Naval ratings
manning Vickers guns on NNS Penelope during the assault on Bonny, July 1967
(Photo credit: Archive of Captain James Rawe).
Slide 1.
Cover
Good morning gentlemen.
I am very pleased to present to you today’s
lecture on Module 5 of the Naval Warfare Course which is titled “Naval
Campaigns of the Nigerian Civil War: The Bonny Landing in perspective”.
Slide 2.
Objectives
So, in the course of fulfilling the pertinent
outcomes of the package on Naval History I will present an account of the
preparation and execution of the amphibious assault on Bonny in July 1967 soon
after the commencement of the Nigerian Civil War.
The first objective will be met by
examining the Navy’s instituting of a blockade of the coastline controlled by
the secessionist state of Biafra, the subsequent amphibious operation at Bonny,
including the crucial role played by the Navy in preventing Bonny falling back
into secessionist control. There will also be an overview of the other
landings. All of these had implications related to achieving the finite
military and political objectives envisaged by the Federal Government of
Nigeria.
Objective two will be fulfilled by
taking you through the planning considerations of what was designated as ‘Naval
Operation (Order No.1) 1967. As we will find out, Bonny was one of several
potential landing points to be considered by the Nigerian Navy, and its selection
was tied to a variety of factors including the access to suitable sites to
beach the vessels, the amenability of the physical terrain, favourable tidal
information, the range of military and civilian vessels available to the
Nigerian Navy, the firepower which would need to be brought to bear on the
enemy from the sea while in support of advancing Nigerian troops, intelligence
related to the concentration of enemy forces and implementing security
procedures aimed at achieving the element of surprise.
As far as objective three is concerned,
I will explore the key factors which affect landing operations by delving into
the theoretical concepts pertaining to amphibious operations and evaluating the
outcome of some amphibious landings undertaken prior to 1967.
For objective four, I will also be
identifying the roles played by the relevant Commanding Officers of the ships
involved in the Bonny operation. Among them were two future Chiefs of Naval
Staff, Captain Nelson Soroh, Commander of NNS Nigeria, and Lieutenant Commander Akin Aduwo, who commanded NNS Ogoja. These and other commanders
followed a carefully choreographed movement of vessels from the naval base in
Apapa to the mouth of the Bonny River from where the Nigerian Navy moved into
the area of operations where they performed specific functions during the
landing operation. They were thus responsible for transporting, landing and
providing covering fire for troops of the Third Infantry Division of the
Nigerian Army. A key focus will be on the multifaceted role played by Commander
James Rawe, a veteran of the Normandy Landings of 1944, in not only planning
the Bonny Landing but coordinating the Navy’s effort with that of the Nigerian
Army and serving as the Forward Control Officer while in command of the scout
vessel NNS Penelope.
Finally, by the end of the lecture, I trust
that what has been covered will stimulate you all into drawing lessons for
the conduct of future amphibious operations. For while we will have
examined an operation which took place almost 57 years ago, I would invite you
to consider the words of Dr. Toshi Yoshihara, an expert in contemporary and
historical maritime affairs, who once noted that although “the technologies
change, the logic remains the same.”
Slide 3.
Chronology
This will be the chronology of the lecture. I
will provide some background and context of the political events which led to
the national crisis and follow this up by briefly looking at the different
forms of amphibious landings, the specific preparations undertaken by the Navy,
the implementation of the operation and the aftermath.
I will then round things up with an assessment
of what the Bonny Landing achieved: it set in motion a series of successful
operations undertaken in 1967 and 1968 which were vitally important in
commencing the encirclement and eventual defeat of the secessionist forces.
Slide 4.
Overview of political events
The year 1966 began with an army coup which
led to a concatenation of violence that ultimately plunged Nigeria into a civil
war. During these upheavals caused by divisions in the army, the Navy remained
a stable organisation under the leadership of Commodore Joseph Wey.
Under Wey, the Navy participated in the
efforts aimed at stabilising the country and providing legitimacy to the two
military governments which were formed in 1966.
Commodore Wey also attended the peace talks
held under the auspices of the Ghanaian government in the town of Aburi in
January 1967.
Slide 5.
Commodore Wey Pen Portrait
This slide has a pen-portrait of Commodore
Wey, who had been serving as the first indigenous Chief of Naval Staff (CNS)
since 1964.
He was a marine engineer by background. As
CNS, he would go on to supervise and approve the naval operations that involved
the seaborne landings, as well as the instituting of a blockade against the
secessionist state of Biafra.
Slide 6.
The Nigerian Navy: Managing Esprit de Corps during a crisis (sabotage and
defections)
During this period, the Nigerian Navy was also
facing its own challenges.
Personnel from all regions continued to serve
side-by-side but there was an unavoidable uneasiness given the prevailing
circumstances in the country.
The drift towards an internal war and the fear
that naval force would be used in such a war if it were waged against the
Eastern region led to acts of sabotage.
In April 1967, the base was plunged into
darkness by a power cut.
This was followed by the vandalising of
electronic equipment on board many of the navy’s vessels. These included
navigational aids and communication apparatus.
Armaments, gunfire pins and engine parts were
either totally removed or disabled.
In the meantime there were defections of
officers and men to the Eastern region before its secession on May 30th, 1967.
Slide 7.
The Nigerian Navy Prepares for Battle
The photograph in this slide shows armed naval
personnel at the Apapa base which was under emergency base defences in January
1966.
Slide 8.
Prelude to Naval Action
The build-up to the first amphibious landing
was preceded by important military tasks which were undertaken by the navy.
Prior to the declaration by the Federal
Government of a “police action” on July 6th, 1967, the promulgation of the
Territorial Waters Decree (No.5) of 1967 which extended the limit of
Nigeria’s territorial sea from the customary 3 nautical miles to 12 nautical
miles paved the way for the navy to mount an economic blockade against the
seceded eastern region.
The objective was to blockade the littoral
space where oil was exported; the prime targets being the harbours in Port
Harcourt and Bonny.
The strategic dimension of this blockade was
to prevent arms being smuggled into the secessionist state and the economic
dimension related to stopping international trade with the former Eastern
region. No ships were allowed to be loaded at any ports including the oil
terminal.
The next step was to mount an amphibious
landing of Federal troops, a move that would be orchestrated by the Nigerian
Navy.
The newly promoted Rear Admiral Wey was handed
a list of possible sites by Major General Yakubu Gowon, the head of the Federal
Military Government.
I will go into the options given to the navy,
but before this I would like to examine the concept of the amphibious
operation.
Slide 9.
Defining Amphibious Warfare
The authors Ian Speller and Christopher Tuck
define amphibious warfare as follows:
A type
of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground
and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated
landing beach.
Note should be made that in July 1967 the
Nigerian armed forces were not able to project air power during the first
landing. This would come later during the fifth and final landing undertaken in
Oron.
