TARANTO 1940 The Fleet Air Arm’s precursor to Pearl Harbor C. Rondinella SubmergedBreakwater SeapBlaansee Isla San Pietro BreSaukwbmateerrged lSsaonle Pttaoolo Listening post Coastal defense battery AA battery Floating AA battery on raft Anti-torpedo nets Barrage balloons Raft mounted barrage balloons Battleship Heavy cruiser Destroyer 0 1 mile 0 1km ANGUS KONSTAM ILLUSTRATED BY PETER DENNIS 30/07/2015 09:57 Author Illustrator Angus Konstam hails from the Orkney Islands, and is the Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary author of over 80 books, 60 of which are published by magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Osprey. This acclaimed and widely published author has Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds written several books on the naval campaigns of World War II, of books, predominantly on historical subjects, including including The Battle of North Cape and Battleship Bismarck, many Osprey titles. as well as Bismarck 1941 in the Osprey Campaign series. A former naval officer and museum professional, he served as the Curator of Weapons at the Royal Armouries in the Tower of London and the Chief Curator of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, Florida. He now works as a full-time author and historian, and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Other titles in the series CAM No: 62 • ISBN: 978 1 84176 390 3 CAM No: 214 • ISBN: 978 1 84603 440 4 CAM No: 226 • ISBN: 978 1 84603 501 2 CAM No: 232 • ISBN: 978 1 84908 383 6 CAM No: 236 • ISBN: 978 1 84908 385 0 CAM No: 255 • ISBN: 978 1 78096 154 5 CAM288cover.indd 2 CAMPAIGN 288 TARANTO 1940 The Fleet Air Arm’s precursor to Pearl Harbor ANGUS KONSTAM ILLUSTRATED BY PETER DENNIS  Series editor Marcus Cowper CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 1 30/07/2015 09:54 This electronic edition published 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc AUTHOR’S NOTE All images are from the Stratford Archive, Edinburgh. First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Osprey Publishing, PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK ARTIST’S NOTE PO Box 3985, New York, NY 10185-3985, USA E-mail: [email protected] Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the color plates in this book were prepared are available for private sale. The © 2015 Osprey Publishing Ltd Publishers retain all reproduction copyright whatsoever. All enquiries Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. should be addressed to: All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private Peter Dennis, Fieldhead, The Park, Mansfield, Notts, NG18 2AT, UK study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Email: [email protected] Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by The Publishers regret that they can enter into no correspondence upon this any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, matter. photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be addressed to the THE WOODLAND TRUST Publishers. Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations are being A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. spent on their Centenary Woods project in the UK ISBN (print): 978-1-4728-0986-7 ISBN (ePub): 978-1-4728-0898-1 ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-4728-0897-4 To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 2 30/07/2015 10:10 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 5 CHRONOLOGY 8 ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN 11 OPPOSING COMMANDERS 19 Royal Navy Regia Marina n OPPOSING FORCES 25 Royal Navy Regia Marina n PLANNING 36 A plan of attack Italian dispositions Operation MB8 n n THE OPERATION 45 MB8 unfolds Launching the strike The first wave The second wave Return to Illustrious n n n n n Counting the cost AFTERMATH 89 TARANTO TODAY 92 FURTHER READING 94 INDEX 95 CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 3 30/07/2015 09:54 C A Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, 1940 M 2 8 8 L a yo utsV N 6 .in d d 4 FRANCE ATLANTIC ROMANIA OCEAN Bay Venice Belgrade of Bordeaux Biscay GenoLaa Spezia YUGOSLAVIA Bucharest Toulon ITALY Adriatic Sea SofiaBULGARIA Black Sea Corsica Rome Dubrovnik Barcelona Istanbul Naples Madrid PORTUGAL Sardinia Tyrrhenian Taranto GREECE SPAIN Sea Aegean Lisbon Balearic Islands Cagliari Sea TURKEY Palermo M e d i Athens Cartagena t Sicily Ionian Sea Tunis e Syracuse Algiers r Gibraltar r ATLANTIC Tangier Oran a TUNISIA Malta n SYRIA OCEAN e Crete Cyprus a n Rabat S e a Casablanca Tripoli PALESTINE MOROCCO ALGERIA Benghazi Gulf of Sirte Tobruk Jerusalem Alexandria Suez Canal Cairo Capital city LIBYA EGYPT Major naval base 0 500 miles Red Sea 0 500km 3 0 /0 7 /2 0 1 5 0 9 :5 4 INTRODUCTION In the Royal Navy, 21 October is celebrated as the anniversary of its greatest victory. That evening, both at sea and ashore, Trafalgar Night dinners are held, to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), and the exploits of Horatio Nelson, arguably Britain’s greatest admiral, who died at the moment of victory. However, in the Fleet Air Arm, while Trafalgar is still celebrated, the Royal Navy’s aviators have their own victory to commemorate. So, in November each year, Taranto Night dinners are held to remember the exploits of the same evening three-quarters of a century ago. For the Fleet Air Arm, Taranto was a victory every bit as important as Trafalgar – the first great exploit by the youngest branch of the service. Late in the evening of 11 November 1940, two groups of obsolete biplanes launched from a British aircraft carrier carried out a surprise attack on the Italian battle fleet, which was anchored in the southern Italian port of Taranto. The Italian ships were protected by antitorpedo nets, and screened by barrage balloons. Hundreds of anti-aircraft guns of various calibres ringed the ancient harbour, and listening devices – precursors of radar – were sited there, to provide early warning of an enemy air attack. Nearby, modern fighters of the Italian Air Force stood ready to defend the port against British bombers or torpedo planes, while search aircraft patrolled the skies to the south, looking for any British ships or aircraft foolhardy enough to come within range of the naval base. The admirals in charge of the fleet and the base considered Taranto to be virtually immune to air attack. Instead these impressive defences were tested, and found wanting. The Royal Navy Historic Flight based in RNAS Yeovilton maintains and operates this Fairey Swordfish Mark II, one of two Swordfish still in flying condition. During the war it formed part of 836 Squadron, and was used in a convoy protection role in the North Atlantic. It is now a regular participant in British airshows. 