Introduction
1. Enrico Ricciardi, Mediterraneo 1940–43 (Parma: Ermanno Albertelli, 2004), 21.
2. Andrew B. Cunningham, Sailor’s Odyssey (London: Hutchinson, 1951), 260.
3. Anglo-centric histories include Bernard Ireland, The War in the Mediterranean 1940–1943 (London: Arms and Armour, 1993), and Donald Macintyre, The Battle for the Mediterranean (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965). Italo-centric histories include James J Sadkovich, The Italian Navy in World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994), and Marc’ Antonio Bragadin, The Italian Navy in World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute, 1957). More balanced works include Raymond De Belot, The Struggle for the Mediterranean 1939–1945 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), and Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940–1943 (London: Chatham, 1998).
4. Bartimeus, East of Malta, West of Suez (Boston: Little Brown, 1944), 13.
5. Samuel E. Morison, Operations in North African Wars October 1942–June 1943 (Boston: Little Brown, 1984), 189.
6. Peter Smith, Destroyer Leader (London: New English Library, 1974), 59.
7. Lisle A. Rose, Power at Sea: The Breaking Storm 1919–1945 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 132.
8. Cajus Bekker, Hitler’s Naval War (New York: Doubleday, 1978), 243.
9. B. H.. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk (New York: Quill, 1979), 158.
10. Hans Frank, S-Boats in Action in the Second World War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 79.
11 Warren Tute, The Reluctant Enemies (London: Collins, 1990), 145.
12. Michael Simpson, ed., The Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, The Mediterranean Fleet, 1939–1942 (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1999), 557.
13. Bernard Brodie, A Guide to Naval Strategy, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1944), 2.
14. Christopher Page, ed., The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, September 1939–October 1940 (London: Frank Cass, 2002), xi.
Chapter 1. The Eve of War: June 1940
1. W. O. Blanchard, “Seventy Years of Suez,” Scientific Monthly 50 (April 1940): 301.
2. Joseph S. Roucek, “The Geopolitics of the Mediterranean, II,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 12 (July 1953): 72.
3. Quoted in James J. Sadkovich, “The Indispensable Navy: Italy as a Great Power, 1911–43,” in Naval Power in the Twentieth Century, ed. N. A. M. Roger (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 70.
4. Reynolds M. Salerno, Vital Crossroads: Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War 1935–1940 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002), 181.
5. John Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 512.
6. Pietro Badoglio, Italy in the Second World War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1976), 15.
7. Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, 516. Other Italian leaders had their doubts. On 1 June King Victor Emmanuel III told Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and Italy’s foreign minister, “The country is going to war without enthusiasm. . . . Those who talk of a short and easy war are fools.” Galeazzo Ciano, The Ciano Diaries 1939–1943 (Safety Harbor, Fla.: Simon, 2001), 258.
8. Cunningham, Odyssey, 227; and Gerhard Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, vol. 3, The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 111.
9. See Douglas J. Forsyth, The Crisis of Liberal Italy: Monetary and Financial Policy, 1914–1918 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 167. Also Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, 12.
10. Quoted from MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed 1939–1941 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 81, 110.
11. See the discussion in James J. Sadkovich, “Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy’s Role in World War II,” Journal of Contemporary History 24 (January 1989): 32–33. Also I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 584–85.
12. Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, 518.
13. Salerno, Vital Crossroads, 201.
14. Angelo Iachino, Tramonto di una grande marina (Verona: Alberto Mondadori, 1966), 155.
15. Giuseppe Fioravanzo, “Italian Strategy in the Mediterranean, 1940–43,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 84 (September 1958): 66.
16. Iachino, Tramonto, 299–300.
17. Ibid., 156.
18. Reynolds M. Salerno, “The French Navy and the Appeasement of Italy, 1937–39,” English Historical Review 112 (February 1997): 78.
19. Ibid., 100. Also see Martin Thomas, “At the Heart of Things: French Imperial Defense Planning in the Late 1930s,” French Historical Studies 21 (Spring 1998): 342.
20. Ibid., 98.
21. F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), vol. 1, 200.
22. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 7.
Chapter 2. The Defeat of France
1. Franco Maugeri, From the Ashes of Disgrace (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1948), 4. Nonetheless, he felt that war was a mistake and that “the masses of Italy were totally unready and unwilling to bear the terrible miseries and sacrifices of modern war.” Badoglio was harsher: “It was a pitiable spectacle. Herded like sheep between the officials and the riff-raff of the Fascist Party, the crowd had orders to applaud every word of the speech. But when it was over, the people dispersed of their own accord in complete silence.” Pietro Badoglio, Italy in the Second World War: Memories and Documents (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1976), 20. Of course, had Italy won, memories would have been different.
2. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 205.
3. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 48–51. These intentions are stated in a series of letters to the Admiralty written between 6 and 9 June.
4. Paul Auphan and Jacques Mordal, The French Navy in World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1976), 98.
5. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 125.
6. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 70.
7. Giuseppe Fioravanzo, La Marina Italiana nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale, vol. 4, Le Azioni Navali in Mediterraneo Dal 10 Giugno 1940 al 31 Marzo 1941 (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1976), 87–90.
8. Frédéric Stahl, “Le Royale à l’assault de Gênes,” Navires et Historie 44 (October/ November 2007): 32.
9. Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 99.
10. Henri Darrieus and Jean Queguiner, Historique de la Marine française 1922–1942 (St. Malo: l’Ancre de Marine, 1996), 113.
11. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 54.
12. Darrieus and Queguiner, Marine française, 114–15.
13. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 209.
14. See S. W. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals (New York: William Morrow, 1978), 150; and Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 211–12.
15. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 209. The quote refers to the situation of a year earlier.
16. Barnett, Engage the Enemy, 212.
17. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 56.
18. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 29.
19. ADM 234/317, Battle Summaries, No. 1, Operations against the French Fleet Mers-el-Kébir (Oran) 3rd–6th July, 1940, para. 1.
20. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 87.
21. Calvin W. Hines. “The Distorted Danger: Winston Churchill and the French Dreadnoughts,” in Naval History: The Seventh Symposium of the U.S. Naval Academy, ed. William B. Cogar (n.p.: Scholarly Resources, 1988), 267.
22. ADM 234/317, Mers-el-Kébir, para. 2.
23. Michael Simpson, ed., The Somerville Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somervile, G.C.B., G.B.E., D.S.O. (Aldershot, England: Scolar, 1996), 90.
24. Ibid., 95.
25. Ted Biggs, http://hmshood.com/crew/remember/TedFlagship.html#Ch16.
26. Anthony Heckstall-Smith, The Fleet That Faced Both Ways (London: Anthony Blond, 1963), 69.
27. There are different versions of this meeting. This account is based on Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 130–31. ADM 234/317, Mers-el-Kébir, para. 12 states, “Admiral Gensoul says crews are being reduced and the [sic] threatened by enemy would go to Martinique or U.S.A.; but this is not quite our position. Can get no nearer. This was received in the “Hood” at 1729. As it did not comply with any of the conditions laid down, the air striking force was ordered to fly off, and the battleships stood in towards the coast.”
