In the early phases of WW2, Germany had invaded most of France. The parts of France not directly controlled by the German army were controlled by the French collaborationist government — called the ‘Vichy’ government, named after its capital city — which complied to Nazi demands and wishes. France’s colonial empire therefore also fell indirectly through the Vichy bureaucracy into Axis hands, from Algiers to Vietnam. Part of that empire was Madagascar.
The Vichy government managed most of the imperial territories and colonies, but was careful to do so in a way pleasing to the Axis.
The Free French government was a government-in-exile, headed by Charles de Gaulle, and located largely in England. It was the legitimate authority over France, but unable to directly manage events in France, or in most of the empire, during the time between mid-1940 until late 1942. After that time, it slowly began to assume meaningful authority over small bits of the empire as they were liberated by the Allies. The Free French government had its own military, which fought in concert with the Allies.
Historian Richard Overy describes the beginning of the Allied effort to free Madagascar from the Vichy regime, i.e., from Axis control:
Late in March 1942 a small convoy of ships steamed south from the Clyde estuary in Scotland destined for the invasion of French territory. Convoy WS17 carried two thousand Royal Marines and a wide assortment of naval and military supplies. The ships were a motley collection, small armed escort vessels swaying side by side with smart passenger liners crudely converted to the dull costume of war. Mercifully unattended by submarines, the convoy plowed on, past the continent of Europe, past the Azores and on into the South Atlantic. On 19 April the convoy arrived in Cape Town where it met up with the rest of the invasion fleet, the aircraft carriers Indomitable and Illustrious, an aging battleship and two cruisers. The 34 ships left for Durban, on the east coast of South Africa. In the last week of April they sailed in two separate groups to take part in Operation ‘Ironclad,’ the invasion of Madagascar.
The history of WW2 includes many invasions: The Axis powers invaded Poland, France, Belgium, and other countries. The Japanese invaded China, the Philippines, French Indochina, and islands around the Pacific. In reply, the Allies invaded and liberated the nations of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France in the European theater, and likewise carried out liberating invasions of the Philippines and other islands.
The liberation of Madagascar was one of the very first Allied invasions, and was the first amphibious invasion carried out by the Allies. As such, it set the stage, and provided important experience, for other later amphibious invasions. The concept of amphibious invasion was relatively new, having played little or no role in WW1, and was a pivotal factor in the ultimate Allied victory. The invasion of Madagascar was, therefore, a groundbreaking moment in military history.
At first, Madagascar might seem like an odd choice of target. France, Italy, North Africa, or the Philippines are more obvious goals. But Madagascar had a strategic importance. The Japanese, having secured the South China Sea, were eyeing the major shipping routes through the Indian Ocean. Madagascar, on the western edge of the Indian Ocean and on the eastern edge of Africa, would have been a good staging and refueling station for the Japanese, who would have good reason therefore to occupy the island.
The mission of convoy WS17 was to liberate Madagascar from Vichy control and from Axis control, and to prevent a Japanese occupation there, as Richard Overy explains:
Their destination was the northernmost tip of the island, Cap d’Ambre, which was almost separated from the rest by a deep inlet that formed the natural harbor of Diego Suarez. This large sheltered anchorage was used by the French as a naval base. It was overlooked by the small port of Antsirane, where the French garrison and a handful of aircraft were stationed. This colonial backwater might well have remained untouched by the war save for the threat from Japan. Following the rapid Japanese conquest of southeast Asia and the East Indies it was feared that Japanese forces would fan out into the Indian Ocean, seizing Ceylon or Madagascar in order to cut the vital shipping lines that sustained Britain’s fragile war effort in the Middle East and India. Madagascar suddenly became the key to British survival, and Churchill signaled his strong approval of its occupation.
The amphibious landing was a new tactic. Few military leaders anywhere had experience in such operations. Operation Ironclad was a test of whether such a technique was possible or practical. The outcome was uncertain, but the threat of Japanese submarines being resupplied and refueled so close to the European theater required the attempt. Richard Overy details the difficulties:
Ironclad was a tricky operation. The island was protected in the north by natural fortifications of shoal and reef. The harbor itself was dominated by large naval guns set in coastal fortresses, and its long winding entrance was easy to defend. Armed with the element of surprise, the task force was detailed to land on the undefended western coast and attack the port from the rear. D-Day was fixed for 5 May — every operation had D-Day and H-Hour to signal its beginning — and the flotilla arrived punctually off the coast at two in the morning. Minesweepers marked a channel through the treacherous waters and the small transport vessels gingerly steered past the buoys to reach the undefended beaches of Courrier and Ambararata bays. Three mines exploded in the approach but no one on shore noticed. The landings were carried out unopposed, for the French regarded the western shore as unnavigable. Not until the marines had advanced 3 miles towards the port did they suddenly meet stiff resistance. Any hope that the defenders might come over to the Allied cause evaporated. For most of the following day the British were pinned down with heavy casualties. The operation was rescued from disaster only by an act of desperation. The destroyer Anthony was sent with fifty marines aboard to run the gauntlet of the harbor guns and seize the port under the noses of the French forces. In darkness and in swirling seas Anthony rose to the occasion; the marines were disembarked on the jetty and seized the naval depot and the commanding general’s house. Attacked from the rear the startled garrison began to crumble. By 3 a.m. on 7 May resistance was almost over. The port was surrendered. A brief naval bombardment the following morning silenced the harbor guns.
