Night of Judgement
The Italian port and naval base closest to the island of Malta was at Taranto, in the instep of the heel of Italy. During the late 1930s, when Italy invaded Abyssinia, the League of Nations had considered intervention. It would have been easy to cut off Italian forces in Abyssinia by simply closing the Suez Canal to Italian shipping, which would have resulted in war in the Mediterranean with Italy fighting the United Kingdom and France. At the time, HMS Glorious was the British Mediterranean Fleet’s aircraft carrier and one of her officers came up with the idea of an attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto. This would have been a daring raid, especially since the ship carried nothing more potent than the Fairey Seal biplane, and it was thought that the RAF flying from Malta would carry out the raid. If the carrier’s aircraft, then largely manned by the RAF, had to do it, it would be one daring blow before she was withdrawn from the Mediterranean before she could be sunk by the Italians.
Intervention did not happen, largely because the French were reluctant. The United States was not a member of the League of Nations, even though it was the idea of an American president, and in any case at the time was extremely reluctant to intervene in any crisis outside of the Americas.
The plan to attack Taranto was revived after Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany, shortly before France surrendered.
The original plan was amended to include aircraft from two aircraft carriers: the Eagle which was the Mediterranean Fleet’s carrier and the newly-commissioned Illustrious which had joined Eagle. A converted battleship, Eagle would have been withdrawn and possibly scrapped had war not intervened, but the plan to withdraw the four oldest carriers and replace them with four new fast, armoured carriers was changed, with the four elderly carriers retained in service and the order for new ships increased to six armoured carriers plus a maintenance carrier, Ocean. Meanwhile, a date was set for the attack on Taranto: 21 October 1940, the anniversary of Nelson’s last great victory at Trafalgar in 1805.
Illustrious had worked up in the Caribbean and on her return home was almost immediately sent to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet. Not only was an additional carrier welcome, especially since she was a fast armoured carrier of the latest design, but in addition to her Fairey Swordfish torpedo and dive-bombers, she also carried Fairey Fulmar fighters, giving the fleet modern monoplane fighter cover for the first time. Even so, the Fulmar, despite having a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, was no Spitfire as its two-man crew made it too heavy to provide a sparkling performance. It was an improvement over the Gloster Sea Gladiator biplanes aboard Eagle but no match for the enemy’s modern fighters. At the time, however, the Luftwaffe had still to put in an appearance over the Mediterranean and the Fulmar did not compare quite so badly with the Italian Regia Aeronautica’s fighters, many of which were still biplanes.
The commanding officer of Illustrious, Captain Denis Boyd, was summoned to the Admiralty in London to meet the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound. ‘I want you,’ Pound told him, ‘in view of the desperate situation, to take Illustrious, through the Straits of Gibraltar and join Andrew. He needs you badly out there.’ Andrew was, of course, none other than Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, RN, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet.
Boyd took Illustrious from Scapa Flow on 23 August and after passing down the western side of the British Isles, passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on 30 August. While steaming eastwards across the Western Mediterranean, Illustrious had the support of Force H, while off Malta the British Mediterranean Fleet was waiting.
Code-named Operation JUDGEMENT, the plan was for a two-carrier attack on Taranto with the British Mediterranean Fleet operating with two aircraft carriers, but fate intervened; not once but on a number of occasions. A serious hangar fire aboard Illustrious meant that she could not be ready for the planned date of 21 October. Although the ship had lost just two of her aircraft in the fire, the rest had been thoroughly doused with water and had to be stripped down and rebuilt before any operational flying. Even more serious, Eagle had been attacked by Italian aircraft, which had damaged her aviation fuel system when near misses had exploded in the sea close to the ship and forced her to remain in Alexandria for repairs. Keeping Eagle in Alexandria was a wise precaution as both the USN and the Imperial Japanese Navy lost aircraft carriers after damage to their aviation fuel systems caused fuel vapour to spread through the ship and explode.