28. Biggs, http://hmshood.com/crew/remember/TedFlagship.html#Ch16.
29. British historians call Gensoul arrogant and uncooperative and blame him for failing to give his government the ultimatum’s full details. For example, “The possibility of avoiding a resort to force was, unhappily, greatly reduced by the wording of the message in which Gensoul communicated the British proposals to the French Admiralty.” S. W. Roskill. The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol. 1, The Defensive (London: HMSO, 1954), 243. See Philippe Lasterle, “Could Admiral Gensoul Have Averted the Tragedy of Mers-el-Kébir?” Journal of Military History 67 (July 2003): 836–44, for a refutation of this logic.
30. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 37.
31. Heckstall-Smith, Fleet That Faced Both Ways, 102.
32. Jean-Jacques Antier, Les grandes Batailles Navales de la Seconde Guerre mondiale: Le drame de la Marine française (Paris: Omnibus, 2000), 205–6.
33. J. P. Bezard, “Mers el Kebir,” Naval Review 67 (July 1979): 196.
34. Raymond Dannreuther, Somerville’s Force H (London: Aurum, 2005), 31.
35. Bezard, “Mers el Kébir,” 196.
36. Darrieus and Queguiner, Marine française, 142.
37. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 102.
38. Biggs, http://www.hmshood.com/crew/remember/tedflagship.htm#Ch16.
39. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 50.
40. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 108.
41. Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 125.
42. Heckstall-Smith, Fleet That Faced Both Ways, 98.
43. Green and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 60.
44. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 2, Their Finest Hour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949), 212. The prime minister was new to his position. He also wanted to send a message to the “appeasers,” like Lord Halifax or Neville Chamberlain. See Lasterle, “Could Admiral Gensoul Have Averted the Tragedy of Mers el- Kébir?” 839.
45. “Battle of Oran Is Challenge of War to Bitter End,” New York Times, 6 July 1940.
46. Ciano, Diaries, 273.
47. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 96.
48. Ciano, Diaries, 273.
49. Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: Chatham, 2005), 115.
50. Heckstall-Smith, Fleet That Faced Both Ways, 58.
Chapter 3. Italy’s Parallel War: June and July 1940
1. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 206.
2. Ibid., 210.
3. Enrico Cernuschi, “L’attivita crittografica dell marine inglese e italiana prima e durante la Seconda Guerra mondiale: un bilancio,” unpublished manuscript.
4. See Enrico Cernuschi and Vincent O’Hara, “In Search of a Flattop: The Italian Navy and the Aircraft Carrier 1907–2007,” in Warship 2007 (London: Conway Maritime, 2007), 80.
5. Regarding war plans see Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, 487. For port capacities, Renato Mancini. “Í Porti della Libia” Storia Militare 53 (February 1998): 24.
6. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 22.
7. Hermon G. Gill, Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942 (Adelaide: Griffin, 1957), 166.
8. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 24.
9. Ibid., 22–23.
10. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 116.
11. Cunningham, Odyssey, 258–59.
12. ADM 234/323, Battle Summaries, No. 8, Mediterranean Operations Operation M.A.5, 7th to 15th July, 1940, “Action off Calabria of 9th July 1940,” 44.
13. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 71.
14. Cunningham, Odyssey, 259. Also: “The right range for any ship of the Mediterranean Fleet, from a battleship to a submarine, to engage an enemy ship with gunfire is POINT BLANK (nowadays 2,000 yards or less).” S. W. C. Pack, The Battle of Matapan (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 36.
15. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 122.
16. ADM 199/1048, Naval Actions in the Mediterranean, “Action off Calabria,” Neptune letter no. 3513, 14 July 1940, para. 8.
17. ADM 199/1048, Neptune letter, para. 12.
18. The quote is from Pack, Matapan, 39. The signal is from ADM 199/1048, enclosure 16 to Mediterranean letter no. 0112/00212/16. Record of Signals Received by the Commander-in-Chief, 4.
19. Francesco Mattesini, La battaglia di Punta Stilo (Rome: Ufficio Storico, 2001), 71.
20. ADM 199/1048, Signals Received, 6.
21. ADM 199/1048, 14th Destroyer Flotilla, “Narrative of Action with Enemy Forces on 9th July 1940,” 2.
22. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 124.
23. ADM 199/1048, “Action off Calabria, 9th July 1940,” Commanding Officer HMS Warspite Narrative, 1.
24. ADM 199/1048, Neptune letter, para. 21: “I was anxious to conserve ammunition.”
25. ADM 199/1048, “Action off Calabria, 9th July 1940,” Commanding Officer HMS Malaya Narrative.
26. Ibid.
27. ADM 199/1048, Neptune letter, para. 17.
28. ADM 199/1048, HMS Decoy Report on Action off Calabria on 9th July, 2.
29. ADM 199/1048, Captain (d) 14th Destroyer Flotilla, 2.
30. ADM 199/1048, Captain (d) 10th Destroyer Flotilla, HMAS Stuart, 2.
31. ADM 199/1048, HMS Hasty Narrative of Action off Calabria 9th July 1940, 1.
32. ADM 234/323, Battle Summaries, No. 8, 54.
33. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, 150. Also see Simpson, Cunningham Papers, 169: “[Churchill] actually stated that he considered you were too pussy-footed in your dealings with Godfroy at the time of Oran.”
34. Ricciardi, Mediterraneo, 23.
35. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 151.
36. “Report of an Action with the Italian Fleet off Calabria, 9th July 1940,” London Gazette, Supplement, 27 April 1948, 2.
37. For examples, see Nathan Miller, The War at Sea: A Naval History of WWII (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), 116; Martin Stephen, The Fighting Admirals: British Admirals of the Second World War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 69; P. K. Kemp, Key to Victory: The Triumph of British Sea Power in WWII (Boston: Little, Brown, 1957), 93; Roskill, The Defensive, 299; and Julian Thompson, The War at Sea: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (Osceola, Wisc.: Motorbooks International, 1996), 58.
38. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 101.
39. Ibid., 110.
40. Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 187.
41. Ibid., 188.
42. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 172.
43. Ibid., 173.
44. Ibid., 174; and Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 191.
45. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/12/a5815712.shtml.
Chapter 4. No Quick Peace: August–December 1940
1. Gooch, Mussolini and His Generals, 512.
2. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 145.
3. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 1, 100.
4. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 397–98.
5. Quote from Bragadin, Italian Navy, 33. Orders from Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 187. Paladini suffered a heart attack in August.
6. ADM 199/2378, Preliminary Narrative for the War at Sea, vol. 1, January–December 1940, 123; and Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 142.
7. See Macintyre, Battle for the Mediterranean, 31, or Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 149. These opinions were based on Admiral Cunningham’s statement in his memoirs that he turned south at dusk; however, he actually turned south nearly three hours before sunset. Cunningham, Odyssey, 272.
8. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 196–99.
9. Ibid., 198–99. For the expectation of a British retreat see Archivio dell’Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, Rome, Fondo MARICOSOM, Busta 32, Fascicolo 510, “Studio del S.T. D.M. Rolla per un eventuale piano d’azione contro le forze navali inglesi del Mediterraneo Orientale e successivo sviluppo per lo sbarco di truppe nazionali inn Alessandria d’Egitto,” 25 August 1940.
10. Charles De Gaulle, War Memoirs: The Call to Honour, 1940–1942 (New York: Viking, 1955), 92.
11. Peter C. Smith, Action Imminent (London: William Kimber, 1980), 134.
12. Anthony Martienssen, Hitler and His Admirals (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1949), 116.
13. Arthur J. Marder, Operation Menace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 95.
14. Ibid., 149. Also ADM 234/444, H.M. Ships Damaged or Sunk by Enemy Action 3 Sept. 1939 to 2 Sept. 1945, “Resolution, 25th September 1940.”
15. ADM 234/444, “Barham 25th September.” The short may have been a 9.45-inch shell.
16. Darrieus and Queguiner, Marine française, 190.
17. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 154.
18. Martin Thomas, “After Mers-el-Kebir, the Armed Neutrality of the Vichy French Navy,” English Historical Review (June 1997): 665.
19. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 154.
20. Cunningham, Odyssey, 278.
21. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 208. Airone estimated Ajax’s speed as fourteen knots and her headings as 130 degrees, then 70 degrees, and then 110 degrees, indicating the ship was zigzagging. Alcione estimated the target speed as nineteen knots. The Italian torpedo boats carried just two single tubes per side.
22. Compare the experiences of Ariel’s sister ship, Lupo, which absorbed eighteen 6-inch shells off Crete on 21 May 1941. Presumably rounds hitting beneath the waterline caused rapid and massive flooding.
23. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 207.
24. The Italian inquiry suspected that Aviere fired the shot that crippled Artigliere. Aviere’s captain, Carlo Tallarico, was relieved a few days later. See Luciano Bigi, Una vita in marina (Milan: Fondazione Italo Zetti, 2003), 183–84.
25. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 167.
26. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 98.
27. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 39–40.
28. Cunningham, Odyssey, 278; and Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 39.
29. Iachino, Tramonto, 224. Also see Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 419.
30. ADM 234/325, Battle Summaries, No. 10, Mediterranean Operations 4th to 14th November, 1940 Air Attack on Taranto, 11th November 1940, 36. The air raid was originally to include Eagle and a total of thirty aircraft. However, Eagle missed the operation due to mechanical defects. Some of her aircraft transferred to Illustrious, but Illustrious lost several aircraft to accidents in the days before the raid. Decisive results were not anticipated, and the British made no provisions to exploit the excellent results they obtained. See Angelo N. Caravaggio, “The Attack at Taranto: Tactical Success, Operational Failure,” Naval War College Review 59 (Summer 2006), for an analysis of these points.
31. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 259.
32. Gill, Australian Navy, 1939–1942, 235.
33. ADM 234/325, Battle Summaries, No. 10, 37.
34. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 481.
35. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 192.
36. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 184.
37. Dannreuther, Somerville’s Force H, 22.
38. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 326. The British navy’s fighting instructions likewise required avoiding a superior enemy.
39. “Action between British and Italian Forces off Cape Spartivento on 27th November, 1940,” London Gazette, Supplement, 5 May 1948, 2802.
40. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 278.
41. ADM 234/326, Italian Account of the Action off Cape Spartivento, 27th November 1940, 4.
42. “Cape Spartivento,” London Gazette, 2804.
43. ADM 234/325, Battle Summaries, No. 9, Action off Cape Spartivento, 27th November, 1940, 6.
44. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 286.
45. “It is in our interest to prolong the shooting at maximum range trying to hit the enemy before he can hit us, in order to create a favorable tactical balance of forces such that will assure our success in the later close range phase of the fighting. For the same reasons the enemy’s interest is to close range as soon as possible; that means that in the first phase of the battle our ships will have to fire from their stern sectors, and for us, the battle will seem like a disengagement action.” Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Ministero della Marina, “Direttive e Norme per l’impiego della Squadra nel conflictto attuale,” January 1941, part 1, 10.
46. For the Holland quote, “Cape Spartivento,” London Gazette, 2804. For the Berwick hit, see Smith, Action Imminent, 298. This was one of the longest-range hits obtained by a heavy cruiser during the war. Compare the shooting of Allied and Japanese cruisers at Java Sea on 27 February 1942 or at Kormandorski Islands on 26 March 1943.
47. ADM 234/325, Battle Summaries, No. 9, 7.
48. ADM 234/326, Italian Account, 9.
49. ADM 234/325, Battle Summaries, No. 9, 8.
50. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 197.
51. ADM 234/326, Italian Account, 6.
52. “Cape Spartivento,” London Gazette, 2807.
53. Iachino, Tramonto, 228.
54. Archivio Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, Fondo MARICOTRAF, Busta 6, Fascicolo 4 “Corrispondenza tra Maristat-Ispettorato per l’Aviazione della R. Marina e il Comando Superiore M.M. a Tobruch sulla ricognizione aerea contro il traffico inglese tra l’Egitto e Creta.”
55. Fuehrer Conferences, 155.
56. Bradagin, Italian Navy, 15.
57. Kevin Smith, Conflict over Convoys (London: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 249. Imports remained depressed for the rest of the war.
58. Ibid., 250.
59. Ciano, Diaries, 333.
Chapter 5. Enter the Germans: Winter 1941
1. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, 555–56.
2. Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 200.
3. Fueher Conferences, 141.
4. See Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008), 100–103. Also, Schrieber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 239.
5. See I. S. O Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. 1, The Early Successes against Italy (to May 1941) (Uckfield, England: Naval and Military, 2004), 316. One of the ships for Greece stranded in a gale.
6. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 385.
7. ADM 234/335, Battle Summaries, No. 18, Mediterranean Convoys 1941, 5.
8. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 270.
9. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, 658; Bollettno d’Archivio dell’Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, settembre 2008.
10. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 67. The sunken freighters were subsequently raised.
11. Dannreuther, Somerville’s Force H, 78.
12. Roskill, Churchill and the Admirals, 53 and 59.
13. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 145.
14. Federico F. Oriana, Giuseppe Oriana: Ufficiale e gentiluomo (Rome: Supplemento alla Rivista Marittima, July 2008), 17–20. Also, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Great Britain Diplomatic Files, box 35, Military Situation 1 March 1941.
15. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 659. Also see Guido Ronconi, “L’operazione “Abstention” in Egeo,” Storia Militare (May 2001): 4–15, and (June 2001): 23–34.
16. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 299.
17. Ibid., 327.
18. Ibid., 294.
19. And damaged several others. See Jürgen Rohwer, Allied Submarine Attacks of World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 131–32.
