Just Finished Reading: The Battle of Matapan by S W C Pack (FP: 1961)

March, 1941. With the arrival of HMS Formidable everything changed. The fast armoured deck carrier provided fighter cover to fend off enemy bombers, reconnaissance plans to find the enemy and a mix of dive bombers and torpedo planes to attack them. Easily capable of keeping up with the largely aging Eastern Mediterranean fleet it was the jewel in the crown that Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham had been waiting for. No longer blind and no longer keeping a wary eye set for enemy stuka’s he could at last do what he had longed for – to find, fix and destroy the Italian fleet at sea. But such a task was going to be far from easy. The Italians had some of the best ships afloat – new, fast and heavily armed. Meanwhile the British fleet dated from the previous war and, although impressive in themselves, had no hope of catching their much faster prey without air support and a fair dose of luck. But this time luck, for a change, was on the side of the Allies. Suspecting that the Italian fleet intended attacking British convoys between their Egyptian bases and landing fields on Crete and in Greece Admiral Cunningham decided to spring a trap.

Sailing from Alexandria without a hint of suspicion making its way to the Italians or their German allies the Eastern Mediterranean fleet headed out into deeper water with cruisers racing ahead to make initial contact with the enemy. At dawn Formidable flew off her spotter planes and waited for reports coming back. Hours passed with no news and little to do except wait. Initial contact reports were dismissed as mistaken reports of their own cruisers and ignored. That was the first mistake and it was a big one – the ships were those of the enemy. When the mixed force of cruisers and destroyers finally made contact sometime later they turned back towards the fleets heavy units unaware that a much larger enemy force lay between them and the safety of the British main fleet. Unknown to anyone aboard the British cruisers they were about to come within rage of the Italian battleship Vittorio Vento.

Almost before anyone knew what was happening the British ships came under accurate fire from a much superior Italian cruiser force both faster and more heavily armed than its British counterparts. After brief close quarter exchanges of fire the British ships did the only logical thing – they tried to disengage and left the scene at high speed hoping that they would be under the protection of the British battleships approaching their position before the pursuing Italian cruisers can attack in force. As they pulled away with little confidence that they could escape for long their fears were realised in a rather abrupt manner when they started receiving heavy fire from ahead. They had stumbled into the main enemy force consisting of a battleship, cruisers and destroyers. Heavily outnumbered and seriously outgunned it looked very bad indeed for the British cruiser force. But the Italian commander was unaware that the British main fleet was approaching at top speed and that Formidable’s planes were already on their way. When the planes where first spotted by the Italians it was assumed that they were German bombers from coastal airfields. Only when they began their attack runs did the truth dawn on each Italian commander. The British must had an aircraft carrier close and if that was the case a battle fleet must be nearby. This was no longer an action to crush a few enemy cruisers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With dive bombers and torpedo planes attacking in sequence and each enemy ship valiantly attempted to avoid destruction the British cruisers took the opportunity to make good their escape and return without loss to the main fleet. Meanwhile the Italians were doing less well against deadly air attack. Dropping both bombs and torpedoes from almost suicidal close range the British planes managed to score a number of hits none more deadly than on one of the heavy cruisers who pitched out of the battle line and stopped dead in the water unable to make any headway. Unaware of this calamity the Italian admiral, once the attacking planes had turned for home, ordered his force to return to base fully confident that his ships superior speed would get everyone safely out of the danger zone. Only sometime later did he realise that he had left a cruiser behind practically defenceless in hostile waters. It was here that he made the fateful decision to split his force with the battleship and her escorts continuing for home base and a force of cruisers and destroyers sent back to bring his damaged ship home. Without the advantage of radar – something the British had but the Italians had yet to employ – the commander of the cruiser force had no idea that he was being sent straight into the British main battle fleet.

As night closed in the British relied more and more on their often temperamental radar system and couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing on their screens. Ahead of them, barely three miles away was a large stationary blip originally thought to be the damaged Italian battleship. As they approached cautiously closer the surprise turned to shock as the Italian relief force passed ahead of them seemingly oblivious to the presence of the British force. Trained in night action and with radar to guide them the British ships opened fire on the unsuspecting Italians at point blank range. With scant seconds between the huge guns of the battle fleet opening fire and the shells arriving on target the Italian ships had no chance to avoid contact or fire back. They were caught in a deadly hail of shells which ripped ships in half and pummelled the wreckage before the burning hulks turned over and sank. Within minutes several enemy cruisers and destroyers were burning uncontrollably and their shocked crews were jumping over the side before they exploded. Oddly in the middle of the conflagration the original Italian cruiser remained untouched until stumbled upon by a British destroyer. Unwilling to attack a ship obviously incapable of defending itself the crew were taken off before torpedoes sent her to the bottom. For no losses and no casualties the British had just destroyed three cruisers and two destroyers, severally damaged the battleship and damaged a number of other ships in the Italian fleet. From then on the Italians would no longer pose a threat to British interests in the Mediterranean and, although it only became a British ‘lake’ much later in the war it was no longer an area under Italian control or domination.

Related by an officer actually based on HMS Formidable during this period this was a fascinating personal account of one of the major naval engagements of the Mediterranean conflict. It was a turning point in British domination of the Easter Mediterranean which they never lost subsequently. Because of that the British had control of the Suez Canal and could much more easily reinforce their forces in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. Without it the desert war, and the desert victory so important to the eventual invasion of Italy would have been much more difficult to achieve. An excellent read for anyone interested in this often overlooked theatre of war. This is the last in my naval triple read. After a short detour into other historical subjects I’ll finally be reading my Russia triple, followed by the RAF and China.