The Battle of Cape Matapan - +100 to Battleship Stealth

[Music] [Music] early 1941 was not the most fun of times for the british in the mediterranean whilst some breathing room had been bought by the attack on toronto the previous year the later battle of cape spartivento had been something of a draw operation excess had cost a number of valuable ships sunk or damaged the raid by the two scharnhorst class known as operation berlin which took place in the atlantic and the upcoming completion of the german battleship bismarck meant the royal navy's focus was back on the atlantic which diminished the pool of ships that admiral cunningham could draw upon to fight the reggie marina even as the italians had made efforts to repair the damage incurred at toronto at least to the newer ships such as littorio and in the middle of all of that cunningham had been ordered to supply and support an allied force that was being sent to greece which had been attacked relatively unsuccessfully by mussolini and was about to be attacked if in allied intelligence had it right by hitler which was anticipated to be somewhat more effective there was one silver lining to all of this for the first time in the course of the war code breakers in this case one named mavis beatty had managed to break italian naval enigma signals the first signal that she read mentioned that something big was going to happen in three days and sure enough three days later yet another signal indicated that a major italian fleet movement was underway this turned out to be the battleship vittorio veneto the heavy cruisers bolanzo tranto trieste fiume pola and zara the light cruisers dukkha delgi abruzzi and giuseppe garibaldi and many large destroyers of the navigatory saldati and oriani classes their target was perhaps unsurprisingly the british supply convoys heading to and from greece this confirmed other more mundane signals of upcoming italian activity specifically a massive increase in italian reconnaissance aircraft and submarines that had been spotted looking at the area immediately west of the convoy's operational routes as well as others that had been trying to keep tabs on alexandria harbour fortunately the mediterranean fleet was already covering these convoys to a degree unfortunately simply turning up in the perfect interception position would be a fairly obvious sign that to the italians that the british had known that they were coming it was thus necessary to have a more obvious reason to know about the italian fleet and so a reconnaissance aircraft with some rather specific course instructions was dispatched which julie just happened to stumble upon the italian forces and report their position following the various convoy attacks of operation excess the germans had managed to determine that they had sunk or crippled numerous british vessels and so the italians based on this intelligence were feeling pretty confident as they believe that the royal navy could muster only a single operational battleship and no aircraft carriers however the forces that were covering the convoys themselves were sufficient to stand up to raids but not sufficient to stand up to the italian force that was now coming after them more of the fleet would be needed but of course as well as the recon aircraft there were eyes watching the royal navy in alexandria harbor itself and so admiral cunningham came upon a cunning plan he made it quite known that a party was due to be hosted aboard hms warspite his flagship that evening he also very publicly headed off to a golf club with an overnight bag clearly these were not the actions of someone who was planning on going anywhere anytime soon but of course the party was a ruse and soon after dark cunningham sneaked out of the club made his way back to war spite and the main force of the mediterranean fleet set sail with all due haste this meant the british force coming to meet the italians consisted of the battleships war spite valiant and barham the carrier formidable the light cruisers ajax gloucester orion and perth and a dozen destroyers that ranged from the small i-class hms ilex through narvik veterans hotspur and havoc through to the two larger tribal class mohawk and nubian on nearby convoy escort duty were two older c-class cruisers and a ddo-class light dash anti-aircraft cruiser plus a few more destroyers but whilst the capital ships were powerful and more numerous than their italian foes the cruiser side of things was somewhat more perilous not only was cunningham's cruiser force badly outnumbered three of them were the smaller leander class only gloucester was a 10 000 ton town class that on paper might be able to go toe to toe with one of the italian cruisers and all of the italian ships had been built with some rather creative interpretations of treaty mandated limits on displacement and of course there were eight of them one would have to hope that the battleships were able to multitask despite the vittorio veneto being faster and more heavily armed than any one of them even the fully modernized hms valiant additional reinforcements had been flown out to the strike squadrons based in crete who should be able to reach the italian forces as they pass through the area and two submarines and an