The shock of Argonne’s guns firing with full powder charges was taking a toll on the ship’s electronics. Some of radio central’s receivers were not working. Both of the air search radars had gone down with the first dozen salvos. The aft Sugar George radar had lost its PPI display. Sheppard had acknowledged each of the reports but the impact had not really registered until the forward surface search set stopped transmitting. Sheppard had not realized until that moment how accustomed he had gotten to having God’s view of the battle space around Argonne. He felt blind with enemies all about trying to destroy him.
The worst part was he lost his focus when the report came from the SG operator. His immediate reaction was to go look—exactly the wrong thing to do. He was just so tired. He failed to maneuver and the next six shot salvo raised five water columns and one hit. The Italian 45-centimeter armor-piercing shell, hit just aft of Turret III. The 2-inch thick main deck took off the projectile’s wind screen and the cap from the main part of the shell as well as activated the time delay fuse—just as the deck was designed to do. The projectile passed through the second deck wrecking many of the tables and benches in the after crew’s mess in the process. Continuing on it entered a storeroom on the third deck where to the crew’s delight it destroyed dozens and dozens of cases of canned meat—Spam. Hitting the HY80 of the armored deck, but without the cap it ricocheted off and sliced through the foundation bulkhead for the port belt armor. Detonating, it sprayed shrapnel into and through the hull at frame 265 port side.
The two north of center Italian cruisers in Moretti’s light cruiser scouting line, Eugenio di Savoia, and Luigi di Savoia were ideally suited as companions for Italy’s battle cruisers. Equally as fast, they were well armored against destroyer or light cruiser gun fire. They were only modestly armed with 10-152mm/55 guns in four turrets, but unlike many foreign cruisers they carried twelve 533 mm torpedo tubes; making them a potent threat to larger ships. Like every other ship in Moretti’s fleet, they lacked radar and after a boring night of nothing happening as far as the scouting line was concerned, might be forgiven for not seeing the approaching ships in the pitch black of night following moonset.
The first they knew of the approaching ships was the dull glow of ‘flashless’ powder that sent dozens of 15- and 16.5-inch shells in their direction. As good as the Italian armor was against smaller caliber guns, it was no match for the heavy shells that rained down on them at short range. Almost half of all the shells fired found the hulls, superstructure, gun turrets, and torpedo mounts aboard the two light cruisers. Within five minutes they were both smoking, drifting, and sinking wrecks without having accomplished their fundamental task of alerting the Italian Admiral of the enemy’s presence and maintaining contact on his force.
Their executioners moved on to the east at 18 knots.
Not unexpectedly, Amedeo di Savoia and Ludivico di Savoia, the last two light cruisers in the Italian scouting line, saw the fires from their sister ships and turned to investigate what had happened. Four ‘enemy’ light cruisers had been assigned to watch the two Italian ships. When they turned to investigate, forty-eight 6-inch guns opened fire at less than 9,000 yards range. At a rate of six rounds per minute per gun, it was but a few minutes indeed before the common pointed ballistic capped (CPBC) shells with nearly 4 pounds of explosive had devastated the two cruisers. Before the order to cease firing was given, the only remaining ships of Moretti’s light cruiser scouting line were afire and sinking; the majority of the two crews dead or wounded. None had alerted the Italians to the presence of a major force moving west.
The four enemy light cruisers went to 28 knots hurrying to regain their position in the van of the heavy ships.
Sheppard knew that he had been running generally southeast for a while. It was light enough to see the mountains of Algeria and the vague form of ships where there had only been radar contacts before. He ordered another course change to 165o to throw off the gunnery officer of the second Italian battle cruiser as his own guns continued to try and eliminate the leading ship. If he was successful the enemy flagship would no longer be able to control that squadron and he might be able to escape. He raised his binoculars to survey the enemy aircraft carriers. Three of the four were listing, down by the bow or stern, and heavily afire. None of those would require any more attention on his part.
