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MY LIFE MY WAR

By
Bernard Hallas

Chapter 9a - The Taranto Victory

Between August and October, We put to sea only three times, mainly covering convoys to Malta. Enemy battleships did put to sea but when there was any likelihood of a confrontation they withdrew and returned to base. These tactics denied the British Admiral of giving them a final crushing defeat and putting an end to the Italian presence in the Mediterranean.

By the month of November with replacements to Cunninghams force, the balance of naval power had swung into our favour we were reinforced by the arrival of the aircraft carrier Illustrious, and two sister ships of the Warspite, HMS Barham and HMS Valiant. The Valiant was especially welcomed in that she had been completely modernised in a recent refit in her home port, a complete re build similar to the Warspite but she had been fitted with the new radar as well.

Warspite was not fitted with radar until a year later. We now had a Naval Force on a par with the Italians and this balance of power was to be increased in the very near future. For a short time we carried out random bombardments on enemy installations, but Cunningham was impatient to get at the enemy Fleet. Eventually on the eleventh of November he put his plan into action. After a normal day in Alexandria we left our buoy and proceeded to sea, with The Carrier HMS Illustrious following astern.

The Admiral had decided that if the Italians would not put to sea, then he would seek them out and destroy them in their harbours. The leading light was to be the Illustrious with twenty-one swordfish planes armed and carrying torpedoes. The target was to be Taranto, the main hiding place for the enemy ships. Off Taranto they went in before the grey light of dawn twenty-one planes went into the attack, it was a complete surprise. Even so the harbour was heavily defended and as the first wave went in they soon became the target of heavy Anti Aircraft fire. Let me now describe the operation.

The Italians were superior in numbers
Their Battleships modern and fast
But their hearts were not in the conflict
And in experience were well outclassed.

Most days they stayed safely in harbour
Only occasionally going out on a foray
And only then when the British Fleet
Was hundreds of miles away.

The answer then seemed so simple
To hit them where it hurt
To attack them in their “Hidey Hole”
And rub El Duce’s nose in the dirt.

So the Fleet reduced to one Carrier
Left Alex’ on a normal sweep west
And for the always present observer
Our intentions were kept close to our chest.

The “Illustrious was our floating Drome
Her strike planes not exactly the best
But the men who flew those swordfish
Were a cut above the rest.

The evening sun had long submerged
The time was eight thirty p.m.
When the thundering roar of twenty-one planes
Was heard by the listening men

South East of Taranto, they took to the sky
Ken Williamson leading his flight
Norman “Blood” Scarlet, showed him the way
As they travelled in the evening light

The first wave of twelve went into a dive
The “Littorio” in their sights down below
Their torpedoes released for a perfect strike
Seemed to travel, ever so slow.

Slow they might seem, or so it appeared
But down below it was clear,
That the “Littorio and the Conte de Cavour
At that moment knew the meaning of fear.

The second strike down, three Battleships hit
Fire and thick smoke filled the air
And now getting out was a difficult job
For Flak bursts were everywhere

The Leader turned his brood homeward
The attack had been a success
But sad to say as he checked his brood
He now counted two chicks less

It is never a clear-cut victory
When four brave men are lost
But when you set out to finish a job
You can never count the cost.

Mussolini had laid claim to the “Italian Lake”
But his word was never his bond
For after that night at Taranto
“His Lake” became “Cunningham’s Pond”

After that night of victory by the Fleet Air Arm, the Italian C-in C Admiral Domenico Cavagnari ordered all naval commanders to avoid confrontation with the British Fleet; they had given up the ghost.

We have stated that the attack on Taranto was a success, and so it was, but this victory had an adverse effect and placed the Allies at a disadvantage. Both the German and the Japanese High Command had studied the attack in detail and both came to the same conclusion.

Air power was the answer and it was the outcome of the Taranto operation that set the seeds in the minds of the Japanese Command for the subsequent raid on the American fleet in Pearl Harbour. But that is in the future and at this moment the fleet air arm is celebrating a wonderful victory and the Fleet as a whole are returning to our base in Alexandria in the knowledge that for some time at least the Italian Fleet would stay in harbour licking their wounds.

If we thought that things were going to be much easier, we were mistaken. On the 19th December 1940, we along with the Valiant bombarded the Italian port of Valona which housed the Italian reserves and supplies, (Mussolini had invaded Greece the previous October and was more or less established.) twenty eight salvo’s were fired by the battleships, The Italians were taken by surprise and there was no answer from their defences The airfields were badly damaged and many aircraft destroyed.

Some weeks after that we were once again hammering at our old friend Bardia. . The Italians had made considerable progress and had pushed General Wavell’s forces more than fifty miles over the Egyptian border, They were now on the outskirts of Sidi Barrani. Here they were halted and held for almost three months. In January, Wavell took the upper hand and regained ground as far as Bardia, the Eighth Army was now attacking from the South And the South West.