As a result, the date for the operation had to be put back to the next full moon, the night of 11/12 November, using just Illustrious. The original plan had called for thirty aircraft flying from both ships but this had to be cut to twenty-four, otherwise Illustrious would have had to forsake her Fulmar fighters to make room for additional Swordfish. Most of the aircraft came from the carrier’s No. 815 and 819 Naval Air Squadrons, but these were complemented by aircraft from Eagle’s 813 and 824 NAS. For the attack the aircraft had to be modified, with the observer’s cockpit, the middle one of three open cockpits on the Fairey Swordfish, taken over by a large fuel tank on the aircraft designated to act as torpedo-bombers. This meant that the observers were displaced into the rear cockpit, normally occupied by the aircraft’s telegraphist/air-gunner – ‘TAG’ in naval jargon – which was much smaller. This was difficult as the observer had to have his bulky ‘Bigsworth’ board on which charts and maps were displayed during flight in a much smaller open cockpit. Although the observers in the aircraft allocated to dive-bombing could remain in their more spacious cockpit, the extra weight of the additional fuel tank meant that these aircraft also had to fly without a TAG to protect them.
Operation Judgement
The British army was still fighting a desperate battle in Greece at the time, so Illustrious slipped out of Alexandria using a convoy of reinforcements for Greece as cover. The ship had an escort of cruisers and destroyers. The decision to retain her fighters was fully justified when the Fulmars of No. 806 NAS shot down a number of Italian reconnaissance aircraft while on her way to Taranto, ensuring that secrecy was maintained while contributing to the squadron’s impressive tally of twenty enemy aircraft while embarked aboard Illustrious.
Nevertheless, fate hadn’t finished with Operation JUDGEMENT. On the day before the attack, a Swordfish had to ditch in the sea due to engine failure. The following day, another aircraft suffered from what appeared to be the same problem. It was discovered that one of the ship’s aviation fuel tanks had become contaminated by sea water, so the entire fuel system had to be drained and then refuelled. Yet another aircraft suffered a failure shortly before the operation started, reducing the number available to twenty-one.
The raid was led by Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Williamson with Lieutenant Norman ‘Blood’ Scarlett-Streatfield as his observer, and consisted of two waves: the first with twelve aircraft and the second with nine. Finding their way from the flying-off point to Taranto was made much easier, despite thick cloud, when the port’s anti-aircraft defences opened up, shooting at an RAF Short Sunderland flying boat on patrol from its base in Malta. The first two aircraft in the first wave were flare-droppers, followed closely by Swordfish carrying torpedoes so that they could strike at the Italian warships while these were silhouetted against the light of the flares. The second wave carried bombs and was to concentrate on shore installations, including a seaplane base and fuel storage tanks.
Everything at last seemed to be going smoothly as the aircraft prepared to take off but as the last aircraft moved out, its wing tip caught that of another, tearing the fabric and, even worse, breaking several of the ribs inside the wing. Without delay, the aircraft was taken out of service and struck down into the hangar for repairs. Given the damage, it was not ten minutes later but thirty minutes that the aircraft, L5F, could rumble down the flight deck. Few aircraft could have been repaired so quickly. A Swordfish could fly with almost all of its fabric gone, but it would have been foolhardy to have taken off with damaged ribs.
The second-wave aircraft also seemed to be fated. One lost its external fuel tank twenty minutes after taking off, and then the engine cut out and the aircraft began to lose height. While the pilot managed to restart the engine, he had no choice but to return to the ship, nursing a sickly engine, while there was still enough fuel left in the main tanks.
Ahead, the first wave had found thick cloud, an unwelcome hazard as aircraft could collide when flying in such conditions, unable to see the purple tail-light of the aircraft in front, so it was probably fortunate that most of the formation broke up at this point. For the pilots and observers in their open cockpits, it was also very cold at this time.