anti-aircraft cruiser were also positioned off crete itself just in case the operation was either cover for an attack on the island coming in separately or was itself an attack on the island that just happened to be currently undertaking a somewhat deceptive routing there were two cards that the british did have to play though one was more obvious hms formidable with her 13 full mars 10 albacores and 4 swordfish meant that at this stage of the war operations south of greece would hand air superiority to the british the other was less obvious a number of cunningham ships had radar and the italians didn't on the other hand the italians had figured out on their own that the british did actually have a carrier operational but they decided to press on anyway there was also a degree of advantage in the men themselves cunningham was of course one of the best admirals the royal navy had ever produced and amongst his staff and amongst the fleet were the excellently named captain manly power and of course a god so was it ever really a fair fight in any case early in the morning on the 28th of march at around 0-600 one of vittorio veneto's float planes spotted the four british cruisers and the third cruiser division made up of a pleasing symmetry of the oldest and newest italian heavy cruisers moved to intercept the british ships were heading south to try and meet up with cunningham's capital ships having recognized the aircraft as an ro43 a type that was used mainly from ships via catapult launch and thus an indicator of enemy shipping nearby as opposed to general aerial recon the british battleships and carrier should have been closer at this point but warspite in its haste to leave had brushed a mud bank on its way out of harbor ingesting water and mud via the boiler room water intakes which had left it capable of only 20 knots until it could clean its engines out additionally gloucester had been experiencing problems with one of her propeller shafts and so the cruiser formation was likewise operating at reduced speed at around 07 30 one of hms formidable scouting aircraft likewise spotted the lead italian cruiser formation about 35 miles away from force b which was the british light cruisers followed shortly thereafter by the spotting of another cruiser force a few dozen miles further away due to the proximity of the report to the british ships there was initially some confusion as to whether the pilot had simply spotted his own forces and misidentified them the presence of so many destroyers in the cruiser formation seemed to indicate not but whilst this was still being debated it hit o746 and another signal came in hms of ryan had spotted smoke and enemy ships coming over the horizon to its north which rather closed the issue the british force duly altered course to bear southeast and increase speed to 23 knots taking into account the delicate position of gloucester what they didn't realize as the formation swung further east was there was that there was a second italian cruiser group with a similar speed advantage which was north east of them and could cut them off from cunningham's battleships if they reacted fast enough and set a course south from the italian side of things admiral iaccino later recounted that the trieste division opened fire at 22 000 meters and the first salvos fell very short the distance between the two groups was in fact never less than 24 000 meters about 27 000 yards atmospheric conditions were most unfavorable for range finding at great distance especially with the old rangefinders fitted in the trento and trieste these instruments actually did not succeed in giving any reading before opening fire and even afterwards their observations were jumpy uncertain and inaccurate some of the iccino's figures here are a little bit in error but we do have a parallel account from the british side captain sir philip boyer smith aboard hmas perth recounts what he saw he says i imagine the vice admiral light forces was about to detach gloucester when we sighted masts i reported them as eight-inch cruisers by this time they had opened fire and we were turning away and they towards us i derived much comfort from the old saying those you hear don't hurt you and they were out ranging us by about 4 000 yards gloucester was a great anxiety vice admiral light forces first increased to 24 knots and she held on then to 26 to 28 and to our delight she still held it we were leading them towards the battle fleet the commander-in-chief was 90 miles east south east of us coming towards us at 20 knots suddenly someone on the bridge said crikey what's that over to the north a ship came fast over the horizon obviously enemy went her broadside that's not eight inch said somebody we all turned anticipating vice admiral lightforce's signal halfway through the turn of the salvo fell it was terrific i had no idea 15-inch splashes looked so big when they meant business the second salvo was all around orion by this time our smoke was starting we were doing a good 30 knots three or more salvos all around orion before the smoke covered her up up to 32 knots by now with gloucester going to beat the band i had no idea the italians could shoot like that the range was now 29 000 yards or 16 and a half miles