The Crow's Nest

In September 1939, the United Kingdom and France went to war side by side against the German Reich. Just 12 months later, these erstwhile allies, who’s officers and men had fought, bled, and died together, were taking aim at each other.  In the post WW1 environment, nobody wanted to repeat the same mistakes. And so, with the ink barely dry on the Treaty of Versailles, demilitarisation and disarmament agreements were being drawn up - such as the Washington Naval Treaty and the London Naval Treaty.  All of this meant that by the 1930’s, the Royal Navy was at its smallest in decades resulting in the navy being forced to change its policy and become reliant on allies to gain naval superiority, in the event of war. This became even more imperative as Italy joined the war on Germany’s side, meaning that the allies’ position in the Mediterranean and North Africa was no longer secure.  Despite the heroic effort of men on the ground in France, by mid-June 1940 President Renault of...

On the night of February 11th, 1942, 3 heavy units of the Nazi Kriegsmarine and their escorts, creep out of the port of Brest on the French west coast bound for Norway. Secrecy was such a priority that many of the crews involved had been told nothing of their upcoming mission until the last possible moment. They’re brazen route will take them right under the nose of British Coastal Command in what will later be described as the biggest blow to British prestige in over 300 years.  Germany’s strategy of convoy raiding that they implemented during both world wars has been well documented in the years after WW2. This naval doctrine was famously carried out by Germanys vast fleet of submarines, better known as U-boats. However, the German Kriegsmarine also placed emphasis on surface raiders and by 1941 they had a healthy number of such ships, but none were quite as worrying to the British Admiralty as the sisters, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau. Scharnhorst; lead ship of her class pictured ...

For Admiral Cunningham, Commander and Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, the winter of 1941 had been less than kind to him; in the span of less than a month the British forces in the area had lost 6 ships including the battleship HMS Barham; taking over 800 sailors with her. Not to mention the entry of Japan into the war, resulting in further stretching of the Royal Navy’s already exacerbated fleet and diverting critical resources away from his area of operations. Things would only get worse in December as the backbone of his fleet was to be struck by unorthodox and innovative new underwater threats. On the night of the 14 th a single Italian submarine from the elite 10 th flotilla, the Scire, departed occupied Greece bound for the port of Alexandria in Egypt with the goal of carrying out their most ambitious mission to date. Their mission was to infiltrate the naval base at Alexandria and by using a stealthy approach afforded by their submarine transport, deal as much damage as pos...

 November 11 th , 1940, 12 aircraft take-off from the deck of a British aircraft carrier deep in the Mediterranean Sea. Their target, the backbone of the Italian fleet currently at anchor in the port of Taranto. The Italian entry into WW2 posed a significant threat to the British and their interests in the Mediterranean as whilst on paper the British had the far stronger fleet; they were forced to spread it across the globe, in some cases to maintain a presence in overseas colonies and in other cases to act as a deterrent force against potential adversaries. All this meant that in late 1940, the British Mediterranean Fleet could muster only 4 battleships to the Italian’s 6 and 9 cruisers to their enemies 21. The Commander and Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Andrew Cunningham, knew he couldn’t risk an open fleet to fleet engagement given the current odds, but then in September the arrival of the brand-new large aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious gave Cunningham the capability th...