Slide
10. Classification of Amphibious Operations
Amphibious operations are traditionally
classified into four types namely the “amphibious assault,” “amphibious
withdrawal,” “amphibious demonstration” and an “amphibious raid".
A fifth, namely that of “amphibious
support" is often added these days.
The operation of Bonny was designed and
executed as an amphibious assault; one that would utilise a concentration of
troops to force a landing in the presence of the enemy.
The conventional pattern of an amphibious
assault would be to begin by bombarding the defensive positions of the enemy,
which in the case of Bonny would be limited to naval bombardment.
Once the opposition is “softened,” troops will
be taken to the shore on transport vessels and landing craft in successive
waves during which time beachheads are seized and a perimeter established to
enable the introduction of heavy reinforcement of armaments and vehicles, along
with stores.
The landed force is then able to advance
inland, in the process transforming maritime warfare into a land campaign.
The intended landing at Bonny was not an
exploratory exercise solely intended to inflict damage on the enemy, collect
information or otherwise create a diversion. That is a “raid.”
Neither was the idea of “demonstration”
involved. The Bonny operation was not a deception designed to divert attention
from other landing sites. Nor was it a peacetime exercise with the objective of
impressing a potential adversary.
It was also not a “withdrawal,” which is an
operation designed to extract forces from a hostile shore.
And of course it was not a mission designed to
offer “support” on the basis of providing humanitarian aid or disaster relief.
The idea behind the Bonny operation was for a
Nigerian naval task force to transport, land and establish soldiers of the
newly created Third Infantry Division onto territory held by secessionist
forces and begin the effort of regaining territory.
Slide
11. Mounting an amphibious operation: The challenge for the Nigerian Navy
Amphibious landings are inherently risky
endeavours with the threat of the attacker sustaining a high level of loss of
life if an enemy is dug into prepared positions. Mounting such an operation was
a quite daunting task which would test the professional skills of an
organisation which was barely a decade old when it was called upon to perform
the first amphibious landing of troops by a modern Black African armed force.
The White dominated Union of South Africa
performed an amphibious invasion of German South West Africa in 1914, and the
other amphibious assaults had been conducted by European and North American
militaries.
During World War 2, there was “Operation
Menace” in 1940 which involved the Royal Navy and the Gaullist Free French
Forces attempting to overthrow the Vichy government in Dakar, Senegal.
Two years later, “Operation Ironclad,” another
British and Free French endeavour successfully led to the Free French taking
over the island of Madagascar, and of course there was “Operation Torch,” the
Anglo-American landings which began the Allied effort of dismantling German and
Italian armies in North Africa.
Nigeria did not have a maritime organisation
dedicated to warfare until 1956, and so we must emphasise the point that
Nigeria was a young nation which had not developed any substantive naval
traditions in the modern sense.
It did not have what one might describe as a
“military intellectual complex” from which to draw from decades or even
centuries of tried and tested naval operational concepts.
The Nigerian Navy had its small but increasing
naval warfare personnel trained at foreign institutions most notably at the
Britannia Naval College in Dartmouth, England but it lacked relevant indigenous
institutions including that of a Naval War College and specialist departments
in higher education organisations where the built-up intellectual resources of
naval and civilian thinkers composed of analysts and strategists would have
laid down the theoretical foundations of Nigerian sea power.
And even though it could be argued that
national military doctrines would be focused on combating external threats
rather than on an internal war, the fact remained that the Nigerian Navy had no
experience whatsoever in planning and implementing a seaborne landing
operation.
Although the possibility had existed in the
past of an inter-service operation: one over political tension with Cameroon
and another relating to a planned invasion of Togo to aid President Sylvanus
Olympio in the event of a war with Nkrumaist Ghana, the Nigerian Navy and
Nigerian Army had never performed a combined operation.
This was not an accidental state of affairs.
The late Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle mentioned in his memoir that inter-service
cooperation through joint manoeuvres were in fact discouraged by the political
class over fears that it could lead to a coordinated coup by the two forces.
Apart from its deficiency in the
aforementioned “military intellectual complex,” the Nigerian Navy did not have
an Indigenous “military industrial complex” from which it produced its own
weapons of war including naval ships. This lack of an industrial base made it
reliant on obtaining vessels and equipment from foreign manufacturers.
It was an issue still exercising Nigerian
naval personnel decades later when Captain O.A. Oladimeji wrote a piece for the
U.S. Naval Institute in 1990 titled "Where Are the African Navies
Going?"
Alas, it still remains an issue to this day.
Slide
12. Commander James Rawe (Pen Portrait)
The figure at the heart of how the Bonny
Landing was conceptualised and put into effect was Commander James Rawe, an
expatriate Briton, who at the time of the crisis was serving as Principal Staff
Officer and Commander of the Naval Base in Apapa.
Rawe was a veteran of the Second World War and
was still a teenaged midshipman of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve when as a
navigation officer of a landing craft, he landed the first wave of American
troops on “Utah Beach.”
As the only officer serving in the Nigerian
Navy who had faced gunfire while landing on a beach it was obvious that his
knowledge and experience would be central to the planning and execution of the
forthcoming operation.
Rawe’s role as a hydrographer was also
important. His long-term experience of surveying the coastline of Nigeria
including the rivers and creeks of the Niger Delta gave him an intimate
knowledge of potential landing sites.
Thus, he became the author of what would be
known as Naval Operation (Order Number 1) of 1967 and the subsequent
operational orders. Also, in conjunction with Rear Admiral Wey, he formulated
an overall naval strategy.
Slide
13. Landing by sea of enemy-held territory
Rawe went on to produce a paper which would
cover three things.
First, he outlined some general points related
to the nature of seaborne operations.
Secondly, he scrutinised the viability of
three potential landing sites prior to offering a justification of his choice
as the most suitable one, and finally he assessed the capacities of the naval
and merchant vessels which would be available to carry out a landing.
The first segment of the top-secret paper
produced by Commander Rawe which was titled “General information and remarks on
landings” outlined the necessity of having intelligence on the physical terrain
of the proposed landing site and the resistance that was likely to be met.
Among other considerations, he emphasised the
absolute necessity of degrading any prepared enemy positions and examined the
methods which would be employed in the battlefield.
The weaponry and manpower available to both
adversaries also had to be considered.
Finally, he looked at failures in a select
number of amphibious operations undertaken by combined forces during the Second
World War.
One constant and inexorable logic attendant to
the preparation of an amphibious assault is the gathering of intelligence data.
The Nigerian Navy alongside the army needed in
the first instance to gather clear and reliable intelligence on the physical
geography of the area which would eventually function as a landing site, as
well as on the concentrations of enemy forces in the vicinity of the targeted
area.
