion. The Adriatic was not so exposed but there were less facilities and it was almost impossible to leave the area between Greece and Africa.

 

Right. Which was why it was important for their North African campagin to be successful. Taking control of the Suez Canal and the African shore would have virtually left Malta trapped/surrounded. And they'd have access to the oil in the Mid-East (the Iraqi rebels backed with the German/Italian Army would have expelled the British rather easily i think, especially at that point of the war.) It would truly make things interesting...

 

This is indeed very interesting, Does anybody have pics of the Iraqi rebels from the 1940-41 period?