20. Walter Ansel, Hitler and the Middle Sea (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1972), 133.
21. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, 663.
22. Ronald Seth, Two Fleets Surprised: The Story of the Battle of Cape Matapan (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960), 20.
23. Cunningham, Odyssey, 325. Also see Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 405.
24. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 405.
25. Aldo Fraccaroli, “Il combattimento navale de Gaudo,” Storia Militare 88 (January 2001): 5.
26. Ibid., 6.
27. “Battle of Matapan,” London Gazette, Supplement, 31 July 1947, 3598.
28. Ibid. One historian asserts that by running before the enemy the British admiral “strained morale in his squadron” and that “a powerful force of British cruisers running away was so unusual it was only a matter of time before someone on the Italian side smelled a rat.” Martin Stephen and Erich Grove, Sea Battles in Close-Up (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 54.
29. George Stitt, Under Cunningham’s Command (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1944), 53.
30. Fraccaroli, “Il combattimento navale de Gaudo,” 10.
31. “Battle of Matapan,” London Gazette, 3598.
32. Fioravanzo, Azioni navali, vol. 4, 437.
33. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 151.
34. Iachino reported the first salvo was fired from 23,000 meters (25,150 yards). Pridham-Wippell reported it as 32,000 yards. Fioravanzo, Azioni navali, vol. 4, 438, “Battle of Matapan,” London Gazette, 3599.
35. Stitt, Under Cunningham’s Command, 55.
36. Cunningham made much of the fact that Gloucester was supposedly only capable of twenty-four knots; “however, the sight of an enemy battleship had somehow increased the Gloucester’s speed to 30 knots.” Cunningham, Odyssey, 327. Pridham-Wippell’s report to Cunningham noted that her safe speed, not her maximum speed, was twenty-four knots. In a crisis, she was as fast as the other cruisers.
37. Fioravanzo, Azioni navali, vol. 4, 438.
38. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 152.
39. Pack, Matapan, 44.
40. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, 84.
41. Stitt, Under Cunningham’s Command, 60. This was Britain’s first successful aerial torpedo strike in the Mediterranean against a surface warship under way.
42. “Battle of Matapan,” London Gazette, 3596.
43. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, xv.
44. “Battle of Matapan,” London Gazette, 3899.
45. Archivio Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, Cartella 26, “Messaggi in arrivo comando in capo squadra navale.”
46. Correspondence, 31 October 1992, Vito Sansonetti to Enrico Cernuschi.
47. Cunningham, Odyssey, 332; and Stitt, Under Cunningham’s Command, 66.
48. British reports state a smaller ship led the Italian formation, followed by two larger ships. The Italians state that Zara, not Alfieri, led the formation. The record of night combat is filled with mistaken identifications and optical illusions; the evidence of survivors supercedes the evidence of observers.
49. Cunningham, Odyssey, 332. British histories record it was Fiume thus highlighted. The account in Azioni Navale, vol. 4, 483, states that “[Zara] was suddenly caught in the beam of a searchlight. It was that of the Greyhound.”
50. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, 135.
51. See http://www.gunplot.net/matapan/matapan.html.
52. S. W. C. Pack, Night Action off Cape Matapan (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1972), 86. Pack provides a representative summary of British accounts. According to these, Warspite and Valiant initially engaged Fiume. Barham was just completing her turn from course 240 to 280 degrees and records that she targeted the lead ship in the enemy column before shifting to the second ship. Thus, British histories relate that she initially fired on Alfieri. If this were true, then Zara would have enjoyed at least thirty seconds of freedom from main-battery fire. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 483, asserts that a large-caliber broadside hit the Zara immediately following illumination. Barham was that broadside’s likely source.
53. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/13/a2274013.shtml.
54. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, 153.
55. Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 313.
56. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 491.
57. E. Bagnasco and M. Brescia, Cacciatorpediniere Classi “Freccia/Folgore” “Maestrale” “Oriani” Parti Seconda e Terza (Parma: Ermanno Alvertelli, 1997), 28.
58. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 4, 494.
59. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised, 155.
60. Ibid. Stuart’s Captain Waller smoked a pipe.
61. Pack, Matapan, 146.
62. Pack, Night Action, 96.
63. Pack, Matapan, 150.
64. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 97, for example. Also Sadkovich, Italian Navy, 132—“sheer dumb luck.”
65. I. S. O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. 2, The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally (1941) (Uckfield, England: Naval and Military, 2004), 70; and Roskill, The Defensive, 431.
66. Iachino, Tramonto, 245.
Chapter 6. The Red Sea: 1940–41
1. See Enrico Cernuschi and Vincent O’Hara, “The Breakout Fleet: The Oceanic Programmes of the Regia Marina, 1934–1940,” in Warship 2006 (London: Conway Maritime, 2006). At its most grandiose, this fleet would have consisted of three battleships, a carrier, twelve scout cruisers, thirty-six destroyers, and thirty submarines.
2. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 202.
3. See Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 133.
4. Galvani is credited for sinking the Indian sloop Pathan off Bombay on 23 June, but in fact Galvani operated near the Gulf of Oman on this date, and Pathan likely fell victim to a floating mine. See Jürgen Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes of World War II (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1999), 257; and Pier Filippo Lupinacci, Le operazioni in Africa Orientale (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1976), 40ff.
5. R. F. Channon, “Red Sea Incident,” Naval Review 82 (October 1994): 408.
6. Christopher Langtree, The Kellys: British J, K and N Class Destroyers of World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002), 106. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 24, states that one of Torricelli’s last shells struck Khartoum at 0600 and that a splinter caused the torpedo to explode, making enemy action, not an accident, the cause of Khartoum’s loss. This version is repeated in British sources, most notably Paul Kemp, The Admiralty Regrets: British Warship Losses of the 20th Century (Phoenix Mill, England: Sutton, 1999), 122. “During the engagement Khartoum sustained one hit from a 10 cm shell which burst near the after bank of 21 in torpedo tubes. A splinter caused the air vessel of a torpedo to explode.”
7. “T.P.A.” “The Red Sea,” Naval Review 30 (November 1942): 295.
8. Lupinacci, Le operazioni in Africa Orientale, 95; Admiralty C.B. 3001(42), Progress in Naval Gunnery (Gunnery and Anti-Aircraft War Division, Naval Staff, 1942), 59.
9. Lupinacci, Le operazioni in Africa Orientale, 96.
10. See Progress in Naval Gunnery, 59.
11. S. D. Waters, The Royal New Zealand Navy (Wellington: War History Branch, 1956), 91.
12. Lupinacci, Le operazioni in Africa Orientale, 99.
13. Some reports deny that Nullo hit Kimberley; however, the official appreciation of damage inflicted, ADM 234/444, “Kimberley 21st October 1940,” states that two shells hit the destroyer, the second “hitting the shield of number 1 mounting and smashing the range and director receiver.”
14. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 507.
Chapter 7. A Close-Run Thing: Spring 1941
1. Cunningham, Odyssey, 338.
2. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 356.
