Attack on Taranto
| date | Night from November 11th to November 12th 1940 |
|---|---|
| place | Taranto , Italy |
| output | British victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 1 aircraft carrier , 2 heavy cruisers , 2 light cruisers , 4 destroyers , 21 torpedo bombers |
6 battleships , 7 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, 8 destroyers |
| losses | |
|
2 dead, |
59 dead, |
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1940–1945: Air raids on Italy
1940: Attack on Taranto
1943: Operation Husky - Invasion of Italy ( Baytown , Avalanche , Slapstick ) - Armistice of Cassibile - Fall of the Axis
1944: Battle of Monte Cassino - Operation Shingle - Position of Goth
1945: Spring Offensive
The attack on Taranto was a British air raid on the Italian naval forces in the port of Taranto on the night of November 12, 1940 during the Second World War . The Regia Marina lost half of its battleships in one fell swoop , which shifted the balance of power in the Mediterranean for several months in favor of the Royal Navy . The attack is alternatively referred to as the Night of Taranto or the Battle of Taranto .
background
With Italy's entry into World War II in 1940, the Mediterranean Sea became a strategically extremely important theater of war. For both sides the supply lines for the fighting in North Africa ran through this sea area. The Axis powers used the connection from Italy to Tripoli or Benghazi , the British supplied Alexandria from Gibraltar . This connection could have been established around Africa, but this route would be many times longer and impractical, and the important base of Malta could not have been supplied this way. The British and the Italians pursued the same goal - to keep their own supply lines open and to disturb the opposing lines.
Geographically, the Axis Powers had a strategic advantage because the Regia Marina could attack both west and east at any time from the central location of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the large Taranto naval base in southern Italy . The British, on the other hand, could only cover half of the Mediterranean from their outlying bases. This forced them to deploy strong combat formations on either side, which was a heavy burden on the Royal Navy . The British therefore tried to weaken the Italians at all costs so that British ships in the Mediterranean could be free for other tasks. The first encounter in the naval battle at Punta Stilo had not led to any significant result.
planning
Since the Italians could not be forced into battle, the British, under the direction of Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster, devised a plan to attack the Italian fleet at their base in Taranto, where the core of the Italian fleet was stationed.
The operation Judgment ( Judgment ) saw one of aircraft carriers launched surprise night attack with torpedo bombers of the type Fairey Swordfish before; this was seen as the only way to successfully attack the port. There were great difficulties to be overcome. Aircraft operations at night were something completely new for aircraft carriers; among other things, there were no tried and tested procedures for night landings. The flight crews would have to take a great risk. Added to this was the difficulty of finding and attacking the right targets in the dark. Another problem was the shallow harbor depth of only 15 meters; Torpedoes dropped by aircraft first sank to greater depths before their built-in depth control brought them back up. The torpedoes were therefore provided with wooden stabilizing fins. This means that they should remain in the horizontal position longer after being dropped and not, as usual, plunge into the water at an angle that increases with the height of the drop. In addition, the pilots were instructed to fly as low and slow as possible for the drop. To solve the problem of targeting at night, it was decided that some of the Swordfish should drop flares to illuminate the targets for the other machines. This would also give the Italian flak better visibility, but this had to be accepted. Since no threat from fighters was to be expected at night, fuel tanks were installed in the place of the gunner to give them greater range. Dropping bombs (a Swordfish could carry around 700 kg of bombs) was not an option because the battleships were too heavily armored.
To carry out the operation, the British Commander in Chief for the Eastern Mediterranean, Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham , requested an additional aircraft carrier; until now he only had the older Eagle available. He was then assigned to the most modern British aircraft carrier, the Illustrious , which had just entered service . The attack by the two carriers with a total of 36 Swordfish was to be carried out on October 21, the anniversary of the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar . However, this did not happen because a fire broke out on the Illustrious and the damage had to be repaired first. In addition, damage was found to the Eagle that had been caused by a close hit in the sea battle at Punta Stilo . The Eagle had suffered considerable structural damage and was therefore unable to take part in the attack. Some of their bombers were therefore transferred to the Illustrious , which now had to carry out the attack alone.
Operation MB8
At the beginning of November 1940, the Royal Navy carried out the complex Operation MB8 in the Mediterranean, five British convoys were on the move at the same time. Two drove from Alexandria to Malta or Greece , two more returned from there empty to Alexandria. In addition, another convoy drove from Gibraltar via Malta to Alexandria. The entire British Mediterranean fleet was used to protect the convoys, with a total of five battleships, the aircraft carriers Illustrious and Ark Royal (which operated in the western Mediterranean), eight cruisers and 34 destroyers. Since the reconnaissance of the Italian Air Force was extremely poor and the fighters of the British aircraft carriers shot down several Italian maritime patrols, the Italians were confused by the numerous ship movements and did not get a clear picture of the situation. This meant that the Italian fleet did not leave, but stayed in Taranto.
