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Concept
Battle of Madagascar
Summary
The Battle of Madagascar (5 May – 6 November 1942) was a British campaign to capture the Vichy French-controlled island Madagascar during World War II. The seizure of the island by the British was to deny Madagascar's ports to the Imperial Japanese Navy and to prevent the loss or impairment of the Allied shipping routes to India, Australia and Southeast Asia. It began with Operation Ironclad, the seizure of the port of Diego-Suarez (now Antsiranana) near the northern tip of the island, on 5 May 1942.
A subsequent campaign to secure the entire island, Operation Stream Line Jane, was opened on 10 September. The Allies broke into the interior, linking up with forces on the coast and secured the island by the end of October. Fighting ceased and an armistice was granted on 6 November. This was the first large-scale operation by the Allies combining sea, land and air forces. The island was placed under Free French control.
Diego-Suarez is a large bay, with a fine harbour, near the northern tip of the island of Madagascar. It has an opening to the east through a narrow channel called Oronjia Pass. The naval base of Diego-Suarez lies on a peninsula between two of the four small bays enclosed within Diego-Suarez Bay. The bay cuts deeply into the northern tip of Madagascar's Cape Amber, almost severing it from the rest of the island. In the 1880s, the bay was coveted by France, which claimed it as a coaling station for steamships travelling to French possessions farther east. The colonization was formalized after the first Franco-Hova War when Queen Ranavalona III signed a treaty on 17 December 1885 giving France a protectorate over the bay and surrounding territory; as well as the islands of Nosy Be and St. Marie de Madagascar. The colony's administration was subsumed into that of French Madagascar in 1897.
In 1941, Diego-Suarez town, the bay and the channel were well protected by naval shore batteries.
Following the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia east of Burma by the end of February 1942, submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy moved freely throughout the north and eastern expanses of the Indian Ocean.
Official source
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