The Battle of Taranto, also known as the Raid on Taranto, and Operation Judgement took place on the night of 11/12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces (Admiral Andrew Cunningham) and Italian naval forces (Admiral Inigo Campioni). The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack, employing 21 Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo-bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean Sea.
The attack struck the battlefleet of the Regia Marina at anchor in the harbour of Taranto, using aerial torpedoes, despite the shallowness of the water. The success of this attack augured the ascendancy of naval aviation over big-gun battleships. According to Cunningham, "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".
Background
Regia Marina
Since long before the First World War, the Italian Regia Marina's First Squadron had been based at Taranto, a port city on the Italian south-east coast. In the inter-war period, the Royal Navy made plans to counter the Regia Marina if there was a war in the Mediterranean. Plans for the capture of the port at Taranto were considered during Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935.
After Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, British and Italian forces in North Africa were engaged in the Western Desert Campaign. Italian troops based in Libya required supplies from Italy. British forces in Egypt suffered greater supply difficulties. Before Italy entered the war, British convoys could traverse the Mediterranean from Gibraltar via Malta to Egypt. The threat from the Regia Marina and the Regia Aeronautica (the Italian air force) made this very difficult and British ships were routed down Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, up the east coast of Africa and then through the Suez Canal to reach Alexandria.
Following the concept of a fleet in being, the Italians usually kept their warships in harbour and did not seek to engage the Royal Navy at sea; any ship they lost larger than a destroyer could not be replaced. The Italian fleet at Taranto was powerful, consisting of six battleships (though one was not yet battleworthy, Andrea Doria having her crew still in training after her reconstruction) seven heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and eight destroyers. This made the threat of a sortie against British shipping a serious problem.
Royal Navy
During the Munich Crisis of 1938, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, was concerned about the survival of the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious in the face of Italian opposition in the Mediterranean and ordered his staff to re-examine plans for attacking Taranto. He was advised by Lumley Lyster, the captain of Glorious, that his Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers were capable of a night attack, the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) being the only naval aviation arm capable of such a feat. Pound took Lyster's advice and ordered training to begin. Security was kept so tight there were no written records. Just a month before the war began, Pound advised his replacement, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, to consider the possibility, that came to be known as Operation Judgement.
The fall of France and the consequent loss of the French Mediterranean Fleet (even before the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir (Operation Catapult) made redress essential. The older carrier, HMS Eagle, on Cunningham's strength, was ideal, possessing an experienced air group consisting entirely of Swordfish aircraft. Three Gloster Sea Gladiator fighters were added for the operation. Plans were drawn up after the Italian invasion of Egypt by the 10th Army halted at Sidi Barrani, which freed the British Mediterranean Fleet.
Operation Judgement was part of Operation MB8, naval convoy movements that covered the arrival of Taranto attack force ready for the operation. The operation was originally scheduled to take place on 21 October 1940, Trafalgar Day. HMS Illustrious (815 NAS and 819 NAS) and HMS Eagle (813 NAS and 824 NAS) would be able to provide 30 Swordfish between them. lIlustrious also carried Fairey Fulmar fighters of 806 NAS aboard to provide air cover for the force, with her radar and fighter control systems.
A fire in an auxiliary fuel tank of one Swordfish led to a delay; the minor fire spread and destroyed two Swordfish. Eagle then suffered a breakdown in the aviation fuel system on 4 November and was removed from the operation. When the new carrier HMS Illustrious, based at Alexandria, became available in the Mediterranean, she took on board five Swordfish from Eagle and launched the strike alone.
The force was commanded by Lyster, now a Rear-Admiral and Flag Officer, Mediterranean Aircraft Carriers, who had written the plan for the attack on Taranto. The flotilla consisted of Illustrious, the heavy cruisers HMS Berwick and York, the light cruisers HMS Gloucester and Glasgow and the destroyers Hasty, Havelock, Hyperion and Ilex. The 24 Swordfish came from 813 Naval Air Squadron (813 NAS), 815 NAS, 819 NAS and 824 NAS. The small number of aircraft raised concern that Judgement would only alert the Regia Marina without achieving worthwhile results.
The normal range of the Swordfish was not enough to reach Taranto without bringing the carriers close to Italy and so they were fitted with extra fuel tanks: the torpedo-equipped Swordfish had 60 imp gal (270 L; 72 US gal) auxiliary fuel tanks fitted in the observer (navigator) position in the cockpit; the observer taking the radio operator/air gunner's place. The other Swordfish had an auxiliary fuel tank mounted under the fuselage.
Half of the Swordfish were armed with torpedoes and the other half bombs and parachute flares for diversions, the flare aircraft carrying four bombs. The torpedoes were fitted with Duplex magnetic–contact exploders. These would trigger the warhead if the torpedo passed underneath a ship or if the torpedo hit. The exploders were extremely sensitive to rough seas though and there were concerns the torpedoes would hit the harbour bottom. The loss rate for the bombers was expected to be fifty per cent.
Taranto harbour had a depth of only about 39 ft (12 m) but the Royal Navy had developed a new method of preventing torpedoes from diving too deep. A drum was attached beneath the nose of the aircraft, from which a roll of wire led to the nose of the torpedo. As it dropped, the tension from the wire pulled up the nose of the torpedo, producing a belly-flop rather than a nose dive.