The Illustrious supported British units in the eastern Mediterranean during the operation. In the process, she lost 3 of her 24 Swordfish , all of which crashed with machine damage. It was finally found that some of the aviation fuel was contaminated with water and sand. On November 11th, the Illustrious separated with 4 cruisers and 4 destroyers from the main fleet and headed for the starting point for the attack near the island of Kefalonia , approx. 270 km from Taranto. On the night of November 10-11, a Short Sunderland scout flew over the port to make sure the fleet was still in port.
The attack
On the night of the attack, all six battleships of the Italian fleet, the Littorio , Vittorio Veneto , Conte di Cavour , Giulio Cesare , Caio Duilio and Andrea Doria were lying in the port of Taranto (the Andrea Doria , however, was not considered ready for combat because her crew was massive reconstruction of the ship that had just been completed had to be re-trained). There were also seven heavy cruisers , two light cruisers and eight destroyers in Taranto.
On November 11, around 9 p.m., the first wave of attacks started with twelve Swordfish machines from Illustrious , the remaining nine machines followed an hour later. At around 10:58 p.m., the first wave reached port and split into two groups to attack both the outer port ( Mar Grande ) and the inner port ( Mar Piccolo ). The six machines equipped with torpedoes scored one hit amidships on the Conte di Cavour and one hit each on the starboard side at the bow and stern of the Littorio . The other three torpedoes dropped (two aimed at the Andrea Doria and one at the Vittorio Veneto ) hit the bottom of the harbor and got stuck there. The bombed machines flew an unsuccessful attack on the oil depots of Taranto and the seaplane base , in which two planes were destroyed and a small fire was started. A swordfish was shot down and the two crew members captured.
The second wave reached Taranto around 11:50 p.m. The five machines equipped with torpedoes attacked the Caio Duilio , Littorio and Vittorio Veneto . One of the bombers was shot down, killing the crew. The attacks on the Vittorio Veneto were unsuccessful; the Caio Duilio and the Littorio each received a hit amidships, with the Littorio this time being hit on the port side . Another bomb attack on the oil depot was again unsuccessful, the heavy cruiser Trento was hit by a bomb that did not explode, but destroyed a 10 cm gun on impact.
At 1:22 a.m. on November 12, the air alert over Taranto was lifted and repairs began.
Balance sheet
All three battleships hit were badly damaged, the Caio Duilio and the Littorio were set aground to prevent them from sinking. The Littorio was ready for use again after four months and the Caio Duilio after six months. The Conte di Cavour did not make it into shallower water in time and sank to her superstructure. It took until the end of 1941 to lift the ship and move it to Trieste for repair and modernization . The repairs were not completed by the end of the war.
In total there were 32 deaths on the Littorio , 17 on the Conte di Cavour and 3 on the Caio Duilio . Docks and oil stores had hardly been damaged, but several civilians were killed in bombs that fell on a residential area. On the British side there were 2 dead and 2 prisoners.
Effects
Since the Andrea Doria was not yet operational, the Italian fleet only had two operational battleships left after the attack. For fear of further attacks, the undamaged battleships and most of the remaining fleet were moved from Taranto to Naples , Genoa and La Spezia . There they were safer from attacks, but also less dangerous because of the greater distance from the convoy routes. However, just two weeks later, the sea battle at Cape Teulada showed that they still represented strong military potential.
The attack attracted widespread worldwide attention as it was the first aircraft sinking of battleships in a war. Admiral Cunningham said this
“Taranto, and the night of November 11th - 12th, 1940, should be remembered for ever as having shown once and for all that in the Fleet Air Arm the Navy has its most devastating weapon.” (“Tarent und die Nacht des 11. / November 12, 1940 should be forever remembered for having shown once and for all that the naval air force is the navy's most devastating weapon ”).
Skeptics pointed out, however, that an attack on non-combat-ready targets lying immobile at anchor said little about the relationship between aircraft and battleships. The successful use of aircraft torpedoes in water as shallow as in Taranto caused quite a stir among military experts in all countries. The US Navy was briefed by the British on the details of the attack; the Japanese naval attaché inspected the damage in Taranto. He could also look at a British torpedo recovered from the harbor floor and study the modifications made to the torpedo. The lessons learned from the British attack were used on the Japanese side in planning the attack on Pearl Harbor .
When analyzing the damage, the Italians found that the Pugliese torpedo defense system used on the Italian ships was a catastrophic faulty design. This system, introduced in 1934 and also built into the older ships during modernizations, meant that the Italian battleships were in mortal danger from a single hit, while even the older battleships of all other nations could usually withstand two to three torpedo hits.