Back to Battle

by Max Hennessy

  From intercepted signals the following day they learned that the convoy, in spite of running into trouble from aircraft, had reached Malta, while somewhere to the north-west of them Admiral Pridham-Whipple’s force from Piraeus, guarding the western flank of the troop convoys heading for Greece, had stumbled on an Italian battleship of the Littorio class. In the ensuing fight, Pridham-Whipple had escaped unscathed, though he was once more out-of-touch, but, warned by his signals, torpedo bombers from Formidable, with Cunningham’s forces to the east, had hit the Italian which was now reported to be making for Taranto at greatly reduced speed.

  They had no idea with certainty where the Italian ship was and, judging by the signals they intercepted, she could well be across their course and could even have been joined by other Italian ships, including the ones they themselves had sent about their business.

  As they discussed the situation the masthead lookout sang out. ‘Ships in sight. Green one-oh.’

  ‘British destroyers, sir,’ Latimer said. ‘Radar reports more ships behind.’

  A few minutes later the topmasts of heavy ships appeared to the east then slowly they were able to make out the silhouettes of four big ships with an attendant cloud of smaller vessels.

  ‘It’s Warspite, sir,’ Latimer reported. ‘With Barham and Valiant. The carrier’s Formidable.’

  ‘It would be nice to meet our late opponents again with a few big boys on our side,’ Kelly observed.

  As they thundered by, a lamp started flashing.

  ‘Signal, sir. From C-in-C: “Take station to port.”’

  ‘Make it so.’

  It soon became obvious that Pridham-Whipple’s cruisers were searching ahead of the main fleet at maximum visual signalling distance, combing the darkening sea for the first sight of the enemy. As Impi, Inca and Indian took up their positions, the late sun was catching the black, white and grey camouflage of Warspite. Behind her, following in line astern, Barham and Valiant each had a magnificent white bow wave and a glistening wake. Their eight powerful fifteen-inch guns were trained fore and aft, each containing a shell weighing approximately a ton, so that a salvo was enough to destroy a smaller ship at once. Their white ensigns were in sharp contrast to the deep cobalt of the sky and the ultramarine of the sea, and at the masthead Warspite wore Cunningham’s Red Cross of St George. They were all old ships but they still presented a striking display of power, grandeur and majesty.

  ‘Signal from C.-in-C., sir: “If cruisers gain touch with damaged battleship, Second and Fourteenth destroyer flotillas will be sent to attack. Twenty-third will remain on station. If she is not then destroyed, battlefleet will follow in. If not located by cruisers, I intend to work round to the north and then west and regain touch in the morning.”’

  Almost immediately, aircraft signals reported the Italian ships some fifty miles ahead on a course of 300 degrees, moving at a speed of between twelve and fifteen knots.

  ‘Four hours or more before we’re up with them,’ Latimer observed.

  Half an hour later, another aircraft message reported that the Italian fleet consisted of one battleship, six cruisers and eleven destroyers.

  ‘I’ll bet Cunningham’s doing his “caged tiger” act up and down the bridge,’ Kelly said.

  His eyes felt red with tiredness and his face was raw from the wind. He hadn’t had a wink of sleep for forty-eight hours but he was curiously refreshed at the possibility of new action. Ever since 1914 he’d hated the Germans and all they stood for, and he had nothing but contempt for the Italians. It was a narrow-minded, bigoted attitude that had often made him enemies in the thirties when fashionable London had been cultivating the Nazi attachés, but it appeared to be a sensible, no-nonsense approach at that moment.

  At dusk, Tenth Flotilla moved ahead of the battlefleet and Twenty-Third Flotilla dropped astern. One of Formidable’s aircraft had reported a hit on an Italian cruiser and they knew that the action was drawing nearer. With two ships damaged, it would be hard for the Italians to avoid it. The tension increased. Not since Graf Spee had been caught and destroyed in the first winter of the war had there been a major fleet action and every man was itching to be part of it.