As far as physical geography is concerned, one
vital piece of information commanders need to be fully informed of should be
the nature of the beach. From this, they will be able to assess whether
vehicles will be able to move over it, as well as the chances of the landing
craft being damaged.
Factors to be taken into account include the
gradient of the beach and any natural and man-made obstructions on such a
beach. Knowledge of the gradient of the beach allows commanders to assess the
depth of water through which men and vehicles would have to wade through before
reaching the shore.
Regarding potential obstructions, you will
appreciate that the presence of a seawall or steep-rising land would be an
encumbrance to landing equipment and enabling troops to break out from the
beach.
Of particular concern to the naval command,
Commander Rawe noted the importance of having knowledge of the tidal stream and
the amount of rise and fall of tide. This would then determine the angle of
approach which the landing craft would make to the beach and the length of time
that the craft would be able to remain on the beach without being stranded.
Another issue of concern to the navy would be
the sea conditions. In other words, they needed to have an idea of the level of
surf or volatility of waves once the landing craft had beached.
The second major issue, namely that of dealing
with enemy concentrations around the designated area of beaching, was of
particular concern to Commander Rawe who stressed the need for enemy positions
to be sufficiently weakened by initial bombardment. In the case of a first
landing, the Nigerian Navy would have to accomplish this without the assistance
of an air force.
The navy would of course be responsible for
getting troops of the Third Infantry Division on land. The best method to begin
the enterprise would be to first send a small craft “carrying few men and
offering small targets.”
Once the beach is made secure, the larger
landing craft would be brought in to build up the landing force. The navy would
be intimately involved in the method of supplying the force once it is landed
and facilitating the transporting of vehicles, stores and equipment from the
point at which the craft beaches to firm land.
Commander Rawe’s paper assessed the relative
strengths of both federal and secessionist forces and noted that while the
enemy was limited in terms of the weaponry it would bring to the arena of
battle, the Nigerian forces were also limited.
For one, the navy did not possess any small
landing craft; dinghies would provide a substitute of sorts, and it only
possessed one landing craft tank, and as Rawe noted, if Nigeria’s sole landing
craft were damaged before landing the first wave of troops, there could be no
landing.
Furthermore, if the landing craft was damaged
after landing the first troops but before a jetty was captured, where ordinary
vessels could berth, then the troops on shore would be unable to be reinforced
or be supplied with additional stores.
Commander Rawe was able to offer practical
insight into the question of landings given his experiences during World War 2,
offering three painful lessons the Allied forces endured.
As far as the prior knowledge of physical
geography of the selected landing site was concerned, he offered the examples
of the amphibious operations conducted at Dieppe in 1942 and at Omaha Beach in
1944.
Dieppe, an operation which incidentally was
overseen by Admiral Louis Mountbatten, failed because no account had been taken
during the planning of the seawall which prevented tanks and other vehicles
from leaving the beach.
The element of surprise was thus lost.
In the case of the landing at Omaha Beach,
American forces found themselves unable to break out from the beach area
because the terrain behind the beach consisted of steep cliffs.
The failure of the amphibious raid at Dieppe
and the near failure of the landing at Omaha Beach were also due to the failure
to degrade enemy positions by bombardment.
This was also at the heart of the costly loss
of life among Royal Navy personnel during the operation to capture the Belgian
region of Walcheren, which controls access to the seaport of Antwerp.
Sorties carried out by the Royal Air Force and
Royal Navy bombardment did not successfully neutralise several potent German
batteries one of which scored a direct hit on a landing craft which killed
around 300 allied personnel.
This incident had a profound effect on the
young James Rawe who knew many of the naval officers who took part in the
operation and several friends of his died.
Although he did not participate in the
operation as he had at Normandy, he learned lessons from the mistakes made by
the operation commanders, one of which was relying too much on the element of
surprise.
Slide
14. Map of Port Harcourt, Bonny and Opobo.
We now go on to the question of selecting the
location for the first amphibious assault conducted by the Nigerian Navy during
the civil war.
As I mentioned earlier, the head of state had
given the naval command a list of possible landing sites among which were Port
Harcourt, Opobo and Bonny.
Slide
15. Landing points considered.
Port Harcourt was a strategically important
town which featured high on the list of possible candidates. Its harbour
facilities, as well as its connection with Nigeria’s then burgeoning oil
production marked it out.
It was of critical importance that it come
under Federal control as soon as possible to prevent the secessionist state
from conducting a lucrative international trade which would economically
empower it and therefore enable it to build up a more formidable arsenal.
But Port Harcourt was over 40 miles up from
the Bonny fairway buoy, and it would take between 4 to 6 hours to get there,
depending on the tide, after entering the Bonny River. The task force would
surely be sighted which would give the enemy plenty of opportunity to prepare
defensive positions.
Moreover, the approach to Port Harcourt for
the last 20 miles becomes narrow which would enable the opposition, if armed
with mortars or rocket-propelled short-range weapons, to inflict heavy damage
on the convoy.
Even if the naval force successfully beached,
the civilian vessels would make for large easy targets and the supply chain of
ships would have to take enormous risks during a 40-mile journey until the
banks of the Bonny River were cleared of the enemy.
“From a naval point of view,” concluded
Commander Rawe, “to embark on an attack on Port Harcourt, direct, would invite
disaster.”
Opobo ostensibly presented a more promising
location.
There were suitable locations to beach and
there was sufficient depth of water to enable vessels to manoeuvre once vessels
passed the river bar.
However, there were difficulties, the most
critical of which was the river bar. There was great uncertainty about the
depth of the waters in this area. The river was not used commercially, and the
last survey had been conducted in 1961.
The lack of water on the bar would mean that
only the landing craft would be able to enter the river and that the landing
would have to take place without naval fire support.
Adding to the potential problems was the
question of weather conditions. River bars are vulnerable to the effects of
heavy rain, fierce winds and crashing waves.
If the weather were bad in the Opobo area, it
would mean that even the navy’s landing craft would most likely be unable to
enter the river.
It would be too much to risk the only landing
craft ending up stranded on one of the sand spits on either side of the river
channel.
Still another impediment was the lack of
intelligence on the presence and visibility of marker buoys and the beacon;
that is the lighthouse.
The marker buoys would of course enable the
task force to negotiate the navigable parts of the river, while the beacon
would aid the ships in fixing their positions prior to entering the river.
Slide
16. Map of Bonny Island
The elimination of Port Harcourt and Opobo
left Bonny as the only site where from “a naval point of view,” as Commander
Rawe put it, “a landing would have a fair chance of success.”
It ticked most of the boxes.
The water was deep all the way up to the town;
the wideness of the river would give ships room for manoeuvre; there were
several spots which were suitable for the landing craft to beach; there were
jetties at which ships could berth and supply stores even if the landing craft
was disabled; naval vessels would be able to provide fire support to the troops
being landed; and enemy vessels intending to bring reinforcements down the
river would be stopped.