The last was not burning and only slightly listing. He estimated the range at about 28,000 yards—near the limit of effective 6-inch fire. “Guns, Captain, track DOG-ONE and prepare to engage with turrets six-one and six-three using armor piercing shells.”
“Captain, Guns, roger,” Chuck answered and set about getting spot three, the forward Mark 34 director and the 6-inch computer in the forward main battery plotting room to track the target. “Turrets six-one and six-three load armor piercing,” would get them ready as soon as he received the report that DOG-ONE was being tracked. It would take some time as the hoists had to be emptied of the high capacity shells used earlier. If Sheppard could destroy or at least render that carrier combat ineffective he would be able to run away—but where?
“Mustang Zero-Three, Panther, spot fall of shot vicinity furthest carrier. Mustang Zero-Four, spot vicinity of leading Italian battle cruiser.” Sheppard knew that was his best hope of eliminating the carrier quickly at the same time that his other Kingfisher was spotting on the leading Coraggio class battle cruiser. Hopefully the 6-inch 135 pound armor piercing projectiles would be heavy enough to penetrate the Italian’s deck armor. If not, he did not know how he was going to accomplish his mission unless he shifted his main battery back to the carrier.
From Contrammiraglio Dante Falzone’s perspective things were not going well. Coraggio was being hit with almost every salvo. Half of the sixteen Yarrow style boilers had been destroyed, though it had not affected his speed much since two engine rooms were already flooded. Besides half of her 152mm guns, five of the twelve 90mm anti-aircraft mounts had been destroyed. Despite his best efforts the range was still excessive for his firecontrol arrangements though he felt that the 40cm guns on his Avanti class ships should soon be coming within range. He needed to relieve the pressure on his flagship.
He ordered a column turn to a course of 065o—just enough to allow the aft turrets on all his ships to be brought to bear on this enemy capital ship. He still wasn’t sure of the target’s classification other than enemy. He could see the two widely spaced funnels and three main turrets. That did not fit anything that he was aware the British had and it certainly would not be a German ship. The Brits would never allow it to get past Gibraltar. It had to be American! “What were they doing in the Mediterranean?”
John Hamblen in Spot One was the first to notice the course change away on the part of the Italian battle cruiser line. He quickly passed the information on the sound powered phones to the forward main battery plotting room to update their solution. It did not take long before the ranges reported by the Mark 8 radar operator confirmed the turn and Gerry Archinbald put in a 250 yard range spot to compensate for the delay in recognizing what had happened. It would be prescient.
Sheppard saw this course change too from his position on the conning station looking through the rotating glass portholes. The Italian Admiral had committed himself to a deployment to his left. It created the opportunity he needed to get around the enemy to the south.
“Conning Officer; go to maximum speed.” Sheppard’s next course change would be further to the left holding his enemy at the limit of his forward turrets ability to shoot aft of the beam. He had his opening to escape to the east. All he had to do was make sure the remaining Italian destroyers did not try to interfere before he got out of range. Argonne jumped again as nine more two ton armor piercing projectiles headed toward the Coraggio.
Madame Denise Bertrand couldn’t take any more. She screamed, stood and ran toward one of the trunks leading to an armored hatch. Chevir, ever the faithful servant of his mistress, grabbed her—bear hugging the distraught woman. All he
could do was hold on. No words of calm or explanation registered behind Denise’s eyes wild with terror.
Madame D’Aubigné did not know how to reach the kind American doctor that cared for her grandson, but she knew where her daughter and child were. What did they call it, ‘sickbay’. She ran to it and saw the man she was looking for.
“Doctor, you must come at once.”
“Why, madame, my duty requires me to remain here.”
“One of our women is screaming with fear and has had to be held by my butler. She needs to be, how do you say it? Sedated.”
“I understand, let me get what I need and I will follow you.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Blankenship was injecting Madame Bertrand with seconal. Quickly taking effect, she slumped in Chevir’s arms. With the help of several of the officer wives, she was laid comfortably next to a bulkhead and covered with a white and blue Navy hospital blanket.