3. Cunningham, Odyssey, 340.
4. For example, according to their reports Jervis opened fire at 0220, Janus at 0222, and Nubian at 0210. Mohawk has it that Jervis commenced fire at 0205. This account uses the flagship’s clock as the base line. See “Report of an Action against an Italian Convoy on the Night of the 15th/16th April, 1941,” London Gazette, Supplement, 12 May 1948, 2915.
5. Ibid.
6. Admiralty, Progress in Gunnery 1942, 55.
7. “Report of an Action against an Italian Convoy,” London Gazette, 2915.
8. Ibid., 2914.
9. Bagnasco and Brescia, Classi Freccia/Folgore Maestrale Oriani, 78.
10. Admiralty, Progress in Naval Gunnery, 1942, 54.
11. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 345.
12. Cunningham, Odyssey, 347.
13. Playfair, The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally, 111.
14. See Joseph Caruana, “The Demise of Force ‘K,’” Warship International 43(1) (2006): 99.
15. See chapter 10.
16. “Transportation of the Army to Greece and Evacuation of the Army from Greece, 1941,” London Gazette, Supplement, 19 May 1948, 3042.
17. Ibid., 3053, for Pridham-Wippell’s intentions. A. G. Prideaux, “With ‘A.B.C.’ in the Med,” part 2, Naval Review 65 (July 1977): 272, for quote.
18. Ibid., 3055.
19. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 265.
20. Ibid., 263.
21. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 108.
22. Churchill, Grand Alliance, 223.
23. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 332.
24. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 415.
25. Stephens, Fighting Admirals, 99.
26. “The Battle of Crete,” London Gazette, Supplement, 24 May 1948, 3107.
27. Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy: The Never-Before-Told Story of How Ultra First Proved Itself in Battle, Turning Defeat into Victory (New York: William Morrow, 1989), 59.
28. Langtree, Kellys, 112.
29. Enrico Cernuschi, La Notte del Lupo (Rome: Rivista Maríttima, 1997), 27.
30. Ibid., 28. Also ADM 234/444, Orion 22nd May, 1941.
31. Frank Wade, A Midshipman’s War: A Young Man in the Mediterranean Naval War 1941–1943 (Victoria, Canada: Trafford, 2005), 55.
32. Cernuschi, Lupo, 28.
33. Ansel, Hitler and the Middle Sea, 332.
34. Wartime accounts such as appear in Bartimeus, East of Suez, 121, that the Germans lost four thousand men and the entire convoy, were deliberate propaganda. In the war situation report of 22 May to President Roosevelt, claims were much more modest.
35. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 170.
36. British accounts state, “On its way to the Kithera Channel Admiral King’s force was bombed continuously; the Naiad had two turrets put out of action and her speed reduced.” Playfair, The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally, 137. Also Simpson, Cunningham’s Papers, 431–32. King radioed for assistance and stated Naiad was seriously damaged. The entry for Naiad in Admiralty 234/444, H.M. Ships Damaged or Sunk by Enemy Action, does not mention any problem with her turrets, only that splinters had extensively damaged her stem. Circumstantial evidence indicates Naiad was torpedoed. A British memoir recounts, “One air-launched torpedo passed harmlessly under our stern. Another had punched a hole thought our stem without exploding”; when at Alexandria for temporary repairs, “with the help of the repair ships we set about welding a great plate over the huge hole for’d.” Max Arthur, The Navy 1939 to the Present Day (Coronet Books, London, 1998), 78–81. In another account a crewmen on Leander recalled “watch[ing] Naiad enter Haifa with something new, technicolour camouflage. Her usual black, grey and light grey pattern was now augmented for’ard with a huge splash of red where her repairs had yet to be finally painted. She’d been torpedoed off Crete, [and] hastily repaired in dock at Alexandria.” Jack Harker, Well Done Leander (Auckland: Collins, 1971), 150–51. If indeed Naiad had been torpedoed, then Sagittario may deserve credit, as the Luftwaffe had expended its last six aerial torpedoes on 21 May and no Italian torpedo bomber or submarine claimed any attack in that area on that day.
37. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 416; and Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1950), 256.
38. See Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 549–50.
39. Prideaux, “With ‘A.B.C.’ in the Med,” part 2, 273.
40. P. F. Lupinacci, La difesa del traffico con l’Albania, la Grecia e l’Egeo (Rome: Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, 1965), 148–49.
41. Iachino, Tramonto, 247.
42. A. G. Prideaux, “With ‘A.B.C’ in the Med,” part 3, Naval Review 65 (October 1977): 356–57.
43. Jürgen Rohwer and G. Hummelchen, Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 72.
Chapter 8. France Defends the Empire
1. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 51.
2. Fuehrer Conferences, 188.
3. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 233–34.
4. Ibid., 236.
5. Thomas, “After Mers-el-Kébir,” 663.
6. Robert L. Melka, “Darlan between Germany and Britain 1940—41,” Journal of Contemporary History 8 (April 1973): 69.
7. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 424.
8. John Jordan, “2400-tonnes Series: The four-funnelled Contre-torpilleurs of the prewar Marine Nationale,” in Warship 1994 (London: Conway Maritime, 1994), 98.
9. Antier, Batailles Navales, 115. British accounts relate that two torpedoes were seen crossing ahead of Phoebe at 0300, an hour before the landing.
10. Christopher Page, ed., The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, November 1940–December 1941, Naval Staff Histories (London: Frank Cass, 2002), 122.
11. Times generally differ in battle narratives, even from ship to ship in the same force. This account follows Valmy’s times. Add seven minutes to ten minutes for the corresponding times given in British accounts.
12. See Stitt, Under Cunningham’s Command, 226.
13. Pierre Guiot, Combats Sans Espoir: Guerre Navale en Syrie–1941 (Paris: La Couronne Littéraire, no date), 73.
14. Ibid., 77.
15. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 493. “The relatively low muzzle-velocity of 725m/s of the short, 40 calibre gun meant a flight time of 17.6 second over 9000m, making it difficult to hit a fast-maneuvering target of comparable size.” See Jordan, “2400-tonnes Series.”
16. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 485.
17. Darrieus and Quéguiner, Marine française, 275.
18. Ibid.
19. Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 380.
20. Melka, “Darlan between Britain and Germany 1940–41,” 75.
21. F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, abridged ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 86.
22. Cunningham, Odyssey, 398; and Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 493.
Chapter 9. The Convoy War Intensifies: Summer and Fall 1941
1. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 158.
2. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 277.
3. B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (New York: Putnam, 1970), 182.
4. Iachino, Tramonto, 252.
5. Ciano, Diaries, 366.
6. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 1, 22 fn.
7. Ibid., 283–84.
8. Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 716.
9. Ibid., 708.
10. Roskill, The Defensive, 521.
11. ADM 234/335, Battle Summaries, no. 18, Mediterranean Convoys 1941, 11.
12. Kemp, Admiralty Regrets, 151.
13. ADM 234/335, Mediterranean Convoys 1941, 14.
14. Charles A Jellison, Besieged: The World War II Ordeal of Malta, 1940–1942 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1984), 125.