  They were well to the west of Crete now, with the nearest point of land Cape Matapan. The silence on board Impi was marked and as the minutes ticked by an uneasy feeling began to grow that somehow they’d missed the Italians who must be legging it for home at full speed. Then Pridham-Whipple reported unknown vessels ten miles ahead, and the tension became unbearable and, in Impi, the doctor abandoned his cipher work and began to set up a casualty station in the wardroom. The excitement grew and the gunnery officer’s joy at the possibility of being able to let off his guns again was intense.

  As Kelly returned to the bridge after his evening meal, Second and Fourteenth Flotillas moved ahead and the tension became taut enough to pluck at as the two groups swung away, turning and twisting like snipe as they fell into single lines astern of their leaders. Just ahead, the vast bulks of the three great ships were silent in the darkness, without a single visible light, rearing out of the sea like hills, only the faint white foam and phosphorescent trail of their wake visible.

  ‘Intercepted message from Ajax, sir: “Three unknown ships bearing between one-nine-oh and two-five-two, distant five miles–’’’

  They stared at the charts and Latimer jabbed a finger. ‘There,’ he said.

  The weather had improved a lot and the night was calm with just a slight haze that reduced visibility, obliterated the stars and accentuated the blackness of the sky.

  ‘Intercepted signal from Orion. Unknown ship two-four-oh degrees, five miles, apparently stopped…’

  ‘Must be the battleship,’ Kelly said. ‘That’ll please Cunningham.’

  ‘Battle fleet altering course to port…’

  ‘Conform.’

  The fleet had turned towards the west in single line ahead, Cunningham handling his ships like destroyers. The huge, darkened steel castles hush-hushed through the water, their silhouettes barely visible against the horizon with the long sweep of their foredecks, the banked ramparts of their guns and the hunched shoulders of their bridges. Radar reports were being picked up steadily.

  ‘C-in-C, to twenty-third Flotilla: “Take station to starboard.”’

  ‘Somebody’s spotted something.’

  As they came up alongside the darkened heavies, the signals officer intercepted a signal from the destroyer, Stuart, ahead of them, that electrified them.

  ‘Darkened ships to starboard. Position–’

  ‘Must be different ships!’ Kelly said. ‘They’re in a totally different place.’

  Almost at once, the battle fleet swung again in the opposite direction, turrets swinging round and Formidable began to haul out of the line of fire.

  ‘Darkened ships, green three-one!’ Latimer’s voice was cracked with excitement. ‘Two large ones, headed by a smaller one and followed by three smaller ones – no, four! There’s another barely visible trailing astern.’

  Almost immediately, Kelly saw the black shapes moving across his front from starboard to port, about two miles away, apparently totally unaware of their presence. As his ships sped on in total darkness, with only the hiss and rattle of the sea and the humming of the turbines to break the silence, he was on edge with waiting for the signal from the flagship.

  Glancing to port, he could still see the shapes of the battle fleet, and Formidable’s huge bulk dropping astern.

  ‘We seem to be the meat in the sandwich,’ he said. ‘I think we need to get out of this, or the Admiral will damn soon tell us to. Full speed, Pilot. Bring her round to starboard.’

  Impi’s stern went down and her bows lifted as she leapt ahead, turning to starboard, followed round like circus horses by Inca and Indian. Latimer, his night glasses up, called out the identification.

  ‘Big ships are Zara class! Others are destroyers – big ones! They haven’t the faintest idea we’re here! Their guns a
re still fore and aft!’

  It was an awesome moment. The battlefleet was moving into line ahead again and, in the dead silence, it seemed impossible that the Italians couldn’t hear the voice of the gunnery control personnel putting their weapons on target. The turrets steadied.

  ‘The Admiral’s got his wish,’ Kelly observed flatly. ‘You couldn’t be more point-blank than this.’

  As he spoke, a searchlight broke out from one of the British destroyers ahead of the fleet. The beam fell directly on the third ship in the Italian line. With its light Mediterranean paint turned silver-purple, it looked like a ghost-ship, its shape reflected on the calm waters. Above, the heavens were full of stars. Just out of the light but picked up by the overspill was another huge ship, the curve of her stern silvered by the glow, and ahead, other ships, just beyond the beam, could be seen in silhouette.