After so many setbacks, unknown to the attackers there had been a stroke of good fortune that morning. The Italian fleet had prepared to go to sea for a gunnery exercise, which meant that their crews had spent the morning in the tedious but essential chore of removing the torpedo nets that surrounded the ships. Before the vessels could leave port, the admiral had called off the gunnery exercise but no one had remembered to order that the nets be re-rigged. Provided the attackers could get close enough to drop their torpedoes, the Italian warships had no protection from such weapons.
At Taranto, the evening had passed with a succession of alerts followed by all-clears; this was not unusual in a wartime target area, but it had kept the anti-aircraft gunners on their toes. Around 1955 a report had been received of aircraft engines off the coast, but this was assumed to be just a reconnaissance flight, perhaps the RAF checking to see whether or not the Italian warships were at sea. Soon afterwards, just past 2000, there were more reports of aircraft engines from listening stations and alarms sounded, with anti-aircraft gun crews rushing to their posts while ashore civilians headed for the air-raid shelters. This was not the end of the alerts as more aircraft noise was picked up later, at least some of which was from a Short Sunderland patrolling the Gulf of Taranto. Later, a further alarm was sounded, but no action was taken until another twenty-five minutes had passed and it was clear that aircraft were approaching as the noises grew steadily louder.
Over Taranto
One of those charged with flare-dropping was Richard Janvin, and for him there was no need to dive down towards the harbour as the flares needed to be dropped from altitude:
We had a grandstand view so we didn’t go down to sea level. We dropped our flares at about 8,000 feet. And in fact we were fired at considerably. We had a fair amount of ack-ack fire and most extraordinary things that looked like flaming onions…one just sort of went through it and it made no great impression. One just didn’t think that they would ever hit you.
…there was always fear but I think that in the same way one always had butterflies in the tummy beforehand, but when things were actually happening you didn’t seem to notice the butterflies much.
…the torpedo aircraft went down and they attacked in two sub flights. The leader took his sub flight of three and attacked. And he…attacked a Cavour-class battleship, launched his torpedo, which hit and was shot immediately afterwards…
…we had bombs as well, and we dive-bombed some more fuel tanks, and then we returned to the carrier.
Meanwhile, leading the first wave, Williamson had swept through the barrage balloon cables, later maintaining that neither he nor Scarlett-Streatfield had noticed them even though these could easily tear the wings off an aircraft, and headed for the destroyers Lampo and Fulmine, which greeted the Swordfish with a barrage of machine-gun fire. They then turned towards the massive outline of a battleship and dropped to just 30 feet before releasing their torpedo, low enough to feel the splash as the torpedo hit the water so they may have been even lower. Torpedoes had to be dropped low; otherwise they broke upon impact with the water. There was no time to wait and watch their torpedo run towards the ship as they had to escape from the maelstrom of heavy anti-aircraft fire, but the night was soon shattered by a massive explosion. Their torpedo had found its mark and sunk the battleship Conte di Cavour in shallow water. As they struggled to get away, turning just above the water to escape, their Swordfish crashed, although later even Williamson and Scarlett-Streatfield were not sure whether they had been shot down or a wing had touched the water.
Many compared the scene over Taranto with the eruption of a volcano because the intense AA fire included many tracer shells, known to the British air-crew as ‘flaming onions’. Italian AA gunnery seems to have been very inaccurate, but at least one benefit of so many tracer shells was that the pilots could see it coming and take evasive action.
Charles Lamb was another flare-dropper. He recalled seeing aircraft
flying into the harbour only a few feet above sea level – so low that one or two of them actually touched the water with their wheels as they sped through the harbour entrance. Nine other spidery biplanes dropped out of the night sky, appearing in a crescendo of noise in vertical dives from the slow moving glitter of the parachute flares.