15. See J. Caruana, “Decima Flotilla Decimated,” Warship International 28(2) (1991): 178–86.
16. Gill, Australian Navy 1939–1942, 383–86.
17. Simpson, Somerville Papers, 311.
18. See Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 188–89.
19. Iachino, Tramonto, 257.
20. See Marco Spertini and Erminio Bagnasco, I mezzi d’assalto della Xa Flottiglia MAS (Parma: Ermanno Albertelli, 2005), 38–49, for a summary of operations.
21. Valerio J Borghese, Sea Devils: Italian Navy Commandos in World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 129.
22. Schreiber et al., Germany in the Second World War, 711.
23. Lawrence Paterson, U-Boats in the Mediterranean 1941–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 32.
24. Hans Frank, German S-Boats in Action in the Second World War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 76–77.
25. Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 2, 287.
26. Ibid., 319.
27. John Winton, ed., The War at Sea: The British Navy in World War II (New York: William Morrow, 1968), 145.
28. ADM 239/261, The Fighting Instructions, 1939, clause 432, section 8.
29. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 192.
30. Winton, War at Sea, 146.
31. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 192.
32. Fuehrer Conferences, 240.
33. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 519.
34. I. S. O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. 3, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (September 1941 to September 1942) (Uckfield, England: Naval and Military, 2004), 96.
35. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 320.
36. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 201.
37. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 535.
38. Paterson, U-Boats in the Mediterranean, 51.
39. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, 537.
40. Hinsley, British Intelligence, abridged ed., 195; also vol. 2, 322–23. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 198, state that gasoline fumes on one destroyer were so strong that the crew had to wear gas masks.
41. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 142.
42. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 217.
43. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 199.
44. Giorgio Giorgerini and Augusto Nani, Gli incrociatori italiani 1861–1964 (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1964), 487.
45. Ciano, Diaries, 418. Somigli, a former deputy chief of staff sacked after Taranto was a Ciano protégé and made this often-quoted remark to paint his rivals in an unfavorable light.
46. G. H. Bennett and R. Bennett, Hitler’s Admirals (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 119–20.
Chapter 10. The Axis Resurgent: 1942
1. Ciano, Diaries, 416.
2. A. G. Prideaux, “With ‘A.B.C.’ in the Med,” Naval Review 66 (January 1978): 49.
3. Yamato opened fire at 34,000 yards at Leyte Gulf: “At 0658 the First Battleship Division commenced firing with the fore turrets at the range of thirty-one kilometers.” Matome Ugaki, Fading Victory (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991), 492.
4. Page, Royal Navy and the Mediterranean, vol. 2, 221.
5. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 202.
6. Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 723.
7. Roskill, The Defensive, 535.
8. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 151.
9. Schreiber et al., Germany and the Second World War, 723.
10. Jellison, Besieged, 150.
11. Eric Grove, Sea Battles in Close-Up: World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1993), vol. 2, 99.
12. The British concealed the results of the Alexandria attack for several weeks. However, by 15 January 1942 Italian naval intelligence had confirmed that X MAS had damaged both enemy battleships.
13. Philip Vian, Action This Day (London: Frederick Muller, 1960), 84.
14. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 164.
15. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 347.
16. ADM 234/353, Battle Summaries, no. 32, Malta Convoys 1942, 5.
17. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 164.
18. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys 1942, 5.
19. Giuseppe Fioravanzo, Le Azioni Navali in Mediterraneo dal 1 Aprile 1941 al’8 Settembre 1943 (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1970), vol. 5, 202.
20. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys 1942, 6.
21. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 204 fn.
22. Ibid., 202.
23. One of Littorio’s Ro.43s reported a cruiser heading south escorted by a destroyer trailing a long plume of smoke. This, of course, was Vian’s “smoke division.”
24. Julius Thompson, The War at Sea: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (Osceola, Wisc.: Motorbooks International, 1996), 182.
25. ADM 235/324, Malta Convoys 1942, 6.
26. Vian, Action this Day, 89.
27. S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol. 2, The Period of Balance (London: HMSO, 1956), 53.
28. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 210.
29. ADM 234/325, Malta Convoys 1942, 8.
30. Ibid.
31. “The Battle of Sirte of 22nd March, 1942,” London Gazette, Supplement, 18 September 1947), 4375.
32. Vian, Action This Day, 90.
33. Roskill, Period of Balance, 53.
34. ADM 234/325, Malta Convoys 1942, 9.
35. “The Battle of Sirte of 22nd March,” London Gazette, Vian report, para. 53.
36. Thompson, War at Sea, 184.
37. Trento also claimed credit for this hit. See Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 223.
38. Winton, War at Sea, 224.
39. Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 221, lists the Italian totals as Littorio, 181 15-inch, 445 6-inch, and 21 3.5-inch; Gorizia, 226 8-inch and 67 4-inch; Trento, 336 8-inch and 20 4-inch; Bande Nere, 112 6-inch; and Aviere, 84 4.7-inch.
40. Bartimeus, East of Malta, West of Suez, 199.
41. Jellison, Besieged, 163; also J. A. Whelan, Malta Airman (Wellington: Historical Publications Branch, 1950), 23.
42. Ireland, War in the Mediterranean, 120.
43. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 183.
44. See Vincent P. O’Hara, German Fleet at War, 1939–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 130–50.
45. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 1, 470.
46. Fuehrer Conferences, 285.
47. Jellsion, Besieged, 205.
48. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 356.
49. Reports from the American army attaché in Egypt were the source of Italy’s information.
50. Hinsley, British Intelligence, abridged ed., 205.
51. A. F. Pugsley, Destroyer Man (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1957), 117.
52. Quote is from Vian, Action this Day, 97. Also see ADM 234/358, Malta Convoys 1942, 31–33.
53. Sadkovich, Italian Navy, 258: “Italian battleships needed 100 tons and cruisers 24 tons daily just to maintain steam.”
54. ADM 234/358, Malta Convoys 1942, 17.
55. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 302.
56. “Mediterranean Convoy Operations,” London Gazette, Supplement, 11 August 1948, 98.
57. Ibid.
58. Winton, War at Sea, 226–27.
59. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys, 1942, 22.
60. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 297.
61. Alberto Santoni and Francesco Mattesini, La partecipazione aeronavale tedesca alla Guerra nel Mediterraneo (Rome: Ateneo e Bizzarri, 1980), 216: “Partridge, Bedouin e Ithuriel vennero colpiti dal fuoco degli incrociatori italani, riportando alcuni danni.”
62. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys, 1942, 22.
63. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 297–98.
64. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys, 1942, 22.
65. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 300.
66. Ibid., 302.
67. “Mediterranean Convoy Operations,” London Gazette, 4499.
68. Ibid., 4500.
69. Ibid. Partridge’s captain was making to the west at this time (according to his original intention) because Bedouin had failed, against expectation, to get an engine started.
70. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 307.
71. “Mediterranean Convoy Operations,” London Gazette, 4500.
72. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 307.
73. Axis aircraft finally dispatched Kentucky and probably Burdwan. Captain Hardy mocked the enemy for finishing the job he had assigned to Hebe and Badsworth: “Enemy torpedo bombers most conveniently attacked and sank Burdwan and Kentucky” (“Mediterranean Convoy Operations,” London Gazette, 4500). The interpretation that Da Zara somehow mishandled the cripples has been repeated as late as 2006: “All Da Zara needed to do was hook up the two destroyers to Kentucky and tow her back to Pantelleria.” Sam Moses, At All Costs (New York: Random House, 2006), 73.
74. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 307.
75. Jellison, Besieged, 219.
76. Macintyre, Battle for the Mediterranean, 157.
77. Jellison, Besieged, 220–21. This excludes bread and locally grown foodstuffs.
78. G. Hermon Gill, Royal Australian Navy 1942–1945 (Adelaide: Griffin, 1968), 97.
79. Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 316.
80. Peter Smith, Pedestal: The Convoy That Saved Malta (Manchester: Crecy, 1999), 92.
81. ADM 234/353, Malta Convoys 1942, 37.
82. See Sadkovich, Italian Navy, 295; Bragadin, Italian Navy, 211–12; Fabio Tani, Memorie, unpublished manuscript. Commander Lorenzini become the navy’s chief of staff in 1970.
83. Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1950), 455.
84. Maugeri, Ashes of Disgrace, 83.
Chapter 11. The Allies Resurgent: Torch to Tunis
1. Ciano, Diaries, 510.
2. Albert Kesselring, Kesselring: A Soldier’s Record (NewYork: William Morrow, 1954), 152. Also see Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, Rommel’s North African Campaign: September 1940–November 1942 (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 1999), 215. Tonnage and arrivals from Gino Jori, “I rifornimenti dal mare alle forze italo-tedesche ad El Alamein per la ripresa dell’attacco all’Egitto (2 luglio–2 settembre 1942,” RID (February 1986), table 1.
3. For the impact of signal intelligence, Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 423; for Axis arrivals, Jori, “I rifornimenti dal mar,” tables no. 1 and 3; for Italian losses, Playfair, British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb, 327.
4. I. S. O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, vol. 4, The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa (Uckfield, England: Naval and Military, 2004), 23.
5. Luigi Bolla, Perchè a Salò (Milan: Bompiani, 1982), 149–50.
6. Harry S Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942 to 1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 83.
7. Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 210.
8. ADM 234/359, Operation “Torch” Invasion of North Africa November 1942 to February 1943, 9.
9. Ibid., 14.
10. Ibid., 38.
11. ADM 234/444, Boadicea, 8th November, 1942.
12. Marc Saibène, Les Torpilleurs de 1500 Tonnes du Type Bourrasque (Rennes: Marines Editions, 2001), 118–23.
13. Darrieus and Queguiner, Marine française, 331.
14. Ibid.
15. Barbara Brooks Tomblin, With Utmost Spirit: Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2004), 77.
16. “The Landings in North Africa,” London Gazette, Supplement, 23 March 1949, 1511. Jamaica’s poor results were attributed to “excessive use of helm wheel, which made it practically impossible to hold range or line.” Michael Simpson, The Cunningham Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, vol. 2, The Triumph of Allied Sea Power 1942–1946 (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2006), 91.
17. ADM 234/359, Operation “Torch,” 29.
18. See Vincent P. O’Hara, The U.S. Navy against the Axis: Surface Combat 1941–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 138–50.
19. Rohwer and Hummelchen, Chronology, 210.
20. Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 246.
21. Dwight Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1948), 109.
22. Churchill, Hinge of Fate, 574.
23. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 2, 56.
24. Auphan and Mordal, French Navy, 257.
25. Anthony Clayton, “A Question of Honour? Scuttling Vichy’s Fleet,” History Today (November 1992): 37.
26. Fuehrer Conferences, 300.
27. Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy, 193.
28. Alan J. Levine, The War against Rommel’s Supply Lines, 1942–1943 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999), 80.
29. At Malta on that date there were five complete and three partial fighter squadrons, one bomber/reconnaissance squadron, portions of three torpedo-bomber squadrons, and two bomber squadrons. See Playfair, Destruction of the Axis Forces, 204.
30. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 495.
31. Aldo Cocchia, La difesa del traffico con ‘Africa Settentrionale dal 1 ottobre alla caduta della Tunisia (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1964), vol. 8, 161.
32. Cunningham, Odyssey, 505.
33. Based on Folgore’s report, Enrico Cernuschi believes that Folgore torpedoed Quentin in the Italian destroyer’s second attack and that the torpedo holed the British ship but did not detonate until that morning, when she was returning to port at high speed. He reaches this conclusion based on the fact that German records show no attacks by torpedo aircraft that morning. The only recorded action is a bombing attack by three Ju.88s of I./KG 54. They claimed a near miss on a destroyer north of Zembretta Island, nearly a hundred miles from where Quentin was attacked. He further states the submarine P219 surfaced during the battle and fired a torpedo, which, although it missed, was considered by the Admiralty as the possible source of Quentin’s loss.
34. Wade, Midshipman’s War, 182.
35. Ibid., 183.
36. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 2, 60.
37. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 496.
38. See Rohwer, Axis Submarine Success; 240. Playfair, Destruction of the Axis Forces, 206 credits aircraft torpedoes.
39. Playfair, Destruction of the Axis Forces, 211.
40. Ibid., 230.
41. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 242.
42. Langtree, Kellys, 156.
43. Perseo report, “Danni inflitti al nemico,” 22 April 1943.
44. Ibid.
45. Playfair, Destruction of the Axis Forces, 241–42.
46. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 2, 72.
47. Extracted from Playfair, Destruction of the Axis Forces, 251, 417.
48. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 2, 607.
49. See ADM 199/2068, Inquiry Operation Headache, and Vincent P. O’Hara and Enrico Cernuschi, “Battle with No Name,” World War II (March 2006): 36–41.
50. Enrico Cernuschi, correspondence to author, based on interview with Carmelo Zippitelli
51. Ibid.
52. Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), 516.
53. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 250.
54. Dear and Foot, Oxford Companion to World War II, 818.
55. Roskill, Period of Balance, 443.
56. C. Huan, “The French Navy in World War II,” in Reevaluating Major Naval Combatants of World War II, ed. James J. Sadkovich (New York: Greenwood, 1990), 93.
Chapter 12. The Italian Armistice
1. Maugeri, From the Ashes of Disgrace, 101; and Ciano, Diaries, 577.
2. Pugsley, Destroyer Man, 142.
3. Ibid., 143.
4. Ibid., 144.
5. The British claimed they faced two escorts, X137 (identified as a torpedo boat) and Castore (identified as a destroyer). See also Langtree, Kellys, 159.
