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Battle of Madagascar
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Battle of Madagascar
The Battle of Madagascar (5 May – 6 November 1942) was an Allied campaign to capture the Vichy French−controlled island Madagascar during World War II. The seizure of the island by the British was to deny Madagascar's ports to the Imperial Japanese Navy and to prevent the loss or impairment of the Allied shipping routes to India, Australia and Southeast Asia. It began with Operation Ironclad, the seizure of the port of Diego-Suarez (now Antsiranana) near the northern tip of the island, on 5 May 1942.
A campaign to secure the rest of the island, Operations Stream, Line and Jane, was opened on 10 September. The Allies broke into the interior, linking up with forces on the coast and secured the island by the end of October. Fighting ceased and an armistice was granted on 6 November. This was the first big operation by the Allies combining sea, land and air forces. The island was placed under Free French control.
Diego-Suarez is a large bay, with a fine harbour, near the northern tip of the island of Madagascar. It has an opening to the east through a narrow channel called Oronjia Pass. The naval base of Diego-Suarez lies on a peninsula between two of the four small bays enclosed within Diego-Suarez Bay. The bay cuts deeply into the northern tip of Madagascar's Cape Amber, almost severing it from the rest of the island. In the 1880s, the bay was coveted by France, which claimed it as a coaling station for steamships travelling to French possessions farther east. The colonization was formalized after the first Franco-Hova War when Queen Ranavalona III signed a treaty on 17 December 1885 giving France a protectorate over the bay and surrounding territory; as well as the islands of Nosy Be and St. Marie de Madagascar. The colony's administration was subsumed into that of French Madagascar in 1897.
In 1941, Diego-Suarez town, the bay and the channel were well protected by naval shore batteries.
Following the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia east of Burma by the end of February 1942, submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy moved freely throughout the north and eastern expanses of the Indian Ocean. In March, Japanese aircraft carriers raided merchant ships in the Bay of Bengal, and attacked bases in Colombo and Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). This raid drove the British Eastern Fleet out of the area and they were forced to relocate to a new base at Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa, Kenya.
The move made the British fleet more vulnerable to attack. The possibility of Japanese naval forces using forward bases in Madagascar had to be addressed. The potential use of these facilities particularly threatened Allied merchant shipping, the supply route to the British Eighth Army and also the Eastern Fleet.[citation needed]
Japanese Kaidai-type submarines had the longest range of any Axis submarines at the time – more than 10,000 mi (16,000 km) in some cases. If the Imperial Japanese Navy's submarines could use bases on Madagascar, Allied lines of communication would be affected across a region stretching from the Pacific and Australia, to the Middle East and as far as the South Atlantic.[citation needed]
On 17 December 1941, Vice Admiral Fricke, Chief of Staff of Germany's Maritime Warfare Command (Seekriegsleitung), met Vice Admiral Naokuni Nomura, the Japanese naval attaché, in Berlin to discuss the delimitation of respective operational areas between the German Kriegsmarine and Imperial Japanese Navy forces. At another meeting on 27 March 1942, Fricke stressed the importance of the Indian Ocean to the Axis powers and expressed the desire that the Japanese begin operations against the northern Indian Ocean sea routes. Fricke further emphasized that Ceylon, the Seychelles, and Madagascar should have a higher priority for the Axis navies than operations against Australia. By 8 April, the Japanese announced to Fricke that they intended to commit four or five submarines and two auxiliary cruisers for operations in the western Indian Ocean between Aden and the Cape of Good Hope, but they refused to disclose their plans for operations against Madagascar and Ceylon, only reiterating their commitment to operations in the area.
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Battle of Madagascar AI simulator
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Battle of Madagascar
The Battle of Madagascar (5 May – 6 November 1942) was an Allied campaign to capture the Vichy French−controlled island Madagascar during World War II. The seizure of the island by the British was to deny Madagascar's ports to the Imperial Japanese Navy and to prevent the loss or impairment of the Allied shipping routes to India, Australia and Southeast Asia. It began with Operation Ironclad, the seizure of the port of Diego-Suarez (now Antsiranana) near the northern tip of the island, on 5 May 1942.
A campaign to secure the rest of the island, Operations Stream, Line and Jane, was opened on 10 September. The Allies broke into the interior, linking up with forces on the coast and secured the island by the end of October. Fighting ceased and an armistice was granted on 6 November. This was the first big operation by the Allies combining sea, land and air forces. The island was placed under Free French control.
Diego-Suarez is a large bay, with a fine harbour, near the northern tip of the island of Madagascar. It has an opening to the east through a narrow channel called Oronjia Pass. The naval base of Diego-Suarez lies on a peninsula between two of the four small bays enclosed within Diego-Suarez Bay. The bay cuts deeply into the northern tip of Madagascar's Cape Amber, almost severing it from the rest of the island. In the 1880s, the bay was coveted by France, which claimed it as a coaling station for steamships travelling to French possessions farther east. The colonization was formalized after the first Franco-Hova War when Queen Ranavalona III signed a treaty on 17 December 1885 giving France a protectorate over the bay and surrounding territory; as well as the islands of Nosy Be and St. Marie de Madagascar. The colony's administration was subsumed into that of French Madagascar in 1897.
In 1941, Diego-Suarez town, the bay and the channel were well protected by naval shore batteries.
Following the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia east of Burma by the end of February 1942, submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy moved freely throughout the north and eastern expanses of the Indian Ocean. In March, Japanese aircraft carriers raided merchant ships in the Bay of Bengal, and attacked bases in Colombo and Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). This raid drove the British Eastern Fleet out of the area and they were forced to relocate to a new base at Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa, Kenya.
The move made the British fleet more vulnerable to attack. The possibility of Japanese naval forces using forward bases in Madagascar had to be addressed. The potential use of these facilities particularly threatened Allied merchant shipping, the supply route to the British Eighth Army and also the Eastern Fleet.[citation needed]
Japanese Kaidai-type submarines had the longest range of any Axis submarines at the time – more than 10,000 mi (16,000 km) in some cases. If the Imperial Japanese Navy's submarines could use bases on Madagascar, Allied lines of communication would be affected across a region stretching from the Pacific and Australia, to the Middle East and as far as the South Atlantic.[citation needed]
On 17 December 1941, Vice Admiral Fricke, Chief of Staff of Germany's Maritime Warfare Command (Seekriegsleitung), met Vice Admiral Naokuni Nomura, the Japanese naval attaché, in Berlin to discuss the delimitation of respective operational areas between the German Kriegsmarine and Imperial Japanese Navy forces. At another meeting on 27 March 1942, Fricke stressed the importance of the Indian Ocean to the Axis powers and expressed the desire that the Japanese begin operations against the northern Indian Ocean sea routes. Fricke further emphasized that Ceylon, the Seychelles, and Madagascar should have a higher priority for the Axis navies than operations against Australia. By 8 April, the Japanese announced to Fricke that they intended to commit four or five submarines and two auxiliary cruisers for operations in the western Indian Ocean between Aden and the Cape of Good Hope, but they refused to disclose their plans for operations against Madagascar and Ceylon, only reiterating their commitment to operations in the area.
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