The dive-bombers had the task of striking at the lightly-armoured cruisers and the destroyers, many of which were in the inner harbour (or Mar Piccolo) in which space was far tighter, while the AA fire continued to be intense. Dive-bombing has been credited with almost miraculous accuracy over the years as a result of the German blitzkrieg, although the need to pull out of the dive in time to allow the aircraft to climb away safely over the target meant that the pilot could not see his bomb hit it. Even so, while there was no doubt that it could be accurate, against well-drilled and experienced AA gunners with the nerve to withstand the attack, dive-bombing could be a very hazardous occupation. It was also not unknown for a Swordfish to have its wings ripped off in a dive, although some attribute this failing to the rudimentary wing-folding mechanism.
By contrast, the torpedo-bombers could keep low and presented a very difficult target for the AA gunners, especially if they could not depress their guns sufficiently to hit the aircraft. One advantage of a torpedo, as an American admiral put it, compared to bombs, was that ‘it is much easier to get water into a ship from the bottom than from the top.’ Bombs could, and often did, bounce off the heavy armour-plating on a battleship’s deck or gun turrets. A bomb also had to be dropped from an altitude that was high enough for the bomb to arm itself before hitting the target.
As the second wave got into formation, the cloud cover that had been such a nuisance for the first wave had gone. While still 60 miles away from Taranto, the second-wave air-crew could see the fires started by the first wave’s bombs.
An Anxious Wait
For those aboard Illustrious, the Flag Officer Carriers, Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster, a former commanding officer of Glorious at the time of the Abyssinian crisis, and the ship’s commanding officer, Captain Denis Boyd, along with the rest of the ship’s company had an anxious wait for news of the attack and to see how many of the lumbering Swordfish would return. Tension rose as the time for the first strike to have been completed came and then passed. There was no signal from Williamson: his aircraft had crashed and he and Scarlett-Streatfield were in the harbour waters, sheltering behind a buoy from gunfire and shrapnel. With hope fading, they waited for the return of the aircraft from the first strike, but while they waited, the signal came from the second strike: ‘Attack completed’.
The fate of the first wave was unknown until the ship’s radar officer, Lieutenant Schierbeck of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve, noticed the returning aircraft on his set. Shortly afterwards two aircraft arrived, their navigation lights switched on, glowing dimly in the dark but reassuring those waiting below. One after another, the aircraft hooked on the arrester wires, jerked abruptly in the air a few feet above the flight deck before dropping onto the deck. Unhooked, they then taxied forward to await their turn to have their wings folded before being struck down into the hangar, but almost before they stopped, excited observers jumped down from the aircraft and ran to the ready room for debriefing. Their obvious excitement told those waiting all they needed to know. The pilots, staying with their aircraft until they were struck down, were surprised to find that the Swordfish were riddled with holes with torn fabric flapping around the fuselage and wings. One of the pilots was later able to count no fewer than seventeen shell-holes in his aircraft.
Operation JUDGEMENT had been a complete success. The RAF was suffering unsustainable losses on its bombing raids over enemy territory, but the Fleet Air Arm had done well to have lost just two aircraft, and even the crew of one of those, Williamson and Scarlett-Streatfield, had survived.
A second strike was considered, prompting one of the pilots to remark that ‘even the Light Brigade was only asked to charge once!’ Tired and exhausted, this thrilling news was passed to the aircrew at 0300, while their maintainers were told to ‘do a major’ on the aircraft. To everyone’s relief, the idea was dropped. The Italians would be prepared for a further attack and, in any case, preparations were being made to move the major fleet units away from Taranto.
As Illustrious and her escorts re-joined the fleet in the morning, Cunningham, known for taking remarkable acts of bravery for granted as he considered it was only to be expected of naval officers, showed remarkable understatement even for him, with Warspite raising a hoist of flags simply signalling: ‘Illustrious manoeuvre well executed’.
Descending to the wardroom, the aircrew found that the stewards had painted a large ‘Welcome Home’ sign that was hanging from the deckhead; all their own idea.