6. First quote from Carlo D’Este, World War II in the Mediterranean (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books, 1990), 39. Final quote from Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 11.
7. S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol. 3, The Offensive Part I (London: HMSO, 1960), 121. Quote is from Samuel E. Morison, The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944–1945 (Boston: Little, Brown), 39.
8. Ibid. 43.
9. Frank, S-Boats, 86.
10. Dudley Pope, Flag 4: The Battle of the Coastal Forces in the Mediterranean 1939–1945 (London: Chatham, 1998), 121.
11. Fioravanzo, Azioni Navali, vol. 5, 521–22.
12. Fuehrer Conferences, 347.
13. Elio Ando, “Changing Sides: The Italian Fleet and the Armistice: 1943,” Warship 42 (April 1987): 67.
14. Ibid. Also Theodore R. Tredwell, Splinter Fleet: The Wooden Subchasers of World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 62. SC 503 was the largest American warship to be engaged by major Italian warships.
15. Bradagin, Italian Navy, 260.
16. This section is based on Vincent P. O’Hara and Enrico Cernuschi, Dark Navy: The Regia Marina and the Armistice of 8 September 1943,” (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Nimble Books, 2009). See also Elena Agarossi, A Nation Collapses: The Italian Surrender of September 1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); F. W. Deakin, The Brutal Friendship: Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism (New York: Harper and Row, 1962); and Ando, “Changing Sides.”
17. Mario Cardea, “La Brillante Azione della Torpediniera Aliseo,” Mare: L’Italia Marinara (September 1952), 2.
18. See Giuseppe Fioravanzo, La Marina Italiana nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale, vol. 15, La Marina dall’8 settembre alla fine del conflicto (Rome: Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare, 1970).
19. See Alessandro Dondoli, “Piombino, settembre 1943.” Storia Militare 72 (September 1999): 4–14.
20. Butcher, My Three Years, 414.
21. Simpson, Cunningham Papers, vol. 2, 129.
22. Samuel E. Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 9, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, January 1943-June 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), 244. The Squadretta sailed on 19 September for Malta, where it arrived the next day.
23. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 340.
24. Frank, S-Boats, 87.
25. Bragadin, Italian Navy, 346–47.
Chapter 13. Germany’s War: 1943–45
1. See Peter Schenk, Kampf um die Ägäis (Hamburg: E. S. Mittler and Son, 2000), 32–40; and Zvonimir Freivogel, “Vasilefs Georgios and Vasilissa Olga: From Sister-Ships to Adversaries,” Warship International 40(4) (2003).
2. Fueher Conferences, 369.
3. See the discussion in Roskill, The Offensive Part I, 188ff.
4. “Naval Operations in the Aegean between the 7th September 1943 and 28th November, 1943,” London Gazette, Supplement, 11 October, 1948, 5372. The Levant Command was formed in February 1943 by detaching from the Mediterranean command the area east of the Tunisian/Libyan border
5. Anthony Rogers, Churchill’s Folly: Leros and the Aegean (London: Cassell, 2003), 35.
6. The usual number quoted is 4,750. Another 1,264 drowned when mines sank transports filled with Italian prisoners. “It should be noted that when ships carrying German troops were sunk the percentage saved was higher. Apart from there having been insufficient lifesaving equipment on board, there was panic after striking the mines which the crews tried to control with machine gun fire, with hellish results.” Schenk, Kampf um die Ägäis, 59.
7. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 3, part 1, 121–22.
8. “Naval Operations in the Aegean,” London Gazette, 5372; also Rodgers, Churchill’s Folly, 49
9. Quoted in Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 3, part 1, 122.
10. Rodgers, Churchill’s Folly, 84.
11. “Improvise and Dare,” Naval Review 39 (February 1951): 46.
12. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol 3, part 1, 128.
13. ADM 234/444, “Hursley 17th October 1943.”
14. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, vol. 3, part 1, 121–22, 131. For the Children’s Crusade, Schenk, Kampf um die Ägäis, 81.
15. Rogers, Churchill’s Folly, 263 fn.
16. Fuehrer Conferences, 385.
17. Schenk, Kampf um die Ägäis, 112.
18. Charles Koburger, Wine-Dark, Blood Red Sea: Naval Warfare in the Aegean 1941–1946 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999), 98. The “KT” ships were mass-produced coastal freighter types—like KT1, sunk in the Convoy H action, displacing 800 GRT and capable of 14.5 knots.
19. Schenk, Kampf um die Ägäis, 128. This does not include naval losses.
20. Frank, S-Boats, 87; and German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941–1944), CMH Publication 104-18 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1953), chap. 8.
21. See Vladimir Isaic, “Premuda 29 Febbraio 1944,” Storia Militare 46 (July 1997): 20–26. War Diary quote is from page 25.
22. See Zvonimir Freivogel, ”Die Geisterflotte von Pag,” Schiffahrt International Journal (August/September 2007): 56–65; also Pope, Flag 4, 259–60.
23. See Zvonimir Freivogel, “The Attack on HMS Delhi at Spalato,” Warship International 40(2) (2003): 351–64.
24. The RSI’s Marina Nazionale Repubblicana operated MAS boats and special attack units. X MAS unit joined the Germans even before the establishment of Mussolini’s “republic.” See Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, The Black Prince and the Sea Devils (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo, 2004). The RSI navy clashed at least thirty-five times with Allied coastal units and conducted attacks against larger warships, sinking the British LST305 off Anzio, slightly damaging Le Fantasque, and severely damaging Trombe.
25. S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea 1939–1945, vol. 3, The Offensive Part II (Nashville, Tenn.: Battery, 1994), 83.
26. Tomblin, Utmost Spirit, 329.
27. Robert J. Bulkley Jr., At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003), 313.
28. See O’Hara, German Fleet at War, 236–38.
29. Ibid., 238–41.
30. Samuel E. Morison, United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 11, The Invasion of France and Germany (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), 311.
31. Vincent P. O’Hara, “Mystery Battle off Imperia, 1 October 1944,” World War II Quarterly (4)2 (August 2007): 24–33, contains a more detailed account of this action.
32. See O’Hara, German Fleet at War, 245–47.
33. Arnold Hague, The Allied Convoy System 1939–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 192.
34. Kenneth Wynn, U-Boat Operations of the Second World War (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press: 1997), 300.
Conclusion
1. These figures are compiled from a number of sources, including Enrico Cernuschi, Fecero tutti il loro dovere (Rome: Rivista Maríttima, 2006), 87–97; David Brown, Warship Losses of World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995); Kemp, Admiralty Regrets (Sutton: 1999); Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1922–1946 (New York: Mayflower, 1980); and Erminio Bagnasco and Enrico Cernuschi, Le Navi da Guerra Italiane 1940–1945 (Parma: Ermanno Albertelli, 2003). They include ships sunk and later salvaged, including Queen Elizabeth and Valiant; some sources (including Kemp and Cernuschi) consider these ships as only damaged.
2. See chap. 4 and endnote 58.