Additionally, occupying Bonny would seal off
Port Harcourt 40 miles up the river, and landing on an island and taking it had
the added advantage of an island being easier to defend than an area of
mainland.
Slide
17. Advantages of taking Bonny
As this slide shows, a successful landing and
capture of Bonny would yield great benefits for the Federal war effort.
Firstly, it would release the navy from
blockade duty off Bonny River and allow it to concentrate on other areas.
Secondly, the navy would have an area close to
the base of operations and would be in a better position to support the army.
Thirdly, military forces could be built for an
advance on Port Harcourt.
There was also the obvious political and
economic importance of capturing Bonny Town and the adjacent oil terminal. At
the time, Shell BP was still mulling over whether to pay the secessionist state
royalties when its chairman was arrested by secessionist troops while on a
visit to Port Harcourt.
Capturing Bonny would make it quite clear to
Shell BP that it was Federal Nigeria which would control the export of oil.
Slide
18. Available vessels
The third and final section of Commander
Rawe’s paper set out the vessels which were available to serve as a task force.
It is important to remind you of my previous statement regarding Nigeria’s not
having a “military industrial complex,” the result of its not having developed
an industrial base. None of the vessels, naval or merchant, had been built in
the country.
This of course leads to issues pertaining to
the dangers associated with over reliance on foreign suppliers, as well as the
costs associated with maintenance.
This was a crucial matter indirectly addressed
by Commander Rawe who noted that if the navy’s only landing craft were to be
damaged during an operation, there would be no landing.
At the start of the civil war, the Nigerian
Navy owned ships which had once been in the service of the navies of the United
States or Western European countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, Germany,
and France.
Still, the Navy had more vessels at its
disposal than the secessionist side which had acquired NNS Ibadan, a minesweeper which had been on patrol off the Eastern
region during the crisis.
Arrayed against that sole vessel would be a
frigate, a patrol boat, three seaward defence boats (SDBs) and one landing
craft. Merchant ships would also be available to serve as troop carriers and to
transport stores.
Although he did not include it among
“available vessels,” NNS Penelope,
Commander Rawe’s old survey ship, was converted into a fighting vessel.
So, let us go through each ship to gauge their
respective physical features and the firepower which they would bring to the
theatre of war.
NNS Nigeria,
a Dutch-made frigate, was 314 feet in length and had a maximum speed of 24
knots. It had one set of twin MK XVI “HA/LA” naval guns which were quick firing
and used by the Royal Navy and other Commonwealth navies. It also had 4 Bofors
anti-aircraft guns.
NNS Ogoja
was a 185-foot-long corvette armed with a 3-inch gun, four 40mm Bofors guns and
six 20mm Oerlikons. It was fitted with anti-submarine warfare (ASW) equipment
and had a maximum speed of 18 knots.
The Nigerian Navy also had three seaward
defence boats namely NNS Enugu, NNS Benin, and NNS Kaduna, all 110-foot long and armed with one 40mm Bofors and
anti-submarine equipment. Each had a speed of 13 knots.
The landing craft NNS Lokoja was 188-foot in length and had two 20mm Oerlikons. It had a
speed of 8 knots.
NNS Penelope
was a 79-foot-long survey vessel which was converted into an armed ship
possessing one 20mm Oerlikon and two Vickers machine guns.
The naval vessels would be accompanied by two
merchant ships named MV Bode Thomas
and the MV King Jaja.
Slide
19. Photograph of NNS Nigeria
This slide shows a photograph of NNS Nigeria soon after its commissioning in
1965.
After considering all the issues of the three
sections it was up to the High Command of the Nigerian armed forces to
determine whether the information and assessment were such that the military
necessity of the landings outweighed the risks involved.
The decision to stage the landing in Bonny was
soon confirmed and Commander Rawe drew up a mission plan which specified the
role to be played by the Commanding Officer of each ship from the moment they
were issued with sailing orders to the landing operation.
Command responsibilities were clearly
delineated and issues such as communication procedures, logistics, medical and
tidal information were dealt with.
Slide
20. The challenge of attacking Bonny: possible defensive measures
There were also challenges to overcome
regarding Bonny’s terrain and the physics of the sea, as well as potential
challenges regarding the manner in which the defending forces could opt to
prevent an invasion. Commander Rawe’s operational order addressed the
geographical challenges, while in his civil war memoir, Colonel Adekunle placed
great emphasis on the potential obstacles which the defenders could have used
to frustrate an attack.
In his memoir, Adekunle recalled that the
tidal information could have been used by the Biafrans to predict the timing of
a Federal invasion, as well as to determine where to concentrate coastal
batteries. The entrance to the Bonny river could have been lined with sea mines
or explosive-filled drums. Moreover, the defenders could have sowed confusion
by shifting the buoys which marked the navigable areas of the entrance into the
river and caused attacking vessels to be run aground. In short, the Biafran
side had the capacity to turn the enterprise into a disastrous one.
Slide
21. Cover of Naval Operation No.1 of 1967
Slide
22. Naval Operation (Order Number 1) 1967
The preamble to Naval Operation (Order Number
One) 1967 is straightforward as you can see on the slide.
The situation was that the “Bonny Town area is
occupied by enemy forces approximately 300 strong in prepared positions.”
And the mission was to “transport, land and
afford the support of naval fire power to Federal troops, in order to
facilitate the capture of Bonny Town and the island on which it is situated.”
Slide
23. Command.
The three senior-most commanders of the
mission were identified as Captain Nelson Soroh who was designated as the
“officer-in-charge” of the operation; Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, the
General Officer Commanding the Third Infantry Division was the “officer
commanding land forces;” and Commander James Rawe was given the role of “naval
liaison officer” and “forward control officer.”
Slide
24. Captain Nelson Soroh (Pen Portrait)
Here is a pen-portrait of Captain Soroh, the
officer in charge of the mission. Like Wey, he was transferred from the Marine
Department to the Royal Nigerian Navy where he became a pioneer naval warfare
officer.
He commanded several ships including NNS Nigeria and was earmarked as the
eventual successor to Rear Admiral Wey as the CNS.
Slide
25. Outline of operation (waves of landings)
The plan provided for the task force to land
troops in three waves.
The first wave would consist of troops on the
landing craft NNS Lokoja which would
beach on the northern part of Bonny Town.
The second wave would be landed by NNS Nigeria when the situation permitted.
And the third wave would be landed after Bonny
Town was captured.
Slide 26.
Chronology of command
The timeline regarding the commanding of the
operation was that during the seaborne assault, the officer-in-charge of the
mission, namely Captain Soroh, the Commanding Officer of NNS Nigeria, would exercise control through
the forward control officer, Commander Rawe, the Commanding Officer of NNS Penelope.
Rawe would lead the task force into battle
while NNS Nigeria, a prized asset
which the navy would not place in unnecessary risk in shallower and more
confined waters would bombard enemy placements within Bonny.