Several reconnaissance flights by Martin Marylands of 431 General Reconnaissance Flight RAF, flying from Malta, confirmed the location of the Italian fleet. The flights produced photos on which the intelligence officer of Illustrious spotted unexpected barrage balloons and changed the plan. To make sure the Italian warships had not sortied, the British also sent over a Short Sunderland flying boat on the night of 11/12 November, just as the carrier task force was forming up off the Greek island of Cephalonia, about 170 nmi (310 km; 200 mi) from Taranto harbour. The reconnaissance flight alerted the Italian forces in southern Italy but since they were without radar, they could do little but wait. The Regia Marina could have gone to sea in search of British naval forces but this was against the naval philosophy of the Italians between January 1940 and September 1943. The complexity of Operation MB8, with its forces and convoys, deceived the Italians into thinking that only normal convoying was under way.
Taranto
The base of Taranto was defended by 101 anti-aircraft guns and 193 machine-guns. Usually it was protected against low-flying aircraft by large numbers of barrage balloons but only 27 were up on 11 November; strong winds on 6 November had blown away 60 balloons. The capital ships were also supposed to be protected by anti-torpedo nets but 12.8 km (8.0 mi) of netting was needed and only a third of that was rigged before the attack, due to a scheduled gunnery exercise. The nets did not reach the bottom of the harbour, allowing the British torpedoes to clear them by about 60 cm (24 in). The six Italian battleships and three of the heavy cruisers were in the outer harbour (Mar Grande) with two more heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and 17 destroyers in the inner harbour (Mar Piccolo). The smaller Italian vessels were moored stern onto the quays rather than alongside.
Attack
Illustrious and her escorts detached from Cunningham's force and at 20:00 Illustrious was 170 mi (270 km) from Taranto. The first wave was to fly in formation to north of the harbour then separate: the flare aircraft would backlight the battleships, the torpedo bombers attack the battleships and the dive bombers would target the smaller vessels in the Mar Piccolo. The first wave of 12 aircraft, led by Lieutenant Commander Kenneth "Hooch" Williamson RN of 815 NAS, took off from Illustrious from 20:30 hours on 11 November 1940, followed by a second wave of nine about an hour later. One of the second wave aircraft (L5F) was damaged on the flight deck and could not be launched until repaired, following on separately and unknown to the rest.
Of the second wave, one bombing aircraft turned back as its auxiliary fuel tank underneath detached from the aircraft ensuring the aircraft would not be able to complete the round trip, so only eight made it to the target. The first wave consisted of six Swordfish armed with torpedoes, two with flares, four with 250 lb (110 kg) bombs, and four with six bombs. It split into two sections when three of the bombers and one torpedo bomber strayed from the main force while flying through thin clouds. The smaller group continued to Taranto independently. The Italian defences, alerted by the listening posts, began a barrage before the aircraft arrived.
The main group arrived at the harbour at Mar Grande at about 11:00 p.m. An aircraft dropped 16 parachute flares east of the harbour adding illumination to the moonlight, then the flare dropper and the assistant flare dropping aircraft dive bombed the port to set fire to oil tanks. The next three aircraft, led by Williamson in L4A (the other two were L4R and L4C) flew over San Pietro Island and struck the battleship Conte di Cavour with a torpedo, which blew a 27 ft (8.2 m) hole in her side below the waterline; anti-aircraft guns on the ship immediately shot down Williamson's aircraft which was only feet above the water. The two remaining aircraft in this sub-flight dodged barrage balloons and received massed anti-aircraft fire from the Italian warships and shore batteries as they pressed home their attack on the battleship Andrea Doria but missed. The next sub-flight of three attacked from a more northerly direction against the battleship Littorio, hitting it with two torpedoes and launched a torpedo at the flagship, the battleship Vittorio Veneto, which missed.
The bomber force, led by Captain O. Patch RM in E5A, attacked next. They found the targets difficult to identify but attacked and hit two cruisers moored in Mar Piccolo bay, hitting both with a bomb each from 1,500 ft (460 m). They were followed by another aircraft, whose bombs straddled four destroyers. Forde in L4H made his attack twice in case the absence of visible hits on the first run meant they had not released. Sarra (L4L) attacked the seaplane base, hitting the hangars from 1,500ft.
The second wave of eight aircraft, led by Lieutenant Commander J. D. Hale of 819 NAS, was now approaching from a northerly direction towards Mar Grande harbour, with two of the four bombers also carrying flares, the remaining five carrying torpedoes. Flares were dropped shortly before midnight. Two aircraft aimed their torpedoes at Littorio, one of which hit. One aircraft, despite having been hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, aimed a torpedo at Vittorio Veneto but missed. Another aircraft hit the battleship Duilio with a torpedo, blowing a large hole in her hull and flooding both of her forward magazines.
The only aircraft lost from the second wave was flown by Lieutenant G. Bayley RN, that was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from the heavy cruiser Gorizia following the attack on Littorio. The final aircraft to arrive, 15 minutes behind the others, made an unsuccessful dive-bombing attack on one of the Italian cruisers, despite severe anti-aircraft fire, then safely returned to Illustrious, landing at 2:39 a.m. Of the two aircraft shot down, Williamson, and his observer Lieutenant N. J. 'Blood' Scarlett, were taken prisoner. The pilot and observer of the second aircraft (E4H), Lieutenant G. Bayley and Lieutenant H. Slaughter, were killed.