Gulf of Aden:
Publisher’s Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
February 2022

In the spring of 1942, the Japanese contemplated invading the British-held island of Ceylon. From there they could strike many strategic targets around the Indian Ocean basin, none of them more vital than the southern outlet of the Red Sea, controlling the sea route to the Suez Canal and on to Europe. Far more important to the Axis cause than Midway Island, Japanese interdiction of the chokepoint at the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb would have broken British communications with India, Australia and New Zealand except for the lengthy and difficult route around the Cape of Good Hope, and made the entire campaign in North Africa superfluous.

Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden is a Campaign Study in the same format as Midway: Rising Sun or Coral Sea: Defending Australia, with 14 scenarios depicting a Japanese campaign in Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea opposed by the British Eastern Fleet, heavily reinforced to defend this vital maritime crossroads. To play these scenarios, you’ll need Eastern Fleet, Horn of Africa and Bismarck.

Horn of Africa’s Playbook Edition has a full-sized map stretching from the Red Sea well out into the Arabian Sea, with the Persian Gulf up on the northern edge. So we need to play with it, and that’s the reason for Gulf of Aden’s existence.

The story’s pretty simple. After Ceylon falls to the Japanese, the British Eastern Fleet pulls back to Aden. In our real history, they pulled back to Mombasa in Kenya, but the Eastern Fleet’s strategic objective here is to better cover the Red Sea’s outlet. For the Japanese, the goal is to interrupt the British connection between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Do that and India is isolated, except for the long route around the Cape of Good Hope.

The Royal Navy signal station at Aden, seen in 1941.

From Ceylon, an attack on Aden is a mighty logistical stretch, but no worse than the planned invasion of Midway Island that the Japanese actually tried to execute. The distance from Japan to Midway is 3,620 kilometers, compared to 3,866 kilometers from Colombo on the west coast of Ceylon to Aden. It’s not entirely sane proposition, but neither was Operation MI to take Midway. And unlike the seizure of Midway, a lodgment at Aden actually had some broader strategic purpose.

Aden did not have much of a garrison, though the Japanese likely had no idea what might await them – not that a lack of intelligence on enemy dispositions stopped them in other operations. The same force deployed to Midway – 1,500 naval ground troops of the 2nd Combined Special Naval Landing Force and another 3,000 men of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 28th Infantry Regiment (also known as the “Ichiki Detachment”) – should have been adequate to defeat the one or two battalions of second-line Indian Army troops who formed the Aden garrison.

While Midway Island might have been a useful base for Japanese long-range patrol planes and submarines, forces based there couldn’t have done much to interfere with American operations in Hawaiian waters. Efforts to re-supply the Japanese garrison on Midway would have exposed a series of convoys and their escorts to American submarine and probably surface action group attacks that ultimately would have attritted away significant Japanese assets. Had the Japanese somehow taken Midway, they likely would have abandoned it on their own as they did Kiska in the Aleutians.

Air units based at Aden, on the other hand, could easily cover the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the “Gate of Lamentation” at the southern exit of the Red Sea. Interdicting traffic there effectively closes the Suez Canal to Allied shipping, whether the German-Italian forces in the Western Desert can advance to the canal or not. It also makes it difficult to impossible for the British to reinforce and supply their forces facing Rommel, likely leading to an Allied collapse in North Africa.

British heavy cruiser Cornwall at Aden, 1941.

How realistic was this operation? Andrew Boyd, in The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters, sees it as the natural follow-up the Japanese conquest of Ceylon. While in practical terms it would probably be easier than the capture of Midway (itself a pretty dicey proposition, even with a smashing victory in the preceding carrier battle), even undertaking the mission presumes a Japanese commitment to the broader goals of the Axis alliance than actually existed (nor did one exist on the other end of the table). The Axis was not the evil mirror of the Allied alliance: the Asian and European elements barely acknowledged one another’s existence, while the Germans continued to pursue trade wars against their own supposed allies even as the enemy smashed in their gates.

The Ceylon operation – a necessary precursor to a move against Aden – is a bigger question mark; the Japanese could likely have taken the island with the four divisions they planned to use. It’s finding those four divisions, and then getting them to Ceylon, that would have been the prime difficulty. That could have been overcome. And if so, a move on Aden would be the logical next step – but importantly, given a commitment to the Axis alliance’s world-wide goals that did not exist in Berlin, Rome or Tokyo (nor did a set of alliance goals, for that matter).

Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden is working off the assumption that those political issues can be settled, and the Japanese move ahead with their invasion of Yemen. The Japanese get their First Carrier Fleet, but usually just one carrier division, and eventually will want to land their troops and secure some airfields. The British need to stop this; while a Japanese move against Aden is a sideshow in many ways, if not strategic overreach, it’s an existential crisis for the British.

That leads to some carrier battles off the Horn of Africa, that draw in some additional Brits from Bismarck, to give the Eastern Fleet a better chance. The Royal Navy’s carrier arm is very different from that of the United States, starting with the much, much shorter legs of Fleet Air Arm aircraft compared to those of the Japanese. To strike the Japanese, as Sir James Somerville realized off Ceylon in April 1942, the British are going to have to try to get close to them under cover of night, use their night-torpedo capability, and hope they can slink away by daylight (or do enough damage to make the slinking less necessary). And of course, there will be surface battles, because we have all these battleships and cruisers available and need to use them.

Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden is a fun scenario set. You get to play in new waters, with a desperate British defense of an achievable Japanese objective. It’s a fine companion piece to mark release of the Playbook edition of Eastern Fleet.

You can order Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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