The Battle of Taranto - Nov 1940 - More with less

 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 that would allow him to strike at the Italian fleet without them ever seeing his own.

HMS Illustrious circa 1954

The plan, dubbed Operation Judgment, had been in consideration in one form or another since even before the start of the war, during the time of the Abyssinian crisis, as Taranto was a well-known naval base in the region. Overall the plan was relatively simple in its scope, Illustrious, along with the light carrier Eagle, would move in close to the Italian’s southeastern coast under the cover of darkness with a light escort before launching 2 waves of torpedo bombers roughly 90 minutes apart, the aircraft in question to be utilised in the raid could only be described as desperately obsolete. The Fairy Swordfish, lovingly referred to as the “string bag” was a Bi-plane aircraft made from wooden framework with a stretched fabric skin over the top - by this point in time they were considered old, slow, and not particularly versatile. However, they were incredibly reliable and easy to repair in a hurry due to the nature of their construction and furthermore, they were easy to fly, all attributes that would lend themselves to a Royal Navy at war.

A Swordfish on a training flight during the war

After several delays, including Eagle’s fuel system breaking down and thus forcing her out of the plan, Operation Judgment would be launched on the night of the 11th of November 1940 shortly after 20:30, using the darkness of the night sky to maximise the element of surprise and make the swordfishes’ approaches harder to spot. One aircraft from each wave was designated as a flare carrier, their job was to fly in higher than their comrades where they would then drop flares over the port in order to illuminate targets for the following torpedo aircraft, which were flying barely higher than the waves cresting below them, so low in fact were the British aircraft that it was reported some Italian units could not open fire for fear of racking their own decks with gun fire.

In a fortunate turn of events, the Italians had failed to raise the harbors anti-torpedo defenses after an order for the fleet to sail previously in the day had been rescinded, leaving the units present in the harbor dangerously exposed to this kind of attack and making the British pilot’s jobs significantly easier.

Despite this however the first wave didn’t go as planned for the British, whilst hits were scored on major components of the Italian Fleet such as the Battleship Littorio suffering two torpedo strikes in quick succession, other pilots of the wave experienced misfortune such as bombs failing to detonate upon impact, torpedoes running short of their targets and others still having to settle for alternative targets in the confusion of the battle.

The second attack wave also suffered from less-than-ideal conditions as their strength had dropped from 9 initial aircrafts down to 8 after the crew of one swordfish was forced to turn back when their long range fuel tank fell off on route but none the less the group continued on, looping around from the northwest of the port at around 23:55 to catch the Italians off guard and saw additional Italian units suffer damage at the hands of the swordfish.

One noteworthy incident was that of Lieutenant Lea, who, after scoring a hit on the cruiser Caio Duilio, was forced to fly his machine in between the cruisers Zara and Fiume to escape back to friendlier airspace.

Overview of the British attack and the Italian units present at the time

With all said and done, of the 20 aircraft that took part in the raid, only 2 where lost. In exchange for 3 Italian battleships sunk and resting on the harbor floor with a further 3 cruisers sustaining significant damage, and to add insult to injury, the local Italian seaplane base and oil storage depots had also been thoroughly ransacked.

Conte di Cavour crippled in harbor

For a battle that most people probably haven't heard of, the Battle of Taranto had major and far-reaching consequences. For one, it seemed to be wake-up call to the Italians who ironically enough, had been reluctant to put their large capital ships to sea despite their numerical advantage for fear of suffering heavy losses that they could not replace at the same pace as British shipyards could. Just five days after Taranto, the Italians sortied and successfully managed to disrupted a supply convoy to the British territory of Malta.

However, by far the most historically significant outcome for Taranto was the influence this would have on the Japanese navy prior to their entry into WW2 with the attack on Pearl Harbor 1 year later. Up until the attack it had been believed by torpedo experts that to pull off a successful ariel torpedo attack, a ship would have to be in at least 75ft of water. Taranto harbor had a depth of just 39ft. The British had pioneered a new method for dropping their torpedoes that made them “belly flop” as opposed to nose diving into the water as they traditionally would. It is widely believed that the Japanese analysed the results of the raid thoroughly, given the fact that military officials from Japan would later pay a visit to the port in May 1941 and were said to have lengthy discussions with their opposite numbers. 

They then utilised this knowledge, along with their own ariel torpedo experiments dating back to 1939, on a far larger scale to help shape their plan for their attack on Pearl Harbor to cripple the US pacific fleet before it could enter the war on the allies side, forever changing the definition of naval power, pivoting away from which ever navy had the largest guns being defined as the strongest, to that which had supremacy of the skies.

The influence of Taranto on the rest of the war and naval doctrine moving forward was best summarised by Admiral Andrew Cunningham himself who later wrote, “Taranto, and the night of 11–12 November 1940, should be remembered forever as having shown once and for all that in the Fleet Air Arm, the Navy has its most devastating weapon." (Simpson, 2004 p.74)

Admiral Cunningham circa 1942/43