One of the most spectacular aerial operations of all time, the raid never received the recognition it deserved as at the time senior officers failed to recognize just how successful it had been. When the first awards were announced, there was uproar aboard the ship and members of the ship’s company tore down the notices announcing the awards as just six medals were granted, the highest being a DSC (Distinguished Service Cross) for Scarlett-Streatfield. The ship’s company could be excused for believing that something better was deserved, such as a DSO or even a VC. There was no excuse for this. The morning of 12 November saw an RAF aircraft fly a reconnaissance sortie over Taranto, so the full success of the operation was soon known. Perhaps the relative lack of casualties convinced the senior officers that it had all been very easy? Cunningham was later to confess that he had not realized what a ‘magnificent stroke it had been’.
Nevertheless, on the other side of the world, senior naval officers did take notice. The Imperial Japanese Navy had already war-gamed the attack on Pearl Harbor, but Taranto confirmed that their plan to destroy the United States Pacific Fleet and ensure that the large naval base of Pearl Harbor was out of action for at least six months was viable.
The Germans also noticed. They were outraged and incredulous that so much damage could have been inflicted on the Regia Marina while in harbour. Such damage and loss was only acceptable in a major naval battle but the Italians had three of their six battleships put out of action, although two were later to be repaired.
Taranto was what would today be described as a major ‘game-changer’. The battleship was no longer the dominant ship in any large navy; that role had passed to the aircraft carrier. No one ship had ever caused so much damage as had Illustrious on that fateful night. Casualties at Taranto were remarkably light, with just 100 Italian deaths. This was simply because none of the warships had a magazine explode, although one Italian cruiser had a very close shave. Within eighteen months of this operation, carrier-to-carrier battles would become the accepted naval engagement with the opposing ships out of sight of one another.
Germany Takes Revenge
German shock soon passed and was replaced by anger and a desire for revenge, as well as ensuring that Illustrious would not remain a threat in the Mediterranean. Those who had predicted that after such a successful action the carrier would have to be removed from the Mediterranean for her own safety, and even survival, were soon proved right.
At the beginning of 1941, the Luftwaffe moved General Geissler’s X Air Corps (Fliegerkorps X) from Poland to Sicily. Numerically much smaller than the 2,000 or more aircraft in the Italian Regia Aeronautica, this was an experienced and battle-hardened corps with considerable anti-shipping experience gained in the Norwegian campaign. The Luftwaffe’s leaders knew about the importance of concentrating air power. X Air Corps was based in Sicily, just 60 miles from Malta, and was more powerful than the total of all Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm strength in the entire Mediterranean, which was far from concentrated but scattered over more than 2,000 miles from Gibraltar to Alexandria. Nevertheless, the priority was not to be Malta, which could wait until the Luftwaffe had dealt with British shipping, starting with Illustrious, and next would come the British Mediterranean Fleet and its base at Alexandria. There would also be mine-laying in the approaches to the Suez Canal and in the Grand Harbour at Malta.
Geissler had 150 Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 twin-engined medium bombers as well as 150 Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers and 50 Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. This force was waiting for Illustrious when she was sent back to the middle of the Mediterranean as part of a force to take over the convoy code-named Operation EXCESS early in 1941.
The convoy left the UK in December 1940 for Gibraltar, and as was common practice crossed the Bay of Biscay in company with a far larger convoy destined for the Cape. The two convoys divided at Gibraltar. Operation EXCESS was a small convoy of just five fast cargo ships, of which one was intended for Malta and the other four for Alexandria. On Christmas Day, the heavy cruiser Hipper was sighted and the convoy scattered in the Bay of Biscay. Force H left Gibraltar to provide support. In heavy seas one of the escorts, the elderly battleship Renown, was badly damaged and was delayed at Gibraltar for repairs. The bad weather also drove one of the cargo ships for Alexandria ashore and she had to be abandoned, but the rest of the ships reached Gibraltar safely. Nevertheless, these delays were to play a part in the events that followed in January.
On 6 January 1941, the convoy left Gibraltar for Malta and Alexandria. Force H escorted it as far as Sicily, where protection would be handed over to the British Mediterranean Fleet which had left Alexandria on 7 January. Malta-based RAF Vickers Wellington bombers also played a part in protecting the convoy, raiding Naples on 8 January, attacking the battleships Giulio Cesare and Vittorio Veneto, damaging the former and persuading the Italians to withdraw its heavy ships further north.