  ‘Sitting ducks,’ Latimer said. ‘They’ve–’

  What he was saying was lost as the silence was shattered. As Warspite and Valiant opened fire, great jagged tongues of flame leapt from the rifled barrels of their main armament. Because they were so close there was no pause between the crash of the guns and the arrival of the shells, and the salvos struck the third ship in line just below deck level in a brilliant splash of light, so that she burst into flame from just abaft the bridge to the after turret which was lifted clean over the side by a direct hit. Within seconds both Warspite and Valiant had started with their secondary armament and, on fire for her whole length, the Italian ship began to list to starboard.

  ‘Poor sods!’ The words came from Siggis on the twin Bofors, not because he was sorry for the Italians, but because he was a sailor and he was watching other sailors die.

  The great guns of the British ships thundered again and again. The din was terrific and, as the huge orange flashes leapt out, the air seemed to expand and contract to the shock. Impi, Inca and Indian were still swinging to starboard out of the field of fire when searchlights began to blaze out from every ship in the fight. Warspite had now shifted her fire to the second ship in the Italian line and in a little over three minutes five fifteen-inch broadsides had hit her. The third ship was a sea of brilliant orange flame by this time and, turning slowly out of line, was already sinking. Barham, coming up astern to replace Formidable, was firing at the leading Italian destroyer, which came alive with brilliant orange flashes obscured by thick smoke. She also turned out of line, burning fiercely, and Barham joined Warspite and Valiant in destroying the second large ship. Completely crippled and burning fiercely, she was listing to port, her bows swinging slowly until she had turned sufficiently to present her starboard side, like a wounded bull facing the goading of the banderillas.

  She was a holocaust of flame now, the red glow lighting the cloud of black smoke above her. They could hardly believe their eyes. In ten minutes the British fleet had utterly destroyed three Italian ships. Not a single shot had been fired back.

  As they watched, the huge shapes of the British heavies lumbered round to starboard, as if the Italians had fired torpedoes, and Impi and her consorts found themselves once more across their course and dangerously close. Turning in a complete circle to pass astern, they saw the Italian destroyers in the glare of the flames making smoke as they scuttled north. But the last of them, trailing behind out of position, swung in the opposite direction as if her captain considered he hadn’t the time to follow his comrades. Unaware of the British destroyers hidden by the big ships, he steamed directly across their bows.

  There was no need to issue orders and every gun crashed out in a single shout. The Italian destroyer was hit again and again, one moment crashing through the water, the next stopped dead, her bow dipping into the sea to send a wave over her fore-deck.

  ‘By God,’ Latimer said in astonishment. ‘First time! We ought to have a photograph to present to the gunnery instructors at Whale Island!’

  Again the guns roared and a tremendous explosion followed. A vast gusher of black water lifted into the air alongside the Italian ship, then flames lit up the wreckage, the boats and the men struggling in the sea. As the Italian ship heeled over, her bow dipped beneath the water and within two minutes she was gone.

  As they steamed over her grave, they could hear an uncanny noise in the darkness that came from drowning men, then they were passing through a flotsam of human beings and wreckage. To port, from the shattered big ship, which had been third in the Italian line, there was a terrific explosion and they saw a mushroom of black smoke coming from her vitals. Flames lit the water for miles, showing a desolation of debris and pathetic bunches of men clinging to rafts. The ship looked gigantic in the crimson glow as she slowly turned over to lie on her side so that they could see the whole shape of her deck. Men were scrambling about like ants among the carnage. One turret just wasn’t there, and the others were even now still pointing fore and aft.

  The bridge area was enveloped in a mountainous conflagration with, above, a pillar of smoke, its underpart glowing red. Like some fabulous animal breathing fire, she turned tiredly over and sank.

  There was one solitary cheer from aft somewhere then silence. Nobody on the bridge spoke. The death of a ship, of whatever nationality, was always awe-inspiring.