and practically every salvo straddled for line and range one hit and orion was bound to fall out then what would our commander do leave her or turn and tackle a heavily armed and armored ship with the only four cruisers that admiral cunningham had besides there was gloucester she had a half inch clearance between a bracket and the shaft and a propeller might drop off at any moment also the three 8-inch cruisers were doubtless returning to the fray the commander-in-chief was 80 miles away if vice admiral light forces in orion went up then it was up to mccarthy in iax if he went up it was up to me but sufficient unto the day when orion was covered with smoke the enemy shifted his fight to gloucester having got her range they pounded the sea all around her again it was terrific they had aircraft spotting i told the engine room to strike a balance between keeping a thick smoke screen and giving us all the speed they could but for the love of mike not to clog the boilers they were magnificent responding with a smoke screen that completely hid ajax and gave us 17 000 horses above the designed maximum gloucester was still winning the boat race amidst a foaming fury of splashes after half an hour or so gloucester signaled that the range was opening the enemy appeared to have been attacked by aircraft vice admiral light forces ordered the smoke to stop and when it cleared there was no enemy in sight the british cruisers had largely been saved first by the older fire control system on the oldest italian cruisers and then by the awful quality control present on italian capital ship shells vittorio veneto had established the range accurately and exceptionally fast but as the british observed all they'd managed to do was pound the sea all around the cruisers as well as getting almost a dozen jabs in their 15-inch guns despite targeting first orion and then gloucester in the main some of the shells had actually landed closer to perth than their target whilst others showed a dispersion approaching a kilometer or more even when the shells were fired from the same gun the italian cruisers had been dissuaded from closer approach when gloucester let loose with three salvos at just over 23 000 yards like the italian salvos they landed short but given their range advantage the trieste group had decided to stay out of british range and snipe away from there out of gun range and indeed out of sight admiral cunningham had heard the various radio messages from his cruisers and realized they were under attack thus he ordered hms formidable to launch several waves of torpedo bombers with fulmar escorts as well as ordering valiant which at that moment was the fastest of his battleships to proceed at full speed ahead of the rest of his forces towards the cruisers with the two tribal class destroyers as escort he also summoned aircraft from crete into action the first wave of six albacores from the carrier along with two escorting full mars and a swordfish that was along for spotting an observation duty went after the italian battleship circling to attack from the side that wasn't covered by the ship's destroyer screen just after 11 30. the italian ships reacted commendably quickly the destroyers crossing over to oppose the attack and vittorio veneto herself pulling an evasive 180 degree turn between this and the combined anti-aircraft fire of every single gun the italian fleet possessed apart from the 8-inch and 15-inch weapons whilst all six albacores survived the encounter and launched their torpedoes none of them managed to hit to add to the rather odd proceedings a pair of junkers 88s that were on long-range escort duty acting as heavy fighters moved to intercept the albacores and were in turn jumped by the escorting full mars who duly demonstrated why using a medium bomber as a long-range fighter is not exactly the best of ideas by shooting one of them down and forcing the other to withdraw whilst they've been unable to score any damage the attack had forced the italians to break off the pursuit of the light cruisers and with the british cruisers out of range and an uncontested enemy carrier nearby admiral iaccino decided that the better course of action was to fall back himself to within range of friendly air cover ideally drawing the british after him half an hour later three swordfish from crete appeared and went after the cruiser bolzano which managed to evade at the last moment the british response to all of this was to recall the valiant and its escorts into formation now that the cruisers were no longer in imminent danger and order a second wave of aircraft aloft which was launched between 1200 and 1215 even as the crete-based swordfish were making their attack runs the first of formidable strikes was also landing at the same time on its way back to the battle line formidable was herself attacked by two italian s-79 torpedo bombers but was able to evade their drops the second strike force was held in orbit of the fleet whilst further scouts were sent out to reacquire the italian positions and just after 1500 the attack went in with the full mars strafing italian destroyers to suppress their anti-aircraft fire three albacores went for vittorio veneto's port side whilst two swordfish went around to the