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.