When the screaming stopped, some of the other French visibly relaxed, not to mention the crew members of Argonne's damage control parties in the vicinity.
The sun had not quite risen above the horizon, but it was high enough that the arching armor piercing shells caught the full illumination in the clear morning air. It was too early for the rising humidity to create the haze that would limit visibility later in the day. These lighting circumstances created one of the most unnerving of sights that was part of naval battle—the ability to see the incoming shells. In fact almost from the time they left the muzzles of Argonne’s guns, these nine projectiles could be clearly seen; first by the men of Argonne; then by the sailors of the Italian battle cruisers. For most of them it was clear that they were not going to hit their ship and could be ignored.
For Contrammiraglio Falzone and the men on Coraggio that was not the case. Throughout the later part of the shell’s flight, they seemed to be coming at their ship as indeed they were. Normally at the last possible instant the shells appeared to veer off unless they were going to hit. Two of them looked like they would and did.
The first shell hit the firecontrol tower just below the directors and neatly sliced through all the electrical cables connecting both directors to the plotting rooms below. None of the plating that the shell encountered was sufficient to activate its fuse. It continued on eventually exploding in boiler rooms that were already flooded. To all the observers on Argonne and mustang zero-four it was a miss, but it effectively destroyed Coraggio’s ability to control her gunfire at any meaningful ranges.
The second destroyed Coraggio! It actually hit about ten meters inboard of the gunnel on the starboard side of the main deck slightly forward of the aft main battery 45cm three gun turret. It penetrated the main and second decks easily and then the soft cap welded itself to the third deck as it smashed through the thick armor. The base detonating fuse was activated by the projectile’s impact with the armored deck. Forty milliseconds later, after the projectile had penetrated down to the second platform deck, the fuse detonated the 58 pounds of picric acid high explosive. The red hot shrapnel created by the explosion cut into dozens of powder cans holding the propellant designated by the three initials NAC for its components manufactured by a company appropriately named Dinamite Nobel. The white hot expanding gases from the explosion started the powder burning. As pressure in the first magazine rose, more powder was ignited destroying bulkheads to adjacent magazines and starting the powder cans contained there ablaze until the entire 225 tons of NAC was burning.
Occurring in only a few seconds from the hit; the aft turret, which weighed more than a destroyer, lifted a hundred meters into the sky from the force of the burning powder as the after third of Coraggio disintegrated. The ship slowed, sinking by the stern. In a little over three minutes the bow of the battle cruiser was pointed at the sky and then slide slowly out of sight as one bulkhead after another was crushed by the sea pressure. Surprisingly there were hundreds of survivors. Dante Falzone was not among them.
Sheppard and Ollie stood transfixed by what they had just witnessed as a mushroom shaped cloud of gas—first incandescent, then just reflective of the red dawn, rose over the remains of the Italian battle cruiser. It was John Hamblen in spot one that took action first. “Guns, Spot One, shifting targets to the next battle cruiser LOVE-ONE.”
Commander Williamson acknowledged setting everything in motion. “Spot One, control turrets I, II, and III. Track LOVE-ONE. Continuous aim, salvo fire, master key.” He then passed on the radio, “Mustang Zero-Four, Panther, shifting targets to next battle cruiser in line.”
Sheppard heard mustang zero-four acknowledge as the next Italian salvo landed off of Argonne’s port quarter. As he turned to the Conning Officer to direct a course change of fifteen degrees to the right the JA phone talker reported, “Many aircraft bearing two-nine-zero, range three-five-oh-double-oh yards, position angle one.” Captain McCloud raised his glasses to look but was unable to make them out yet. What he did see bothered him as both of his Kingfishers were flying in the vicinity of the Italian battle cruisers. “Mustang Zero-Three, Panther, report your position,” was a polite way of reprimanding his pilot for sightseeing rather than paying attention to the fall of shot around the last carrier.
The answer, “Panther, Mustang Zero-Three, vicinity of carrier DOG-ONE,” totally surprised him. Sure enough when he looked there was a Kingfisher circling in the area of the Italian aircraft carrier just out of anti-aircraft range. His fatigue must be getting to him. He thought he saw two near his main battery targets—the Italian scouting force.