starboard side and dropped into a pincer attack lieutenant commander john daliel steed leading the albacores managed to press home his attack and score a hit on the outer port propeller of vittorio veneto a similar hit to that which would doom hms prince of wales a few months later albeit in a marginally better location for the italian battleship the ship nonetheless coasted to a halt with over 4 000 tons of water in places that it really shouldn't have been the hit had sent the propeller whirling off into the depths damaged the shaft itself and jammed the port rudder and the aft port pumps but with the offending albacore shot down and the other aircraft returning to rearm the italians were presented with time to try and affect repairs in the run-up to this particular incident raf blenheims operating from greece had been making sporadic attacks on the italian forces but the main wave of this assault arrived at around the same time that formidable's second wave strike had also arrived which of course further distracted the italian anti-aircraft gunners although the blenheims didn't score any hits they did manage quite a number of near-misses which caused some incidental damage to trento bolzano zara and garibaldi giving the italians the impression of a remarkably well coordinated force as level bombers fighters and torpedo bombers were all attacking them simultaneously aboard the italian flagship the loss of the main pumps was a major problem forcing the crew to use hand pumps to try and keep up with the flooding whilst elsewhere in the ship the backup steering gear had to be brought online and additional water was deliberately let into the other side of the ship to correct a list that had begun to result eventually the starboard propellers were coaxed back to life and the ship began to move again first at 6 then 10 then 12 and eventually up to 20 knots which would be enough to keep her remaining lead open on the british battleships as she headed back for home but that was going to take a few hours scenting blood from the reports of this assault cunningham ordered formidable to prepare every remaining torpedo-carrying aircraft that it could muster for an attack at sunset the fleet's destroyers were ordered into night battle formation and the cruisers ordered to forge ahead and regain visual contact if possible with the two tribals assigned as relays between the cruisers and the battleships the plan at that point called for the cruisers to spot the battleship then send in the second and fourteenth destroyer flotillas to take it out to keep up the pressure hms warspite launched her scout aircraft with the objective of fixing the enemy battleship's position to guide in the last carrier strike of the day and give a course for the destroyer assault to follow it duly found the vittorio veneto along with three cruisers and seven destroyers at this point still only making 12 knots however lieutenant commander bolt aboard the scout reported the italian formation tightening into a close formation that would make an assault by the light of british ships difficult especially as the other five italian cruisers and their escorts had just met up with the main force although the two light cruisers were pressing on ahead of the rest this was a problem as waiting for the morning would mean italian and german aircraft would be in range and able attack to attack the british fleet cunningham thus decided to press on into the night hopefully the formidable strike would break up the formation and with the destroyers moving in under the cover of darkness instead of in the evening they'd stand a better chance the delay would also allow the battleships to close in behind the third strike from formidable thus aimed to finish the job or at least [ __ ] the italian battleship more comprehensively and was made up of six albacores along with two swordfish joined at the last moment by two additional swordfish that had come in from crete one of which had arrived earlier in the day from the greek mainland bearing the only serviceable aerial torpedo in the entire country although aiming for the vittorio veneto they instead found their way blocked in the darkness as the sun had set shortly after they'd spotted the italian fleet in the distance by the first cruiser division made up of the three zara class heavy cruisers which had fallen back to shield the battleship from the aircraft unfortunately for the italians in an effort to form an anti-aircraft screen two of the ships had almost collided and one of them pola had slowed sharply to avoid the impact with the ship briefly practically stationary one of the fleet air arm torpedo bombers decided to help the situation out with a torpedo right to the junction between the turbine and boiler rooms crippling the ship completely the attack coming in at wave top height and point blank range the pilots noted that attacking at night with searchlights everywhere glowing anti-aircraft tracer and smoke screens was quite distracting especially when enemy fire lit up the smoke screen but they were able to press their attacks home regardless with the two crete based aircraft taking advantage of the darkness to circle around the defensive screen and drop their torpedoes from the other side of