History projects

SHIFTING SANDS OF THE SAHARA – THE LIBYAN CIVIL WAR

Sporadic protests had already taken place around Libya before the student demonstrations of the end of February 2011.  Local police in Benghazi initially responded with water cannon and rubber bullets but when they began firing live rounds the local crowds turned rabid. By the first days of March the city was in the protesters’ hands with the police station and local barracks devastated. Government forces that hadn’t defected were in retreat. Nine months later Mu’amar Gheddafi who had ruled Libya for forty two years was dead.

By December 2011 Libya was not at peace nor was there a clear successor to the tyrant. The civil war continued to simmer but central government was firmly in the hands of a transitional government preparing for the first national elections in over fifty years.

The war that placed the transitional government at the head of the second largest country in Africa was a strange one. Military operations did not follow their usual sequence. It was a war fought in an under populated country where huge financial and strategic interests were at stake. It was a war where state of the art  NATO warplanes in the air supported a patchwork of improvised soldiers equipped with hand-made weapons on the ground.

The city of Benghazi is Libya’s second largest but has just 650 thousand inhabitants. It is 2000 km away from Tripoli and is the capital city of Cyrenaica which is Libya’s most fertile and mountainous region. It occupies the easternmost point of the gulf of Sirte the huge bay that Libya claimed as territorial waters in the 1980s.

It is also the home of the Sanussi clan which had generated the country’s first King – Idris – whom the 27-year-old Gheddafi ousted in a coup in 1969. No wonder the rebellion started here. And although despots in neighbouring nations had been toppled Libyan dictator Muamar Gheddaffi  seemed unprepared for what happened in Benghazi.

Within three days of the beginnings of the protests the city was in the protesters’ hands. The rebellion reached a point of no return. Important ex-allies but now deadly enemies of Gheddaffi began making their way to the city to head up the revolt. Among them was general Fatih Younis who had once been the dictator’s interior minister and Mustafa Jalil – an ex-justice minister. Reporters began flooding into the city from Egypt along the coast road and across the desert highway from Tobruk. What they found was chaos.  The city’s police and army barracks had been burned down and government officials murdered. The city’s Imams led massive Friday prayers in support of the new found desire for freedom. Now that the city’s anti-Gheddafi’s majority had showed its hand they had no choice but to topple the dictator for his  revenge would be devastating if he ever recaptured the city.

The rebels made brave sorties out from Benghazi westwards and captured important towns such as the Ras Lanuf refinery but there was an increasing sense of foreboding: what was Gheddaffi preparing? On the other side of the country the Western city of Sabratha had also rebelled against the central power but being within easy striking distance of Tripoli it quickly succumbed to the dictator’s counter attacks. Another front opened when the Berber majority city of Gharyan rebelled and began attacking military bases nearby. And then a fourth front opened spontaneously in the major city of Misrata on the western edge of the Sirte gulf.

Mu’ammar Gheddafi was unprepared militarily for such a widespread rebellion. He had to regain control of strategic cities close to where he had concentrated his forces before moving on the heartland of the rebellion which was Benghazi. It took him two weeks to recall forces spread over the country (especially on hot frontiers such as Chad and Niger) so as to begin a counter attack. By mid-April Misrata had been surrounded and the drive was on to reconquer Benghazi while the rebellion in Gharyan and the Nafus mountains had been sufficiently contained for him to feel safe in Tripoli. By mid-April he was poised to enter Benghazi. The prospect for the rebels was bleak.

Then came the turning point in the war. With the very real threat of a bloodbath in Benghazi the United Nations passed a resolution allowing NATO to use air power powers to protect the civilian populations at risk from Gheddafi’s military. NATO’s interpretation of its remit ended up including targeting any Libyan army units.

Now unable to move his tanks Gheddafi adopted attrition tactics. Neither side could win. Without heavy equipment and with no military training the rebels made slow and painful progress even when NATO destroyed tanks. The loyalist military turned to using light pick-up trucks similar to the ones used by rebels so that NATO aircraft could not distinguish which were which. On the other hand Gheddafi’s tanks moved more freely within the city of Misrata where NTO aircraft avoided attacking them for fear of causing civilian casualties. Standard military practice had been turned on its head.

The war of attrition dragged on until the unthinkable happened again. With fresh weapons and munitions airdropped to them the rebels of the Nafusa region – predominantly of the minority Berber people – broke through the loyalist lines. For weeks rebels had been building arms caches in Tripoli without entering into open resistance but as soon as the columns from Gharyan reached the outskirts of the city the uprising within Tripoli  began in earnest.

Gheddafi fled. But the war was not over. He still had many friends and allies inside and outside the country. The centre of Bani Walid was defended by Gheddafi’s son Khamis who commanded the country’s élite armoured brigade while the city of Sirte – Gheddafi’s birthplace – still supported the dictator. No-one knew where he was.

While the rebels wrought vengeance on government forces the search was on for Gheddafi and his offspring. Eventually Bani Walid also fell – Khamis killed in a NATO air raid . Only Sirte Remained. In October 2011 Ghedaffi tried to make his last desperate sortie from his home town and was first identified by NATO reconnaissance aircraft then captured and murdered. The war was – at least to the outside world – over.