Handover was fixed for dawn on 10 January, which actually meant that most of Force H left the convoy at dusk the previous day, leaving the convoy protected by just the cruisers Southampton and Gloucester and two destroyers, which detached from the main force and passed with the convoy through the Sicilian Narrows in brilliant moonlight. Had the convoy been able to keep to its original schedule, it should have been passed between Force H and the Mediterranean Fleet in late December, before X Air Corps reached Sicily. The arrival of the Luftwaffe was known to the British due to the work of their signals monitoring station at Lascaris in Malta, but lacking any other information, the assumption was that the Luftwaffe was intended for attacks on Malta, while their primary target was Illustrious, a threat to Axis shipping in the Mediterranean.
That Illustrious might be vulnerable was not lost on the British, who were concerned about her safety when operating within range of enemy aircraft. Cunningham insisted that she be present with the main body of the fleet at all times because of the beneficial effect her presence had on morale aboard the other ships. He was also one of the first to realize that aircraft carriers were at their safest when surrounded by other ships that could provide protection against enemy aircraft and submarines, something that was to become apparent during the Pacific War. On the other hand, a fatal weakness of aircraft carriers at the time was the inability to receive and fly off aircraft at the same time, which meant that two carriers really needed to operate together.
The morning of 10 January passed uneventfully, but around 1230 two Italian torpedo-bombers made an unsuccessful attack on the carrier as Boyd successfully combed the torpedoes, manoeuvring his ship so that they raced past. The attack drew the patrolling Fulmar fighters down to a low level ready to fight off any other torpedo-bomber attacks. As relief Fulmars were being readied for take-off on the flight deck to relieve those already in the air, the carrier’s radar spotted two large formations of aircraft approaching from the direction of Sicily. While the Fulmars were still struggling to get off the flight deck, forty-three Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers attacked, screeching down from the sky towards Illustrious.
The first bomb narrowly missed the ship, the first of three near misses that day. Over the next ten minutes, no fewer than six 1,000lb bombs struck Illustrious. The carrier, and the others of her class, were the strongest of any operational during the Second World War, but their armoured decks were meant to resist 500lb bombs, not 1,000lb ones, while her lifts that moved the aircraft between the hangar and the flight deck were not armoured and bombs fell through these to explode on the hangar deck. The hangar deck was the ship’s Achilles’ heel, with aircraft parked, many fully-armed and all having at least some fuel left in their tanks. It was also the action station for all off-duty air-crew and many of them had already gathered there. The bombs exploded in this crowded space, with the effect enhanced by the armoured top, sides and bottom of the hangar deflecting their blast through the aircraft and the assembled naval airmen. Within seconds of the first bomb entering the hangar, it was a blazing inferno.
Boyd refused to order the magazines to be flooded while the bombing continued and her anti-aircraft armament was blazing away trying to protect the crippled carrier. This was the lesser evil as a bomb penetrating a magazine or rupturing a pipeline carrying aviation fuel to the aircraft or entering her aviation fuel tanks would have caused an explosion that would have torn the ship apart. By this time the carrier was a blazing, crippled wreck, unable to fly off aircraft or receive those already in the air.
It took three hours before damage control enabled the ship to head for Malta at just 17 knots, not much more than half her best speed. Those of her aircraft in the air either ditched if they were short of fuel or headed for Malta where they were welcome additions to those based ashore on the island. However, their arrival alerted those on Malta that something had gone badly wrong.
There were three air stations on Malta at the time. The aircraft from Illustrious headed for Hal Far, at the time an RAF base but one at which the Fleet Air Arm had what were known as ‘lodging facilities’, the base having been the Fleet Air Arm base on Malta while still part of the RAF. Post-war, it became RNAS Hal Far, HMS Falcon. There was also Luqa, another RAF station, and Ta Kali, used by the RAF but built after being selected as an airport by Imperial Airways looking ahead to the days when landplanes would relieve flying boats on the long-haul routes to the Empire.