the action the italian forces were at this point observed as still only making 14 knots and so the british destroyers were sent off with the aim of passing the enemy to starboard in the darkness and then launching a torpedo assault from a head as the battleships approached from behind the cruisers had watched the air attack from their position only 15 miles a stern also hidden by nightfall with visibility reported at about four miles when it didn't involve enemy search lights and anti-aircraft fire and they began their own cautious approach still believing that the british only had one battleship and that it probably wasn't anywhere nearby since otherwise surely it would have engaged by now the polar's two sisters and division mates were ordered to help the stricken vessel home along with a screen of destroyers the reasoning went that in the darkness it would be almost impossible to spot the ships by eye anyway after some communications issues the assigned ships turned back to take pola in tow if they had to meanwhile cunningham didn't know exactly how badly the italian flagship was damaged at this point nor what forces remained ahead of him especially when it came to destroyers for whom the cover of darkness would vastly increase their lethality against his larger vessels since it was possible that some enemy forces might have drawn ahead leaving damaged ships behind with escorts or the entire enemy fleet might have remained together as a result his staff advised against any further action but cunningham had planned for this kind of scenario as had practically every senior royal navy officer since the debacle of the knight action at jutland in the previous war and so with his radar active he ordered his battleships forward into the night at speed whilst formidable's aircraft could in theory operate at night it was felt better to keep her close so a rather incongruous battle line of two battleships an aircraft carrier and another battleship sailed off into the night with the four and a half inch gun crews aboard formidable visibly spoiling for a scrap the guns being seen to train up down left and right in the evening gloom as they ran checks to ensure that they'd be 100 ready for any action they could get at 2015 hours hms orion spotted a contact on its scope large and stationary it was of course the polar although they didn't know that yet the cruisers marked the position for the rest of the fleet and then proceeded onwards to see if they could find the rest of the enemy the detached destroyers likewise were pressing on ahead around 2240 both forces would spot a red light to the north northwest which was actually probably the bulk of the italian fleet but with a lot of distraction further south and a belief that the italian forces had withdrawn more towards the west both forces ended up pressing on in that direction rather than closing into radar range of the light source what could have happened there will remain another of the wars great what if questions the distraction to the south was of course because of the following capital ships that had followed orion's report and closed in warspite led the formation then valiant then formidable and finally barham with a screen of four destroyers they followed a valiant's radar contact which was tracking the stopped form of the polar but along the way they encountered the zara and fiume also heading that way with a destroyer ahead of the italian cruisers and a few behind all in a single line quietly with even the crew talking in whispers the capital ships closed in and the range which was already less than five thousand yards ticked down four thousand yards three and a half thousand yards a range that was about half that at which the closer actions of the battle of tsushima had been fought basically point blank almost bayonet range for world war ii lieutenant alex dennis was aboard the destroyer hms griffin in her fire control director and relates what happened next we were steaming into a black knight at 20 knots peering into the darkness through our binoculars suddenly we received an emergency signal to clear the screen and take station on the starboard side increasing to full speed we received another signal from warspite get out of our way damn you at this moment i spotted a dark shaper head and got all guns onto it it was obviously a large ship and one felt a little naked up there in front moments later greyhound ahead of us switched on her searchlight and in its silvery blue beam it was revealed a 10 000 ton cruiser heading towards us quite close and looking magnificent in her light grey standing out starkly in the beam i gave an estimated range and opened fire ding ding went the firing bell all hell broke loose the enemy ship virtually disintegrated in an appalling series of explosions flinging one of her turrets high into the air my god did i do that was my first reaction forgetting that there were 24 15-inch guns in the battleships behind a few seconds later a couple of italian destroyers appeared and we went off after them i got a few salvos off but they had the legs of us although another pair was sunk by stuart and havoc someone somewhere along the line had remembered there was a carrier cruising with the battleships and ordered it