A documentary on a strange war: The documentary proposed is about the military operations on the ground and in the air. It looks at the hardware each side fought with and where the men who used them came from. It contrasts the primitive rebel equipment and poor training with the outdated but robust weapons Gheddafi’s army could depend on. It discusses the question of African mercenaries and which segments of Libyan society fought for which side.

The war on the ground with its simple and brutal rules contrasts with the war in the air – NATO air cover given to the rebels in their advance on Tripoli . First hand witnesses describe how the simple equipment in the rebel inventory was used by the untrained militias and how they coped with the more sophisticated weaponry supplied later by France and which Arab League soldiers came to their aid.

It goes on to discuss the overall strategy of the war – which until the very last months was inexistent. That is until the Nafusa mountain front collapsed. It describes how  a powerful fifth column was successfully created within Tripoli which eventually led to the collapse of the regime and the confidence its supporters had in its survival. It also discusses unconventional weapons used by Gheddafi such as the waves of illegal immigrants that he initially let flee the Libyan coast and  the moral blackmail he managed to exercise over the Organisation of African Unity as the organism tried to set up a ceasefire. It will touch upon episodes of ethnic cleansing carried out by both sides.

The war is described in the context of Libyan history and the effects forty years of Gheddafi rule has had on society: the régime’s distrust of the military and the resulting low morale among regular soldiers: It shows how Gheddafi systematically destroyed the Army’s ability to fight and discusses the real threat posed by hypothetical weapons of mass destruction.

With a population of only 6 million inhabitants split into a multitude of clan and tribal groupings Gheddafi’s divide and rule policy worked successfully for four decades without the need for much more than a brutal secret police. When the crisis came the dictator could rely on a number of key internal and external friends attracted by the vast wealth he could push their way. These were mainly in sub-Saharan Africa as well as within the Sahara itself – such as the Tuareg tribes.

The messy unconventional war has left Libya without powerful leadership and with a deeply divided society but the nation’s oil wealth has made this immense stretch of desert bordered by a narrow sea plain so strategic that it cannot be ignored.

Producers’ access: The producers can count on the support of local Libyans from Tripoli and Benghazi  to collect and supply hours of self-produced footage as well as the experts of NATO and independent think tanks for strategy experts as well as enjoying privileged access to journalists who were on the ground during the war. They have travelled extensively in Libya between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica as well as the strategic Nafusa mountains.

FACT TV’ draws on many years’ experience coproducing documentaries on war.

TALES OF COURAGE – THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR

In a return to traditional history projects FACT TV and Legwork Productions in Malta have developed a series of three documentaries on incredible exploits of under-reported combatants forgotten by the “big history” of the conflict.

This series is based around realistic reconstructions and availability of places and artefacts – espcially flying aircraft and high quality archival footage. Filmed on Location on Malta at Taranto and in the port of Alexandria.

The stories are told in the fast paced but simple way that are the characteristic of FACT TV productions. Directed and researched by Guy Williams.

Episode 1 – Human Submarines

The 1^st November 1918 and the First World War will end in ten days, but a new naval invention is about to make its first attack. A primitive Italian midget submarine carrying two men succeeds in penetrating the Pola naval base to sink an Austrian battleship in harbour.

Twenty years later In the Second World War the Italians would turn again to midget submarines and launch daring raids against the British Navy at Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria, led by a maverick Italian aristocrat, known as the Black Prince, Valerio Borghese who could claim at least one Pope as an ancestor.

The film follows the stories of these men. Borghese who commanded the submarine Scire to deliver the human torpedoes to attack Gibraltar and Alexandria and who went on to fight with the Germans after Italy surrendered.

Teseo Tesei the inventor of the modern two man midget submarine, who survived his mother submarine being sunk off Tobruk, survived an attack on Gibraltar, returning to Italy through Spain, but died attacking Malta in one of his own craft..

The film also tells the extraordinary story of the Italian tanker Olterra which while based in the neutral port of Algeciras was secretly used as a base for the midget submarines, launched through a hidden underwater doorway, they were used to successfully attack shipping in Gibraltar harbour. A secret not discovered until after the war was over.

On a direct order from Winston Churchill, the British were to develop the idea which culminated in larger 4 man midget submarines which by the end of the war were to attack the Japanese fleet in Singapore sinking the heavy cruiser Takao and earning two Victoria crosses in the process.

Filming the actual remaining midget submarines and using CGI reconstruction of attacks, we tell the untold stories of these strange tales of WW2

Episode 2 – Impossible Odds

The Second World War has started, in 1940 the Battle of Britain is about to begin. The most modern fighters of that time; Spitfires and Messerschmitts will battle it out in the skies above Great Britain.

But on the island of Malta, three slow bi-planes, Gloster Gladiators, relics from another era of flight, are the only aircraft to defend the island against the power and overwhelming superior numbers of the Italian Air Force and the Luftwaffe.

These three Gladiators are the only fighters to defend the Maltese inhabitants against the constant bombing raids and they will become a legend, always known by their nicknames, Faith, Hope and Charity.

