4,507 British and Commonwealth troops (75 per cent King's African Rifles and Somali irregulars)
24,000 Italian and colonial troops
Casualties and losses
Total: 2,275 British Empire: 50 killed 105 wounded 120 missing Somali (British service) c. 2,0007 aircraft destroyed 10 aircraft damaged 1 tug lost 2 vessels damaged
Total: 3,029 Italian: 161 and Ascari: 1,868
465 killed
1,530 wounded
34 missing
Somali Banda c. 1,0004 aircraft destroyed
v
t
e
East African campaign of World War II
Sudan
British Somaliland (1940)
Tug Argan
French Somaliland
Convoy BN 7
Agordat
British Somaliland (1941)
Keren
Saïo
Amba Alagi
Culqualber
Gondar
Guerrilla war
Associated articles
Gideon Force
Arbegnoch
Red Sea Flotilla
Desert Air Force
East Indies Station
East Africa Force
Order of battle
The Italian invasion of British Somaliland (3–19 August 1940) was part of the East African campaign (1940–1941) in which Italian, Eritrean and Somali forces of Fascist Italy entered the Somaliland Protectorate and defeated its garrison of British, Commonwealth and colonial forces supported by Somali irregulars. The Italian victory was based on mobility and speed but was hampered by the terrain, rainy weather and British resistance.
At the Battle of Tug Argan (11–15 August) Italian attacks had the advantage of artillery and the outnumbered defenders were gradually worn down and slowly outflanked, until the remaining fortified hilltops were vulnerable to capture. After the failure of a counter-attack towards the Mirgo Pass, the local commander, Major-General Reade Godwin-Austen, had too few men to retrieve the situation and to keep open an escape route at the same time and was given permission to retreat towards Berbera.
The British fought a rearguard action at Barkasan on 17 August and retreated after dark. The improvised evacuation went better than expected and the second blocking position at Nasiyeh was not needed. The rainy weather continued to slow the Italian advance and when the airstrip near Berbera was found still to be garrisoned, a prospective Italian coup de main was cancelled. The British defeat was controversial and the beginning of a deterioration in relations between General Archibald Wavell, the theatre commander, his subordinates and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, which ended in Wavell being superseded by Claude Auchinleck in July 1941.
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