After completing the landing operations, sea
and land commands would then divide.
Slide
27. Commanding officers and their vessels
This slide shows the vessels taking part and
their commanding officers. Note that although Lieutenant Commander Adegbite had
been scheduled to command NNS Benin,
one of the SDBs; his place was apparently later taken by Lieutenant Promise
Fingesi.
Slide
28. Movement and Function of vessels during operation
The movement of vessels was also carefully
choreographed for the three different stages of the operation.
First was the initial movement of vessels.
Second was the movement of vessels to the area
of operations and third was the function of the vessels during the landing
operation.
Slide
29. Initial movement of vessels (Map of the Nigerian coastline)
The movement of vessels from the naval base in
Lagos had to be staggered as each of the types of ships had different
capacities of speed.
NNS Lokoja,
sailing at a speed of 8 knots, was scheduled to leave first. It was destined
for Escravos but would rendezvous first with the MV Bode Thomas, a ship of the Nigerian Ports Authority, at Ogidigben
and embark the assault troops.
After this it would sail to meet the main body
of the task force at Escravos Fairway Buoy.
Penelope sailed after Lokoja moving at 7 knots and headed
directly to Bonny Fairway Buoy.
Nigeria, alongside Ogoja, Enugu and Benin were
scheduled to leave very shortly after Penelope
at a speed of 12 knots and scheduled to rendezvous with Lokoja at Escravos Fairway Buoy. From Escravos, all ships would
proceed to rendezvous with Penelope
at Bonny Fairway Buoy.
Slide
30. Movement of vessels into area of operations (Identifying Sea areas)
After the ships assembled on the Atlantic
Ocean, at the mouth of the Bonny River, the movement of the vessels into the
area of operations would begin.
As is the tradition in military planning, a
segment beginning from the Atlantic Ocean up to the waters of the Bonny River
that is adjacent to Bonny Island was divided into separate named areas.
From south to north the areas were named “Osca,”
“Papa,” “Quebec,” “Romeo,” “Sierra,” “Tango,” “Uniform,” “Victor,” “Whiskey”
“X-ray,” “Yankee” and “Zulu.”
Slide
31. Movement of vessels into area of operations (Bonny Town sectors)
At the same time, Bonny town was divided into
several sectors in which the ship commanders were assigned tasks relating to
shore bombardment and providing covering fire.
From south to north the sectors were “Mike”
(Shell area), “India,” “Hotel,” “Golf,” “Foxtrot", “Echo,” “Delta",
“Bravo” and “Alpha.”
Slide
32. Movement of vessels into area of operations (The role of each ship
commander)
Here you can see the different zones in a map
which I based on the overlay to admiralty chart created by Commander Rawe.
NNS Ogoja
under Lieutenant Commander Aduwo was scheduled to move northwards into “Area
Sierra,” while NNS Enugu and NNS Benin to be commanded respectively by
Lieutenant Commander Abdullahi and Lieutenant Commander Adegbite would advance
further into “Area Tango.”
The landing craft NNS Lokoja commanded by Commander Joe and escorted by NNS Benin would then proceed into the next
zone designated as “Area Uniform.”
NNS Penelope
would operate flexibly with Commander Rawe communicating orders to the ships
and simultaneously apprising NNS Nigeria
of the combat situation while Nigeria
remained in the southernmost areas in the Atlantic Ocean respectively named
“Area Papa” and” Area Osca.”
NNS Nigeria would use its large guns to
bombard enemy positions with bombardment being supplemented by those ships
carrying Bofors guns. The Oerlikon guns and the Vickers guns could be used to
provide covering fire for advancing federal troops.
Let me embark on a more forensic look at the
role of each vessel.
Captain Soroh in NNS Nigeria was to remain in either the “Papa” or “Osca” areas until it
was safe for her to enter into the Bonny River. Commander Rawe noted her high
freeboard made it impossible to depress her four-inch guns low enough to fire
back at short range.
It is of course important to assess your
vulnerabilities and NNS Nigeria was a
case in point. There’s a saying that you “don’t risk your big ships as you will
not get an equivalent amount of military value from it.”
Ships have always been vulnerable in a
multiplicity of ways. The sinking of HMS Repulse
and HMS Prince of Wales by Japanese
land-based aircraft in 1941 was the first time that capital ships were sunk
solely by air power while actively defending themselves. It ended the era of
battleships.
And just three months after the landing at
Bonny, INS Eilat, an Israeli Z-class
destroyer which was formerly the Royal Navy’s HMS Zealous, was sunk by an Egyptian Komar-class missile boat
positioned within the harbour at Port Said during the Israeli-Egyptian War of
Attrition.
Thus, NNS Nigeria
would not be put at risk to ensure that it provided effective support to the
land forces.
Nigeria’s role at the
commencement of the operation was to silence any artillery or gun positions in
the theatre of war, waiting for an appropriate moment to enter the battle zone
after the first wave of troops was landed by NNS Lokoja.
Captain Soroh had on board ten assault boats,
and it would be up to him to decide whether to use them to disembark the troops
who were onboard Nigeria or to transfer them to Commander Joe on Lokoja which was supposed to re-join
Nigeria after it disembarked the first wave.
While operations were ongoing, war flares or
star shells were to be utilised as a means of conveying military signals, so
Lieutenant Commander Abdullahi on NNS Enugu
was expected to communicate when the SDBs opened fire to Captain Soroh by
sending up “one green Very light.”
Commander Rawe, the Forward Control Officer on
Penelope, was to back this up
verbally via radio channel.
Lieutenant Commander Aduwo on NNS Ogoja was to remain within “Area Sierra”
to provide bombardment and cover fire in “Sector Golf” in Bonny.
Ogoja’s task was to engage
enemy troops and prevent them from moving north where the landing was taking
place.
It was also expected to engage any enemy
troops if they retreated southwards. In order to avoid casualties caused by
“friendly fire,” Aduwo and other ship commanders were advised of the procedure
associated with indicating the position of friendly troops.
The troops of the Third Division engaging the
enemy in Bonny were expected to indicate their position to naval vessels by
firing “one green Very light.” In doing so, the troops would be indicating
their most southerly position which would permit relevant naval vessels to fire
ahead of them.
This is because the commanding officers on the
vessels would presume that the troops to the north of the point from where the
Very light was fired were “friendly” and those to the south were “enemy” troops
unless the relevant vessel commander had strong reason to believe otherwise.
In “Area Tango,” Lieutenant Commander
Abdullahi and Lieutenant Commander Adegbite, respectively on NNS Enugu and NNS Benin, were tasked with first firing at the jetties situated at
the northern end of Bonny after which they would bombard the landing area
situated between the two northernmost jetties.