The film tells the story of these planes and their pilots and the defence of the island after Mussolini declared war on Great Britain in June 1940. The part radar played and films the underground control rooms still there as they were in 1940. The producers have access to the original artefacts and uniforms of the perios and the recently restored war rooms – never seen before on TV.

Using the actual words of the pilots; descriptions of their successes and failures and CGI filming of the ‘dog fights’, backed with actual footage.

Using period reconstructions filmed on the island of Malta, it is an extraordinary story of heroism and survival, death and destruction and how one Gloster Gladiator survived it all.

Episode 3 – Taranto!

During 1940–41, Italian Army operations in North Africa, based in Libya, required a supply line from Italy. The British Army’s North African Campaign, based in Egypt, suffered from much greater supply difficulties. Supply convoys to Egypt had to either cross the Mediterranean via Gibraltar and Malta, and then approach the coast of Sicily, or steam all the way around the Cape of Good Hope, up the whole east coast of Africa, and then through the Suez Canal, to reach Alexandria. Since the latter was a very long and slow route, this put the Italian fleet in an excellent position to interdict British supplies and reinforcements. The British had to counter that very serious threat – which included five active battleships

Operation “Judgement” was just a small part of the over-arching “Operation MB8”. The complete naval task force, commanded by Rear Admiral Lyster, who had authored the plan of attack on Taranto, consisted of Illustrious, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and four destroyers. The 24 attack Swordfish came from 813 Naval Air Squadron, 815 Naval Air Squadron, 819 Naval Air Squadron, and 824 Naval Air Squadron.

Half of the Swordfish were armed with torpedoes as the primary strike aircraft, with the other half carrying aerial bombs and flares to carry out diversions. The loss rate for the bombers was expected to be fifty percent.

Several reconnaissance flights by Martin Maryland bombers (of the RAF’s No. 431 General Reconnaissance Flight) flying from Malta confirmed the location of the Italian fleet. These flights produced photos on which the intelligence officer of Illustrious spotted previously unexpected barrage balloons, and the attack plan was changed accordingly. The complexity of “Operation MB8”, with its various forces and convoys, succeeded in deceiving the Italians into thinking only normal convoying was underway. This contributed to the success of Judgement.

The first wave of 12 A/C led by Lt.-Cdr. M. W. Williamson, 815 Sqn. left Illustrious just before 21:00 hours on 11 November 1940, followed by a second wave of nine about 90 minutes later. Of the second wave, one turned back with a problem with its auxiliary fuel tank, and one aircraft launched 20 minutes late, after requiring emergency repairs to damage from a minor taxiing accident.

The first wave, which consisted of a mixture of six Swordfish armed with aerial torpedoes and six with aerial bombs. A flare was dropped east of the harbour and the flare dropper and another aircraft made a dive bombing attack to set fire to oil tanks. The next three aircraft, led by Lt Cdr K. Williamson RN of 815 Squadron struck the battleship Conte di Cavour with a torpedo that blasted a 27 ft (8.2 m) hole in her side below her waterline. Williamson’s plane was immediately shot down by the anti-aircraft guns of the Italian battleship. The next sub-flight of three attacked from a more northerly direction, attacking the battleship Littorio, hitting it with two torpedoes and launching one torpedo at the flagship—the battleship Vittorio Veneto—which failed to hit its target.

The second wave of 9 A/C led by Lt.-Cdr. J. W. Hale, 819 Sqn.was now approaching, two of the four bombers also carrying flares, the remaining five carrying torpedoes. Two aircraft aimed their torpedoes at Littorio, one of which hit home. One aircraft, despite having been hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, aimed a torpedo at Vittorio Veneto but that torpedo missed its target. One aircraft hit the battleship Caio Duilio with a torpedo blowing a large hole in her hull and flooding both of her forward magazines. The final aircraft to arrive on the scene 15 minutes behind the others made a dive bombing attack on an Italian cruiser despite heavy anti-aircraft fire, and then made a safe getaway, returning to Illustrious at 02:39.

The Italian battleships received very heavy damage:

• Conte di Cavour had a 12 × 8 m hole in the      hull, and in the six hours following the attack all the attempts to save      her failed
• Andrea Doria had only a slightly smaller      hole and was saved by running her aground;^[7]
• Littorio had considerable flooding      caused by three torpedo strikes. Despite the underwater protection      (Pugliese system, standard in all the Italian battleships), the damage was      extensive. She suffered 32 crewmen lost and many wounded, and the ship was      totally disabled.

Cunningham and Lyster wanted to strike Taranto again the next night with Swordfish (six torpedo-bombers, seven bombers, and two flare-dispensers), but bad weather prevented the action.

The Imperial Japanese Navy’s planning staff carefully studied the Taranto attack when planning their aerial torpedo attack on Pearl Harbour over a year later. The air attack on Pearl harbour was a considerably larger operation than Taranto, with six fleet carriers, each one carrying an air wing that was more than double the planes that a British carrier had. It resulted in far more devastation, sinking or disabling seven American battleships, and seriously damaging other warships. However, it can be argued that this air attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet did not alter the balance of power in the Pacific in the same way that the attack on Taranto did in the Mediterranean Sea.