to break off at the last moment although some accounts do speak of the four and a half inch guns getting off a few shots before the carrier healed out of line which technically would make formidable the only carrier to engage in a fleet action in a battle line with its guns in anti-service mode the timing of the sequence of events is key as there was very little time between the illumination of the targets by the searchlights and warspite opening fire but formidable's turnout of line is recorded as happening between these two events which gave our gunners plenty of time to get a few shots in with the faster firing four and a half inch weapons lieutenant kempling one of formidable's gunnery control officers records the following we saw a group of colored flares fired from war spite which were in fact the night challenge signal then almost immediately the battleship searchlights were switched on to reveal to our amazement three sleek looking light grey warships their guns trained for and aft within seconds there was an ear splitting raw as the 15-inch guns of our battleships opened fire at almost point blank range the result was immediate and devastating i vividly recall seeing a complete turret of the leading ship disappear over the side masses of flames soon enveloped all three ships although we received the order to open fire the order was almost immediately countermarded as formidable turned out of line to starboard one salvo was in fact fired up by a formidable and this must have been one of the few occasions during the second world war when an aircraft carrier used its main gunnery armament against a major enemy warship as we retired from the scene severe explosions continued with white flashes and orange glow of fires lighting up the sky the enemy ships were the three italian cruisers pola fumi and zara all of which were sunk the rest of the night passed in relative peace so far as formidable was concerned although the following day was a very different story along with a crash of the 15-inch guns there was of course a blaze of additional searchlights coming from the battleships aboard hms valiant these were under the command of a young prince philip whose account reflects just how few people were actually aware of what was going on pretty much up until the point the guns opened fire more recently he related quite how information about what was going on percolated to the gun room is a mystery but even the midshipmen were becoming aware that the italian fleet was thought to be at sea and there might be a chance of catching them there was definitely a special atmosphere of anticipation of something dramatic in prospect when the fleet put to sea from alexandria during the night of the 27th of march my action station was on the bridge and at night i had control of the port searchlight so i managed to gather roughly what was going on by overhearing snippets of conversation from the compass platform my impression was that an italian battle fleet was at sea and was engaged in a fight with our light forces of cruisers and destroyers which were attempting to lure the italians towards our battleships then the carrier hms formidable pulled out of the line to fly for strike of torpedo bombers the general impression was that there might be a chance of catching the italian heavy ships provided they kept up their chase of our cruisers later just before dusk formidable flew off another strike it then transpired that the italians had turned away after some of their ships had been hit by torpedoes from the swordfish the chase went on into a still calm night although it was apparent that our cruisers and destroyers were busy further north my recollection is that valiant was the only capital ship fitted with what is now known as radar but was then known as rdf and was therefore stationed immediately as stern of hms warspite admiral cunningham's flagship as far as i was concerned it seemed that there was little chance of our catching up with the retreating italians and as it got dark there was a general air of anti-climax then suddenly in the quiet of the night came a report from our rdf operator that he had an echo on the port bow at about 5000 yards of what appeared to be a stationary ship i turned my searchlight onto the bearing given by the rdf operator in the hope of seeing the target just then the destroyer greyhound turned her search light on which i think picked up an italian destroyer but the bloom was enough for me to make out a ship on the horizon i seem to remember that i reported that i had a target in sight and was ordered to open shutter the beam lit up a stationary cruiser but we were so close by then that the beam only lit up half the ship at this point all hell broke loosers all are eight 15-inch guns plus those of the flagship and barham started firing at the stationary cruiser which disappeared in an explosion and a cloud of smoke i was then ordered to train left and lit up another italian cruiser which was given the same treatment by this time the night was full of smoke loud bangs and flashes and the dark shapes of our destroyers with their coloured recognition lights appearing and disappearing that bit of the mediterranean then became a very dangerous place there must have been