In May 1940 the German Wehrmacht launched its long anticipated offensive in the West. By early June it was clear that France would fall, and on 10 June, Premier Benito Mussolini brought Italy into the war on Germany’s side. France laid down its arms on 25 June. Allied planning had counted on the French fleet to cover the Mediterranean west of Malta, while the British Mediterranean Fleet controlled the east. With France out of the war, British forces had to assume responsibility for the entire Mediterranean basin.
In relation to the forces that the Royal Navy could allocate to the Mediterranean, the Italian Regia Marina represented a formidable adversary. Its principal striking power lay in its six battleships: the old but recently modernized Conte di Cavour, Giulio Cesare, Andrea Doria, and Caio Duilio, all of approximately 24,000 tons, and the new 40,700-ton sister-ships Littorio and Vittorio Veneto commissioned in August 1940. Two more of the Littorio class were under construction. To take the place of the French fleet, the Admiralty established a squadron at Gibraltar, Force H, centered around three capital ships and an aircraft carrier. Soon thereafter, the Mediterranean Fleet’s three battleships were reinforced by a fourth. These deployments gave the Royal Navy a slim theater superiority in capital ships. Theater comparisons are misleading, however. The task of opposing the Regia Marina would fall almost exclusively to the Alexandria-based Mediterranean Fleet, which was inferior in all types of warships except one.
That was the aircraft carrier, of which the Mediterranean Fleet included one and later two. Italy was the only major naval power not to have built at least one carrier between the world wars. All air support would supposedly be supplied by the independent Regia Aeronautica from shore bases in Italy and Libya. The disadvantage at which a lack of carriers placed the Italian Navy was not as obvious in 1940 as it is today. Orthodox opinion held that, while aircraft were useful auxiliaries, the battleship was still the ultimate arbiter of sea power.
Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, one of the Royal Navy’s most offensive- minded flag officers, commanded the Mediterranean Fleet. Intent on denying the enemy control of the central Mediterranean, he soon made the disappointing discovery that the Regia Marina did not share his appetite for a fleet engagement. The Italian naval staff, convinced that a strategy of sea control would entail irreplaceable losses, had restricted the fleet to the pursuit of specific operational objectives—mainly, screening seaborne transport to Italian forces in North Africa and attacking British convoys. Cunningham therefore warmly received a plan proposed by Lumley St. G. Lyster, Rear Admiral, Aircraft Carriers, Mediterranean, to launch a night air strike on the enemy fleet in its base at Taranto, on the instep of the Italian boot.
With a nice sense of history, Cunningham scheduled the raid for 21 October—Trafalgar Day—but a fire on board the new fleet carrier Illustrious caused it to be postponed to another notable anniversary, 11 November—Armistice Day. Originally, two carriers, the Illustrious and the old Eagle, were to take part, but in the interim the Eagle sustained damage that required her to be withdrawn. Even though five of her aircraft were flown off to the Illustrious, the strength of the striking force dropped to 24 planes, six fewer than planned. Later, various mishaps reduced the number of operational aircraft to 21.
These aircraft were Fairey Swordfish, commonly called Stringbags, the Royal Navy’s torpedo-spotter-reconnaissance plane. Although it had not reached the fleet until 1936, the Swordfish looked like a relic from the 1914-18 war. A fabric-covered, open-cockpit, fixed-undercarriage biplane with a 45-foot, 6-inch wingspan, it carried a crew of two (for torpedo attacks) or three (for reconnaissance). It had a maximum speed of 125 knots and a ceiling of 10,700 feet. In addition to its role at Taranto, this gallant fossil would play a key part in the sinking of the Bismarck in May 1941.
On the afternoon of 11 November, the Mediterranean Fleet took station off the Ionian Islands. At dusk the Illustrious, escorted by the cruisers Berwick, Glasgow, Gloucester, and York, set out for her launching point, approximately 170 miles southeast of Taranto. Hours earlier, aerial reconnaissance had revealed that all six enemy battleships were anchored in harbor.
At 2000 the Illustrious commenced launching her first 12 Swordfish. Six of the aircraft in this wave were armed with torpedoes. The others, equipped with bombs and flares, were to set the stage for them by illuminating the harbor and delivering diversionary attacks on cruisers, destroyers, and shore installations. Despite the intense barrage put up by the Italian fleet’s antiaircraft guns and the army’s 21 batteries of 4-inch guns and 193 machine gun emplacements, British tactics proved successful. A single torpedo sank the Cavour, and the Littorio took hits from two others. One Swordfish was shot down; the Italians rescued both crewmen.
The second wave of Stringbags consisted of four bomb- and-flare droppers and five torpedo carriers. Reaching Taranto around midnight, it duplicated its predecessor’s tactics with almost identical success, putting two more torpedoes (one a dud) into the Littorio and another into the Duilio. One aircraft and its crew were lost. The last of the returning Swordfish set down on the Illustrious at 0250, and the carrier proceeded to rejoin the fleet.
The results of the Taranto Raid were far-reaching. At one stroke, the strength of the Italian battle line had been halved. Two of Cunningham’s battleships could now be detached to help contain German surface raiders in the North Atlantic. The Cavour never returned to service. The Littorio and Duilio were under repair until April and May 1941, respectively. Moreover, the Italian fleet withdrew from Taranto to ports on the west coast of Italy, farther from its areas of operations. In that winter when Britain stood embattled and alone, the Taranto Raid also gave its people one of the few victories they had been able to celebrate since the fall of France. Finally, Taranto provided the first actual combat demonstration that the carrier would be the dominant instrument of the war at sea.
For further reading: Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, A Sailor’s Odyssey (New York: Dutton, 1951); Commander Charles Lamb, War in a Stringbag (London: Leo Cooper, 1987); Vice Admiral B. B. Schofield, The Attack on Taranto (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1973).