Before Illustrious could reach Malta’s Grand Harbour, Boyd’s refusal to flood her magazines was vindicated as another twenty-five dive-bombers attacked. The ship’s AA guns burst into life, and her Fulmar fighters that had reached Malta and refuelled at Hal Far returned to provide air cover.
At 2145 that evening, Illustrious limped into a darkened Grand Harbour, passing under the fortifications of the capital, Valletta, and on to the dockyard on the opposite side of the harbour.
The Illustrious Blitz
Illustrious was to spend two weeks in Malta. This was not enough time to repair her and return her to operational service. It was just enough time to make her seaworthy and habitable, so that she could escape to the United States for extensive repairs, being refitted at Norfolk, Virginia.
The first two days were overcast with low cloud that provided protection for the ships. The raids started on 13 January and became a daily occurrence with the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica operating jointly to give Malta what became known as ‘the Illustrious Blitz’. At first, as the air-raid sirens sounded, the ship’s company uncovered the guns and the dockyard workers and those of the crew not needed scrambled from their working places to the caves in nearby Senglea, used as air-raid shelters. Getting from far below decks in a large warship or from high up on the scaffolding surrounding her ‘island’ superstructure was no easy task.
On 16 January 1941 the air-raids reached a new peak for Malta, which many locals described as the first really heavy bombing raid. The Luftwaffe sent 44 Stukas, 17 Ju 88s and 10 Messerschmitt Me 110s, escorted by 10 Regia Aeronautica Fiat CR42 and some Macchi 200 fighters. The Stuka pilots dived through the intense anti-aircraft fire, with many diving below the high fortress walls of Valletta to deliver their bombs accurately. This first attack took just a few minutes, but was followed within fifteen minutes by another wave. Illustrious suffered yet another hit during the first attack, but near misses left the dockyard around her burning and cratered.
The blasts were such that aboard the carrier they swept away the ladders, scaffolding and tarpaulins shrouding the ship. The Luftwaffe had ensured that the bombs used this time were heavier as well, even though the Stuka dive-bombers struggled to lift 2,500lb bombs and took ninety minutes to reach 10,000 feet. Not only was Illustrious damaged by the bomb that hit her but three bombs that were near misses, falling into French Creek, flung her against the Parlatorio Wharf. All this was not without cost to the Luftwaffe which had ten aircraft shot down, with the AA fire and Malta’s fighters taking an equal share of the victories and with no losses among the Malta-based Hurricanes and Fulmars. Had 2,500lb bombs been used on 10 January rather than 1,000lb bombs, the damage to the ship could have been so serious that she might not have survived.
Afterwards, all personnel not participating in the emergency repairs were taken off, even including the anti-aircraft gunners, and moved to temporary accommodation at RAF Hal Far. The removal of the AA gunners may seem strange, but ashore the army wanted to test a new box barrage system and found that the ship’s AA fire got in the way.
Those sent ashore had no idea of how much progress was being made in getting the carrier ready, and it was not until they were recalled during the afternoon of 23 January that they realized she was ready to leave. After night fell, with the ship darkened and with some repair staging still hanging from her sides, she left the Grand Harbour quietly and in secret. Sir William Dobbie, the governor of Malta, was chairing a session of the Council of Malta, the island’s governing body, when a servant entered and drew the blackout curtain before switching on the lights, but in the silence someone said: ‘She’s off – and safe.’
Illustrious reached Alexandria on 26 January, on the first stage of her passage to the United States who were still officially neutral but prepared to refit the crippled carrier at the major naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.
Many of the crew were taken off at Alexandria before she sailed through the Suez Canal on her long voyage to the United States and assigned to other ships and naval air squadrons. Those killed when she was attacked were buried at sea off Malta, between the coast at Dingli and the small uninhabited island of Fifla.