some 20 british and italian warships dashing about in every direction at high speed it was at this point that the commander-in-chief ordered all ships not engaged in sinking the enemy to withdraw to the northeast bangs and flashes went on for a bit but then things gradually calmed down within three minutes fiume and zara had been utterly destroyed followed shortly thereafter by the destroyers vittorio alfieri and giosi karducci which had been caught in a pistol range duel with several british destroyers the destroyers gilberti and oriani despite receiving damage managed to escape into the darkness dropping smoke behind them whilst the larger radar-equipped vessels were concentrating on the cruisers and some minor chaos was underway as one of the italian destroyers had managed to launch torpedoes and hms havoc had found itself on the wrong end of one of warspite's searchlights by accident the shattered wreck of zara remained afloat so hms jervis fixed that with a torpedo which left the crippled polar to deal with barham had spotted her earlier as she'd been making signals to her sisters and was about to fire on her when the main action had opened up ahead and she'd switched targets cunningham found several of his destroyers circling the polar debating on if a boarding action would work whilst also picking up some sailors from the ship many of whom had already entered the water and a number of whom were fished out drunk the admiral himself seriously considered getting some tow lines attached and hauling polar back to alexandria as a prize but sadly by this point daylight wasn't too far off and the speed that would be lost towing the ship would in turn leave them vulnerable to air attack and so after of course looting the ship for anything that hadn't been welded and bolted down the remaining crew were taken off and the polar was consigned to the depths by torpedoes from jervis and nubian there were still a few survivors from the other italian ships in the water but the british fleet felt that it really had to get going especially after a number of german aircraft appeared overhead with sunrise admiral cunningham instead opted to inform the italians on an open channel of what they were doing and that with survivors still present in the water he granted safe passage to a hospital ship to come and collect them for rescue purposes a location was provided and the italian hospital ship gradisca was duly dispatched and saved the remaining italian sailors it also turned out that there had been one other chance to intercept the italian fleet a greek flotilla had spent the night proceeding down from the north with cunningham having been signaled that seven greek destroyers were proceeding at once through the corinth canal to await orders between cephalonia and zante cunningham would later comment that these destroyers which had been sent through the corinth canal to argostory with admiral promptitude to a place where they were well placed to intercept the retreating enemy fleet a task which they would certainly have undertaken with characteristic gallantry unfortunately the transmission to the fleet had been relayed via alexandria and somewhere along the line the word orders had been replaced with oilers suggesting that the greek ships had needed to pause to refuel which meant that cunningham hadn't ordered them to proceed south if they had then potentially the still damaged vittorio veneto and her escorts could have ended up facing a three-sided gun and torpedo assault from the greek and british destroyer flotillas as well as the british cruisers in the early morning hours whilst axis operations elsewhere particularly italian torpedo boats would cost the royal navy the heavy cruiser york and the light cruiser bonaventure shortly thereafter the concentrated shock of the losses to the italian fleet plus the damage to the vittorio veneto would keep the regen marina back for a while and indeed a large-scale deployment such as had been made here would not be repeated until they eventually sailed to surrender at malta a couple of years later admiral iaccino recognized his forces were significantly behind when it came to air assaults that didn't involve flighter corps 10 and without radar he did not want to risk another night battle this would result in a number of future operations being aborted when it looked like the british might conclude the day with heavy forces somewhere in the vicinity of the italian ones cunningham meanwhile sailed back to alexandria with some good humid muttering about the disappointment of not also having managed to catch vittorio veneto herself a few weeks later the code breakers down at bletchley park would receive an unexpected but welcome surprise when he showed up in person to congratulate and thank them for the vital information they'd managed to provide him which had of course assisted with his victory you

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 398,505

Rating: 4.9267621 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, WW2, Royal Navy, Regia Marina, Warspite, Valiant, Prince Phillip, Formidable, Vittorio Veneto, Pola, Swordfish, Battle of Cape Matapan

Id: b8I2HavEEPE

Length: 37min 43sec (2263 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020