Barry Jensen and Admiral Hamblen knew the real reason for Sheppard’s confusion. “Panther, this is Mustang Zero-Five, radio check.”
Ollie Halverson’s cry, “They’re Swordfish!” was not nearly as surprising as the JA phone talker’s report. The gathering dawn was allowing the surface search lookouts to finally see clearly to the horizon and beyond. It was their report that the JA talker relayed of ships bearing zero-nine-two, range four-one-oh-double-oh yards that unnerved Sheppard. He was trapped between two forces, and he did not know who this fleet to the east was. Sheppard would have to wait for the usual classification—Lieutenant Hamblen’s director was pointed at the Italian scouting fleet.
“Ships bearing zero-nine-zero include at least five capital ships and many others based upon masts on the horizon.” Another report by the JA talker. More bad news, Sheppard thought. The Italian battle fleet must be racing west to try and save the day. Argonne was trapped with only a few antique biplanes to help. There was nothing he could do but plan to face them both until he and his beloved—yes she was loved—ship fought on until they both were inevitably destroyed. At least I will be finally free of these nightmares, he thought.
Contrammiraglio Achille Birindelli was the last surviving flag officer in the Italian scouting force. As the commander of the 2nd battle cruiser squadron with his flag in Avanti he had watched the running gun battle with this American capital ship. Unable to contribute to the battle as the American remained out of range of his 40cm guns, he had helplessly witnessed the stunning destruction of the Coraggio. Salvos were now falling around her sister ship Potente. He knew that he was falling into a defeatist attitude, but the fact that three of his nations four aircraft carriers were burning and the fourth being surrounded by shell splashes was clear evidence of the scouting force’s failure to provide the absolutely required air cover for Operation Guardare al Futuro to succeed. His lookouts were reporting the very thing that they were supposed to guard against—an air strike by force H.
Reluctantly, he ordered a simultaneous turn of his remaining five battle cruisers to a course of 030o and an increase in speed to 42 knots. That would make a long slow approach for the ancient British biplanes and an impossible run for their slower torpedoes. He ordered his flag lieutenant to send a radio message to the light cruisers ordering them to withdraw to a rendezvous north of Corsica. None would answer. That left the two destroyer squadrons. He could not make out the hull letters of the ones with the car
riers but it was evident that there were only four Soldati class destroyers visible. He recalled both of the squadrons hoping that some might be over the horizon, relying on the honorable nature of his British adversaries to rescue the crews of the sinking ships. One thing he failed to consider was the geometry forced upon the destroyer commanding officers by his recall order. The other thing he failed to do was notify Ammiraglio di Armata Gugliehno Romano of what was happening, assuming that Moretti had done so.
Admiral Hamblen knew from reading the messages from mustang zero-two while Barry Jensen was flying toward the French at Mers el Kébir that the Italian battle fleet was about a 100 miles to the east. Now he saw the turn away together by the Italian battle cruisers and rightfully guessed that they were a beaten force. He also knew that Amiral D’Aubigné did not have the fuel to escape if the Italian battle fleet chose to pursue.
Without a second thought he directed Barry Jensen to fly alongside the approaching British torpedo planes hoping to reach them before they deployed for attack. The Italian battle fleet had to be stopped at all costs if Argonne and the slowly moving French fleet were to be saved.
“Captain, Engineer. If you don’t slow down, now, we will run out of fuel before we reach Gibraltar.” That was not what Sheppard wanted to hear over the 21MC. He knew that the Italian battle cruisers had turned away together from him, without knowing why.
“Captain,” it was Ollie, “it looks like those destroyers are heading our way.” More bad news. Sheppard had hoped that they would continue their support mission of rendering assistance to the carriers until he was clear. He raised his binoculars to study the Italian carrier that was not burning. She was lower in the water with a noticeable list and hardly moving.
Sheppard and the French Rescue Page 28