Abdullahi was charged with arranging the
bombardment so that the whole target area was covered. Both commanding officers
were under instructions not to fire from north of their position in “Tango”
unless necessary to prevent stray shells from landing in the high-density part
of Bonny Town designated as “Sector Foxtrot.”
Abdullahi had the responsibility for firing
“one green Very light” when firing commenced and both he and Adegbite were to
cease firing on the landing area once Joe in Lokoja fired “one red Very light.”
Once Enugu
and Benin completed their
bombardment, they were to move north into the next zone, “Area Uniform” where
they were expected to engage any enemy vessels or enemy aircraft coming down
the Bonny River.
Lokoja was expected to land
between the two northernmost jetties of Bonny Town with the exact position of
the landing to be decided by Commander Joe.
Joe was as mentioned expected to fire “one red
Very light” in the final stage of her beaching run. Throughout all of this,
Commander Rawe in Penelope would act
as the forward control for both sea and land forces until Captain Soroh entered
the Bonny River in NNS Nigeria.
Slide
33. Miscellaneous.
To round off our look at the Operation Order,
I’ll make a brief mention of miscellaneous matters. In his battle plan,
Commander Rawe reminded all commanding officers that their ships were to be
prepared to defend themselves against air attack and to post lookouts to give
warning of approaching aircraft.
They were expected to engage with any enemy in
their vicinity, and where this was not the case, they were to forward pertinent
information to “control,” that is Commander Rawe’s ship.
Voice traffic was to be kept to a minimum and
ship captains were reminded not to fire into the high density “Sector Foxtrot
'' unless essential.
Logistics covered supplies of ammunition,
fuel, and food. All vessels were told to stock up on their full outfit of
ammunition before sailing and to cram in as much as possible if there was
enough stowage space.
All vessels were to be fuelled to no less than
95% of their capacities and to have enough water which would be rationed.
As far as food was concerned, all vessels were
to be stocked with as much fresh and dry rations as could be stowed. Vessels
were instructed not to leave Lagos with less than seven days rations of food.
The ships were supposed to have first aid
medical supplies with access to a doctor and other medical personnel on NNS Nigeria. Those wounded who required more
than first aid would be transferred to NNS Nigeria
as soon as it was expeditious. Nigeria
would also be carrying additional personnel for replacement purposes.
Tidal information specific to the high water
and lower water estimates regarding both Bonny Bar and Bonny Town was also
given which covered four periods during the day on Monday, July 24th, Tuesday
July 25th and Wednesday, July 26th.
Slide
34. Communications
Finally, Naval Operation (Order Number One) of
1967 laid out the command and communications structure of the mission.
As previously mentioned, the three key
officers were Captain Soroh, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle and Commander Rawe.
Rawe would be at the centre of the communication network which on one side
consisted of the ships Lokoja, Ogoja, Benin and Enugu and on
the other Captain Soroh in Nigeria,
who would provide communication to naval headquarters and the merchant ships.
This format would endure until circumstances
permitted Nigeria to enter the Bonny
River and take direct control of the operation. Nigeria would keep guard on circuit 201 and Captain Soroh would
order each of the ships to keep guard when appropriate on designated
frequencies in voice and morse code.
Each ship was given a call sign. NNS Nigeria was “Beauty,” Penelope was “Sparrow,” Kaduna was “Love” and so on. All ships
shared the call sign “Loco.”
Slide
35. Rawe’s pen drawn “command network”.
Here you can see an excerpt of the naval order
depicting the “command network” as drawn by Commander Rawe and as I have
explained in the previous slide.
Slide
36. Preparations
In his memoir, Adekunle noted that Rawe’s
plans were subjected to great scrutiny by the High Command. Questions were
asked about the “capabilities” of the ships, their “weaknesses” and their
“suitability for tropical warfare.” Adekunle recalled that he was convinced
that the Navy was endowed with excellent officer material who would be
supported, in his words, by “equally dependable ratings.”
However, there was much to be done within a
short period of time to prepare for the operation. This presented a challenge
on many fronts.
There was a logistical aspect, an intelligence
aspect, as well as the aspect concerned with the effort of harmonising two
branches of the armed forces embarked on a first combined operation.
As mentioned earlier, naval equipment on board
vessels and on shore at the Apapa base had been vandalised by about-to-defect
naval personnel from the Eastern region.
The gradual disappearance of personnel
consisting of both officers and ratings who were clandestinely returning to
their native region, as well as the interference with apparatus were setbacks.
The damage was so extensive as to convince the
secessionist side that the Nigerian Navy would be rendered impotent for a
considerable period of time.
In a conversation between the secessionist
leader, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, and the respective deputy high
commissioners of the United Kingdom and the United States in Enugu, Ojukwu had
expressed contempt when informed by both men of the rumours of a planned
federal invasion from the sea.
Ojukwu insisted that the Nigerian Navy was not
patrolling off the coast of the former Eastern region, and in a separate
utterance he warned that his forces would line the bottom of the creeks of the
Niger Delta with the ships of the Nigerian Navy if they ventured close to the
coast.
But Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu was wrong.
In his memoir Adekunle noted that due to “the
excellent relationship between the navy personnel and their foreign suppliers,”
the navy was able to replenish her stock “in a very short time.” The Navy also
competently organised second level maintenance by well-trained technical staff.
And in an intelligence triumph, the navy and
her sister service undertook to carry out their preparations under the greatest
level of secrecy. Adekunle recalled that all non-essential civilians from Ikeja
cantonment were dismissed, and a regime of mail censorship and telephone
tapping was imposed.
While the country lacked an industrial
military complex, it was able to adapt and innovate solutions for a range of
issues using local resources. For instance, it was clear that the troops would
need life jackets. But the question arose as to the amount of buoyancy a
soldier with full kit, steel helmet and rifle would need to stay afloat.
Commander Rawe therefore arranged for Major
Tony Ochefu to bring a soldier to the naval base in full kit. The soldier was
fitted with a canvas jacket with blocks of polystyrene and a rope was tied
around him before he was dropped into the ocean from a harbour. It took four
drops to calibrate the required amount of buoyancy by incremental additions of
polystyrene.
Also, NNS Lokoja
was provided with matting and expanded metal to cover any soft spots on the
beach to help with the landing of vehicles.
The navy was also faced with the task of
undertaking combat exercises, as well as building up the requisite esprit de
corps with their counterparts in the army. On both accounts, the figure of
Commander Rawe was influential.
Rawe had been part of “Combined Operations”
during World War 2 and he completed the commando training course near Fort
William in Scotland. Thus, his training and experiences had made him a great
believer in the need for integrated operations and the need for the branches of
the armed forces to work closely together and to know how the other arms
operated.
It was also important to Rawe that the service
branches trusted each other.
Both Soroh and Adekunle wrote about the
combined exercises which took place around Tarkwa Bay.