The Italians were now standing firm, we, (Warspite) and HMS Valiant,and HMS Barham, the Monitor HMS Terror, three gunboats, five destroyers, the AA cruiser Calcutta and four more destroyer’s whose duty it was to cover and screen the main force, were attacking from the North. Out to sea was the carrier Illustrious protected by six more warships.

We ourselves had been kept quite busy, we had fired a total of almost one hundred fifteen inch shells and over one hundred six inch shells and the Valiant and Barham fired a total of 150 fifteen inch shells, 150 six inch shells and 250 four inch shells between them. There was some random firing from the shore batteries but these were quickly silenced by the combined battleships firepower. I think splinters hit the Barham and our ship but no serious damage had been done. The exercise was a complete success, the Italian troops were forced to go to ground demoralised and only came out to be taken prisoners.

It was now early 1941, we were approaching Malta, escorting a convoy when we were attacked by a combined force of German and Italian aircraft, The Italians came In first with their Savoia Torpedo bombers but no material damaged was caused, torpedoes were seen in the vicinity of HMS Valiant but again these were either set too low or missed their target completely.

It was now time for the Germans to take a hand. During the month of January, units of the 10th Corps of the German Flieger Korps entered the battle in the Eastern Mediterranean and they joined in the attack on the Fleet. First they attacked with Junkers 88,s and the port six-inch guns opened fire on low flying aircraft, these were a diversion. I saw three planes diving down at a terrific steep angle on to the Illustrious. She must have looked like a football field, to the planes, now recognised as German Dive bombers.

It was too late for the remainder of the fleet to put up a protective Umbrella of shells and one of the bombs was dropped dead centre just before the bridge and another penetrated the after end of the flight deck. The carrier’s planes still on deck were blown to pieces and over all were thick smoke and flames. More dive-bombers joined in the attack on the unfortunate carrier and it was now impossible to see how many times she had been hit.

The German bombers then withdrew and after a short interval the Italian high-level bombers came back to drop their bombs on to the now dispersed Fleet. Concentrated fire from every ship drove them off without them causing any more damage. The situation for our ships with no fleet air arm planes to give that extra protection was now critical fortunately the rest of the night was quiet and we could now survey our own damage, we had escaped with a slightly damaged anchor, but the main target of the Germans, the air craft carrier Illustrious had been hit by six 1000 lb bombs and had to leave the Fleet and make way, escorted by destroyers to Malta.

Subsequently we were told that she had been sent to the United States for repairs. We remained in the vicinity and the next day the attacks were renewed, HMS Gloucester a cruiser was seriously damaged and the cruiser HMS Southampton unfortunately was sunk. By now the British admiralty had broken the Italian codes and we were now in a better position to check on the Italian Fleet. Somewhere at sea, Admiral Iachino was preparing to attack and sink our troop convoys carrying our men and equipment to Greece.

He was reported to have a substantial force at his command. He himself was aboard the new battleship Vittorio Veneto, capable of a speed of thirty knots, and included a force of six heavy cruisers, two or more light cruisers and thirteen destroyers. Despite the information collected from the Italian signals, Andrew Cunningham did not expect to meet up with the enemy. We were fortunate in that we had a good surveillance team based in Malta; their Sunderland flying boats were on constant patrol and gave sterling service.

It was one of these planes that reported three cruisers and a destroyer off the tip of Sicily on the morning of the 27th of March. It did not take Admiral Cunningham very long to send us out to sea, by late evening on that same day we left harbour, thirteen ships strong, Warspite, Valiant and Barham the only three available Battleships and nine destroyers.

At the rear was the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable. The next day we were to join forces with Admiral Pridham Wippel in command of four cruisers and four destroyers This force was already in contact with the enemy and was being fired on by the fifteen inch guns of the battleship and the cruisers. Cunningham was desperate to come to grips with his old adversary and used some very strong language to encourage Captain Wilkinson, Warspite’s engineer to get those extra knots, at the same time he ordered Formidable to send off a strike force and ease the pressure on Pridham Wippell’s smaller force.

The plan to lead Admiral Iachino’s force into the range of our guns did not materialise. The plane attack from Formidable was partly successful. A torpedo struck the Vittorio Veneto's stern and caused her to reduce speed, Iachino immediately broke off the engagement and made to return to his base.

A second piece of good news was that the Fleet Air Arm based on Crete had disabled the heavy cruiser Pola and she was hove to and lying dead in the water. The report from Warspite’s bridge was not a happy one. The staff was having an argument as to whether we should peruse the enemy in the dark or wait for morning. Cunningham used some very strong language and went to his sea cabin to have his supper. When he returned, the situation had changed. It would now be possible to intercept the enemy cruisers before they could reach their base. That course of action was decided upon.

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