5 CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 5 30/07/2015 09:54 Strangely, the 21 aircraft used in the attack were all lumbering Swordfish biplanes, aircraft which were already outdated when they entered service four years earlier. The Swordfish usually carried a crew of three, but for this raid one crewman – the rear gunner – was left behind, to make room for a long-range fuel tank. When carrying bombs or a torpedo it had a top speed of just over 140mph – making it considerably slower than all Italian front- line fighters. Even the planners of the raid – codenamed Operation Judgement – expected heavy losses of both planes and crew. Still, with well-trained airmen, if the attack was pressed home aggressively, these biplanes might just inflict sufficient damage on Italy’s battleship fleet to level the scales in the naval war for control of the Mediterranean. In fact the raid on Taranto was a resounding success. The Italian Navy – the Regia Marina – had gathered all six of its battleships in the port, as well as cruisers, destroyers and other smaller warships. The first wave of 12 Swordfish attacked soon after 11.00pm. Six aircraft armed with torpedoes attacked the battleships, while the rest dropped bombs on other targets. Two battleships were badly damaged, while others were lucky to survive unscathed. Ninety minutes later the second wave of nine Swordfish launched its attack, and another battleship was hit. So, in less than two hours, the Regia Marina had lost half of its battleship force, all for the loss of just two aircraft. Of these ships, two would eventually return to service, but a third HMS Illustrious was the first fleet carrier of its class, and while it had a limited capacity of 36 aircraft, its armoured flight deck made it more resilient than contemporary American or Japanese carrier designs. It joined the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1940. 6 CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 6 30/07/2015 09:54 was damaged beyond repair. The raiders had struck a decisive blow – the equivalent of a large-scale naval victory if it had been fought using more conventional means. As a result, the Royal Navy gained effective control of the Mediterranean. While the Axis powers reacted decisively by diverting large numbers of German aircraft to the theatre, the attack gave the British exactly what they needed – a respite in the naval campaign, which they used to strengthen the defences of Malta and to put pressure on Italian supply routes to North Africa. These, however, were mere strategic implications of the raid. Its real significance lay in what it promised. The Taranto attack was the first time carrier-borne aircraft had been used to attack a heavily defended naval base. The raid not only revolutionized naval warfare, it also changed the course of the war. It marked the end for the battleship as the arbiter of victory at sea. From that point on, the future of naval warfare would centre around the aircraft carrier, and the fighting potential of carrier-borne aircraft. Significantly, this demonstration of naval airpower was not lost on the Japanese. Just over a year later, the Imperial Japanese Navy would demonstrate just how effective a carrier-borne air strike of this kind could be, when launched on a much larger scale, using modern aircraft. Effectively, Taranto served as the blueprint for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Thanks to those 42 young airmen, naval warfare would never be the same again. The Italian battleship Conti di Cavour, pictured on the morning of 12 November 1940. Its decks are awash, and it is sitting on the bottom of Taranto harbour, after being hit by a single torpedo the previous evening. It remained out of action for the remainder of the war. 7 CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 7 30/07/2015 09:54 CHRONOLOGY 1940 10 June Italy declares war on Britain and France. 20 June Start of the Battle of Britain. 22 June French sign armistice. 28 June Battle of the Espero Convoy – first significant but indecisive naval clash in Mediterranean. 3 July Operation Catapult – destruction of French fleet at Oran and Mers- el-Kébir. 9 July Indecisive battle of Calabria (also known as Punta Stilo). Italian battleship Giulio Cesare damaged. 19 July Battle of Cape Spada – minor British victory – Italian light cruiser sunk. 23 August Swordfish from Eagle bomb Italian ships off Bomba, Libya. 30 August Operation Hats begins – reinforcements for Mediterranean Fleet leave Gibraltar. 26 September Heavy Luftwaffe raids on London. 28 September Signing of Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan. 12 October Battle of Cape Passero – minor British victory – three Italian light warships sunk. 28 October Italian Army invades Greece. 4 November Operation MB8 begins. 5 November Convoys MW3 and AN6 sail from Alexandria, bound for Crete and Greece. 6 November Force A (including Illustrious) sails from Alexandria. 7 November Force F and Force H sail from Gibraltar (Operation Coat). Convoy MW3 and Force B reach Suda Bay, Convoy AN6 detached to sail on to Piraeus. Forces B and C combine off Crete to form Force X. MW3 proceeds towards Malta. 8 CAM288 LayoutsV6.indd 8 30/07/2015 09:54