Adekunle described the naval manoeuvres
undertaken to have included “ship pitching, embarkation and disembarkation in
daylight and darkness,” while Soroh recalled that the army was trained in
handling dinghies and outboard engines because they needed boats for moving
their men into the creeks as soon as they were put ashore by the naval ships.
And to solidify the sense of camaraderie
between naval and army officers, a series of joint mass dinners was organised.
Slide
37. Photograph of sailors in action.
And so the Nigerian Navy was ready for war.
You can see in the image two sailors manning a Vickers machine gun.
Slide
38. Rawe and Adekunle
This slide shows a photograph taken of
Commander Rawe and Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle at the bridge of NNS Penelope, the converted survey ship
commanded by Rawe. Both men built up a solid relationship during the joint
service operations conducted in the Nigerian Civil War.
Slide
39. July 25 selected as the D-Day
The ideal conditions for a landing would
consist of a moonless night, a high tide and a calm sea. But while the Federal
side had no control of what the weather conditions would be they were able to
ascertain the longest period of high and low tides during the day. Commander
Rawe’s operational plan recorded that the longest period for high tide was 36
minutes while the lowest water lasted for 47 minutes. He also provided high and
low tide rates for four periods during the 24 hour cycles of July 24th, 25th
and 26th. Thus, while such tidal information helped the Navy in its planning,
it would also indicate to an attentive enemy what the likely attack windows
would be.
Slide
40. The attack
Sailing orders were given on July 22nd, 1967,
and the rendezvous of all participant vessels at Bonny Buoy happened without a
hitch. There had been fears on the Federal side that foreign powers sympathetic
to the secessionist side may have tried to intervene. As a result, Soroh
ensured that all communications between foreign ships off the continental shelf
were constantly monitored.
On July 25th, the order to execute was given
on the first daylight by Captain Soroh who began pounding enemy positions from Nigeria as Commander Rawe led the force
into the Bonny River.
As the ships sailed past the Bonny Oil
Terminal, an expatriate manager was about to have his breakfast when his
attention was drawn to the ships passing. While he was doubtful of the ability
of the secessionist side to have acquired the six grey ships, his Biafran
steward felt that his leader, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu had made good on his
promise to assemble a naval force.
While this conversation was going on,
Commander Rawe in NNS Penelope gave
the order to fire on the signal station and telegraph office to cut off Bonny’s
connections to Port Harcourt. Both men took cover and when they met under the
table, they agreed that it was not the Biafran Navy after all.
Slide
41. Ogoja vs. Ibadan. (Aduwo vs. Odu)
As the flotilla proceeded it encountered the
former NNS Ibadan which had been
rechristened BNS Ibadan. The captain
of the secessionist ship Lieutenant Commander P.J. Odu recalled that three
ships were in the process of bombarding Bonny when contact was made.
Ibadan was retreating into
the Bonny River in the direction of Port Harcourt when Rawe ordered Lieutenant
Commander Aduwo to detach Ogoja from
the convoy and give chase.
Ogoja opened fire with its
3-inch and 40mm guns and Odu, in his words, with his “comparatively puny Bofors
anti-aircraft gun” responded.
But Ibadan’s
gun kept jamming at intervals; “after every third or fourth round,” so Odu
decided to turn his ship around whenever it jammed to keep its distance from
Aduwo's ship.
But it eventually entered shallow waters and
was unable to manoeuvre back to the open sea. It became a stationary target.
A cannon fired from Ogoja scored a direct hit on Ibadan's engine room. It created an
intense fire which melted the ladder below deck, trapping the men not on deck
to certain death. Above, the smoke billowed out through the funnel on the deck
which was itself littered with bodies.
Surveying the wreckage from his bridge, Aduwo
could see Odu clearly through his binoculars. He went on the megaphone to
appeal to him to join him on Ogoja
and was preparing to send a lifeboat to collect Odu and his surviving crew.
But Odu and his men escaped into an adjoining
mangrove swamp. Aduwo re-joined the task force to report to Rawe that an enemy
vessel had been sunk, adding “I hope the captain got away -he was a friend of
mine.”
Slide
42. Ibadan wreck.
This slide shows a photograph of the wrecked Ibadan with the words “The Biafran Navy
RIP” written on its side.
Slide
43. Photograph
Here we can see troops in the foreground and
sailors in the background onboard NNS Penelope
while the battle was still ongoing.
Slide
44. Photograph
And here is one of a gun crew on Penelope
manning a Vickers machine gun during the attack.
Slide
45. The Landing
With Ibadan
sunk, the bombardment of Bonny continued with suspected enemy positions being
cannonaded by Nigeria, as well as by Benin
and Enugu. It was effective enough to
disorientate and dislodge the Biafran forces stationed there and according to
Soroh, they “offered little or no resistance.”
Commander Joe beached Lokoja at a chosen site in the northern part of the town.
According to Aduwo, this had been because of the intelligence revelation of the
sparse concentrations of secessionist soldiers in the area. It was also to deny
the Biafran side the possibility of being “reinforced from Port Harcourt.”
Rawe and Adekunle found a small jetty and
disembarked with 40 troops to minor resistance. The other ships which all
carried a quota of troops also found jetties at which they were disembarked.
Bonny was captured within 2 hours of the first
salvo of cannon fired by the Nigerian warships. Resistance was roughly what had
been expected. There were around 200 casualties, most of whom were secessionist
soldiers.
Unable to contact Soroh by radio, Rawe made
his way down the estuary to inform him that all was safe to enter the estuary
with the merchant ships.
None of the potentially harmful defensive
measures had been employed. The defender did not construct any watchtowers. Nor
were coast guards tasked with watching the entrance to the Bonny River. They
also failed to mine any beaches or jetties.
There had been some mishaps which the
opposition had been unable to exploit. For instance, both Lokoja and Benin ran
aground at different points during the operation, Lokoja while attempting to land a second batch of troops and could
not get out until high tide, while Benin suffered the same fate on the second
day of the operation and was unable to extricate itself for 6 hours.
These incidents would have been disastrous if
the enemy had more formidable resources to have exploited them.
Slide
46. Photograph
This is NNS Lokoja landing troops on “D-Day” in Bonny.
Slide
47. Photograph
And here Commander Rawe poses with the crew of
Penelope after the capture of Bonny Town.
Slide
48. Operational Gains
The landings executed by the navy and aided by
naval firepower led to the capture of neighbouring Peterside and the advance
position of Dawes Island, 20 miles north of Bonny. The Ocean Oil Terminal on
Bonny was captured intact and although Commander Rawe and his crew did reach
Port Harcourt oil refinery, they carried too few troops to permanently occupy
the deserted complex.
Nonetheless, the operation was a success and
after two weeks the navy could claim a successful landing and degrading of the
enemy's manpower and resources.
Over 100 prisoners were taken to the naval
base in Apapa, and the navy acquired material and equipment salvaged from the
wreck of Ibadan.