Operation Ironclad was a success, but only barely. Although the port and harbor at the northern end of the island had surrendered, the remainder of Madagascar, heading south overland, had to be liberated over the next six months.
The invasion of Madagascar proved that the Allies could complete an amphibious invasion, but it also revealed that the Allies were far from being ready to do such a landing on a large scale or against serious opposition. The Vichy army which resisted the liberation of Madagascar was an amateurish outfit compared to the Japanese army which would oppose any liberation of the Philippines, or compared to the Axis troops who would put up a fight against any Allied liberation of Italy, France, Sicily, or North Africa.
The Allies had managed to prove that they could do an amphibious invasion, but it was clear that they had a long way to go before they would be ready for a bigger version of such a liberation.
Richard Overy examines the record of Operation Ironclad:
The seizure of Diego Suarez effectively forestalled the Japanese. It was the first successful amphibious assault of the war for the Allies, and the first genuinely combined operation, using aircraft, ships, and soldiers working together. It came at a dark time in the war for the Allied cause and was, Churchill later recalled, the only bright spot in Britain’s war effort ‘for long months.’ But it was small comfort. The whole operation had come close to disaster. The ships supporting it had almost run out of fuel and water by 7 May; casualties were surprisingly heavy, 107 killed and 280 wounded, some 20 percent of the attacking force; and contrary to expectations the French governor of the island not only refused to surrender but continued hostilities. The doughty Monsieur Masset retreated south with his forces leaving behind a trail of blown bridges and booby-trapped roads. He survived the fall of his capital in September. South African forces, depleted by illness and plagued by clouds of dry red dust, finally cornered the remnant of the French army in the very south of the island. Here the governor solemnly surrendered on 5 November, exactly six months and one minute after the onset of hostilities in May. Under French law the island’s defenders were now entitled to higher pay and awards for enduring more than half a year of combat.
Looking at the operation in the macro-context of WW2, historian Hubert Deschamps notes:
World War II brought economic crisis with the cessation of exports. The island declared for the Vichy government in 1940, and to prevent its invasion by the Japanese it was occupied in 1942 by the British, who handed it over to the Free French authorities in 1943. It had been considerably distrubed by these events.
Operation Ironclad not only had a military value, but also had a value related to morale on the home front. It was one of the few victories during the early part of the war to which the Allies could point. It gave credibility to the Allied cause.
This would become even more so, for shortly after the liberation of Madagascar, the infamous Raid on Dieppe worked against Allied morale. While some military and political leaders considered the Dieppe Raid, named Operation Jubilee, a success, it didn’t seem that way to the general public. Historians continue to debate the value of the Raid on Dieppe, but at the time, the victory at Madagascar was much-needed to maintain morale, as Richard Overy writes:
It would be unkind to argue that Ironclad was the best the Allies could do in the summer of 1942, but it was not far short. For all those critics of British policy, then and since, the invasion of Madagascar is a salutary reminder of just how slender were British resources in 1942, and how inexperienced were its forces for a major amphibious assault of the kind that Stalin urged against German-held Europe. The British Chiefs-of-Staff were even hostile to an operation as modest as Ironclad because of the disruption to shipping. As it was, the Royal Naval task force at Gibraltar had to be severely depleted to support the Madagascar invasion. If the Japanese navy had chosen to intervene, Britain could have done little to obstruct it, and the whole operation would have produced a strategic nightmare. How much greater were the risks and costs of a cross-Channel assault against a strongly defended coastline with limited resources. When later in the year a substantial raid was mounted on Dieppe by Canadian forces stationed in Britain the outcome was disastrous. Until the landings in North Africa later in the year, the invasion of Madagascar remained the one solid victory for the Allied cause, and it was fought not against hardened soldiers of the Axis but against an assortment of French colonial troops who had started the war as Britain’s allies and had little stomach for conflict.
The Allied military experienced a direct line of development, planning, and maturation from the invasion of Madagascar in May 1942 to the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Operation Ironclad was a fragile and small version of Operation Overlord; the former was the ancestor of the latter.
Richard Overy conceptualizes the weakness but ultimate success of Operation Ironclad:
The western Allies knew that at some point they would have to invade Europe and face their most dangerous enemy. But in the summer of 1942 they were not even sure they could save themselves against the onrush of Japan in the Pacific and Axis forces in North Africa. The choice of Madagascar was an admission of weakness, not strength. Ironclad disrupted the war effort elsewhere but was ultimately successful. The invasion of France in 1942 was operationally impossible. It took another two years before the secretive, hazardous assault on the beaches of Cap d’Ambre was writ large in Normandy.
The narrative of Madagascar’s liberation is not often featured in major histories of WW2, but in context, it represents an important step in the growth and coming-of-age for the Allied military.
The liberation of Madagascar was an indispensable step on the road to the liberation of Paris.