Slide
49. Photograph
This slide shows Commander Rawe and some of
his crew working to detach the Bofors 40 mm gun from Ibadan.
Slide
50. Letter from Adekunle to Rawe.
So the navy and army proved that they could
work together and achieve set objectives. The relationship between the naval
liaison officer, Commander Rawe and Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle developed into
a close and fruitful one as this undated note from Adekunle to Rawe indicates:
Bonny.
Dear
Jim, the unit Commander of the troops at Dawes Island saw me at 1 a.m. to
report that it will be essential to locate a ship at the island even if it is
for 24 hours.
The
reasons are:
1. To
scare away the helicopters.
2. To
revive the low morale of the troops there.
I do
endorse the plea and would graciously request you to send one of your SDBs for
24 hours only. Without being overbearing, may I suggest Ogoja? Thank you for
your cooperation.
Benji.
Both officers formulated their battle plans
for each amphibious landing and met to coordinate their plans. As Rawe later
recalled they both shared “danger and discomfort” and had “complete trust in
each other when in the face of the enemy.” Adekunle on his part would note that
Rawe’s “experience contributed immensely to the success” of the operation.
Slide
51. Signal from Gowon to Soroh
And on receiving the news that Bonny had been
captured, the Head of State Major General Yakubu Gowon sent the following
message of commendation to the officer-in-charge of the operation, Captain
Soroh:
…You
have got all the right to feel proud, happy and contented with the result of
the recent combined operations at Bonny which was your responsibility to see
come off successfully. The Army Commander has sent me a signal saying how nobly
well the Navy did in the conveying, landing and support fire role which the
Navy gave to the Army at the operations in Bonny.
Slide
52. Operation Sea Jack
Yet, the achievement at Bonny came perilously
close to being undone in late September 1967 when the secessionist side
launched “Operation Sea Jack”, a determined attempt to retake the town.
There were several reasons why the enemy had
been emboldened to make this attack.
Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle claimed, not
without reason, that the Navy had not been making aggressive patrols of the
Bonny River and at one point he sent Captain Soroh an irate signal which
asserted that if Soroh was not prepared to order aggressive patrols of the
Bonny River that he had better go back to Lagos as naval ships were not
supposed to adorn the area for their good looks only.
Adekunle felt that this lack of aggression had
given the secessionist side the temerity to occasionally send boats down the
river to shell Bonny.
But the fault did not reside only with the
navy.
The rapid expansion of the Nigerian Army had
meant that there was a problem of finding senior officers to command
battalions.
This was compounded by the fact that the Third
Infantry Division had withdrawn its best officers, first to stage a landing at
Escravos to counter the secessionist invasion of the Mid-West in August 1967
and secondly, experienced officers and men were transferred from the Bonny
theatre to prepare for the landings in Sapele, Warri and Koko.
Those who were left were mainly poorly trained
and poorly led.
It should also be noted that the relationship
between Captain Soroh and Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle was not the best as they
had conflicting personalities and styles of leadership, and relations between
sea and land commands in Bonny deteriorated while Commander Rawe was on leave
during the latter half of August in 1967.
In late September 1967, when the federal side
was expelling secessionist forces from the Mid-West, Bonny was attacked when
left in the hands of the 7th battalion of the Third Infantry Division commanded
by Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar, while neighbouring Peterside only had a company
commanded by Captain Bello.
The Federal side was vastly outnumbered by the
secessionist attackers and in danger of being overwhelmed when naval
headquarters was informed. NNS Nigeria
was despatched and joined in the battle by Ogoja.
Soroh recalled that some federal combatants
had been literally pushed into the water, while Aduwo had to refuse a request
made by a Federal troop commander to take him onboard, compelling the officer
to stand and fight.
The enemy was eventually driven back largely
through the firepower provided by naval warships. According to Soroh’s memoir,
Lieutenant Colonel Abubakar admitted that the timely intervention of the
Nigerian Navy had spared the Federal army a defeat at the hands of the
secessionist forces.
Bonny and Peterside were held on to, but the
secessionists took over previous advance positions held by the Federal side
including Dawes Island and they were able to construct a boom across the Bonny
River. Secessionist forces would not be removed from the approaches to Bonny
until January 1968, and Port Harcourt did not fall until May of that year.
Slide
53. Chronology of Nigerian navy Seaborne Assaults
This slide shows the chronology of amphibious
assaults carried out by the Nigerian Navy during the civil war, each of which
slowly but assuredly began the encirclement of Biafra.
Slide
54. Map
This map details the location of each of the
landings.
Putting the unopposed landing at Escravos to
one side, the subsequent operations after Bonny presented greater challenges to
the Navy. These related to unfavourable topography, the confined circumstances
of riverine warfare, and enemy deceptive tactics.
The operation to take Sapele, Warri and Koko
involved ships and troop-carrying barges navigating narrow river channels in
single file. The lack of manoeuvrability meant that not only were the vessels
vulnerable to projectiles launched from the outlying areas, in places such as
the Nana Creek, if one ship broke down or was somehow disabled, there would be
no way for ships in the rear to advance.
At Calabar, the navy had to perform the
landing at the bottom of a steep rising beach. Its ships had to contend with a
large, menacing gun in neighbouring Oron, and its officers and men were within
the sights of capable enemy snipers. Ogbunigwe
mines floated in uncharted rivers which the navy gambled would not be used by
the opposition, and both natural and constructed landmarks functioned as the
receptacles for tape recordings of machine gunfire designed to confuse the
enemy.
During the Oron operation, a number of jetties
were wired with time-bombs.
Slide
55. Conclusion
So, we can conclude that the Nigerian Navy
played a vital part in the defeat of the secessionist state through its
amphibious operations and its mounting of a blockade. The navy’s capture (in
combination with the Third Infantry Division) of oil industry installations,
ports, and coastline was an important component in securing the defeat of the
armed forces of the secessionist state of Biafra.
Slide
56. Nigerian Navy’s First Colours given by Major General Gowon
And here in the penultimate photograph is the
Head of State awarding the navy its first colours at a ceremony held at the
naval base, Apapa on Monday, October 21st, 1968.
Slide
57. Photo of Gowon, Wey and Rawe
After handing the Nigerian Navy its colours,
Major General Gowon mounts the rostrum to give a speech. Following him are Rear
Admiral Wey and Captain Rawe. The officers to the right are Major William
Walbe, the aide-de-camp to Major General Gowon, and Lieutenant Commander
Emmanuel Makinde, the Flag Lieutenant to Rear Admiral Wey.
Slide
58. Navy Ensign
Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure delivering this lecture
which I hope has made some measure of contribution to enriching the corporate
memory of the Nigerian Navy.
Thank you.
I will now take any questions that you may
have.
© Adeyinka Makinde (2024).
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