  Latimer’s words came quietly.

  ‘He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

  Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named.’

  Six

  Kelly had been into many places but he was always impressed by Alexandria. There were cities which were beautiful in the fashion of regal old women, and profiteer cities like Shanghai which were mere parvenus. Alex was like a well-bred old duchess and, just then, she seemed to be enjoying a face-lift. The war had brought a garish prosperity, and among the Jews, Greeks, Syrians, Turks, British and French, there were now the refugees, the grim-mouthed Poles, and Frenchmen hating the Germans, the English and themselves.

  As the fleet had steamed homewards there were mixed feelings. They had not found the crippled Italian battleship, which had managed to escape to the north, but they had sunk two eight-inch cruisers, Zara and Fiume, and three destroyers, Alferi Carducci and Alpini, and Fourteenth Flotilla had run into and sunk the Italian cruiser, Pola which had been stopped the previous night by torpedoes from Formidable’s aircraft.

  Steaming through the mats of wreckage and survivors, their scrambling nets down, they had dragged aboard the yelling Italians who had proved a pretty sorry crowd, most of them very young and many of poor physique. Some of them had broken into the officers’ wine store and were drunk and they claimed they’d not fired at the British ships when they’d been sighted because they were afraid they’d fire back.

  The sea had been covered for miles with a film of oil, and the wreckage and the corpses and the clusters of men in boats extended as far as the horizon. In the middle of the work of mercy, a German aircraft appeared and the rescue had had to come to an abrupt halt as the fleet shaped course for safety.

  ‘“Report No damage, no casualties,”’ Kelly ordered.

  Below him, near the pom-poms, Siggis was singing as they cleared the shell cases.

  ‘On a sailor’s tomb no roses bloom–’

  ‘Better add,’ Kelly said with a smile, ‘that morale also seems to be unimpaired.’

  There was jubilation as they slipped through the boom and moved to their buoys because it had been a tremendous victory for the loss of only one aircraft and its crew. The news of the victory had gone ahead of them and the whole of Alex had turned out. Tugs and launches led the ships in, their crews, both Egyptian and British, going mad, dancing, cheering and throwing their caps in the air. Even the crews of the immobilised Vichy French fleet lined the decks to watch. Every siren and whistle in the harbour was going at full blast and every ship cleared lower deck to cheer them in.

  ‘Sounds as though peace’s broken out,’ Latimer grinned.

  On their last drop of fuel, Impi, Inca and Indian were the first to go alongside the oilers, then every
man of every ship’s company turned out to store and ammunition. Even the doctors, paymasters, stewards and storekeepers had their coats off to handle the 4.7. shells and boxes of light ammunition and the heavy cases of stores. By just after midnight, they were able to report themselves ready for sea again.

  Cunningham received Kelly warmly. They had known each other in the Dardanelles in 1915 when Kelly had taken passage in Cunningham’s ship. The admiral’s cherubic face, which could be so grim when he was angry, showed the delight he felt at the way his captains had behaved.

  ‘I was pleased to see you,’ he said. ‘I can do with every destroyer I can get. And every aircraft, too. I expect they’ll dish out awards for this, but on the whole I think I’d much rather have a squadron of Hurricanes or another flotilla of destroyers.’

  Though the news was good at the moment, with Addis Ababa expected to fall at any moment to bring the campaign in Ethiopia to an end, and more Italian destroyers operating from Massawa in the Red Sea sunk by Eagle’s Swordfishes, he was under no delusions about the value of the victory. ‘It’s come when our fortunes are at a particularly low ebb,’ he said. ‘And we all know what’s ahead of us because the campaign in Greece’s not going well. I just hope we’ve convinced the Italians of our supremacy so that they’re unlikely to risk another rough handling.’

  Kelly knew what he meant. What lay ahead of them when the Germans went into the Balkans, as they most assuredly would, had surely been made easier by those devastating broadsides from Warspite, Barham and Valiant.

  With the bombing attacks on the troop convoys to Greece growing noticeably heavier and the new German Army in Libya doing far better even than had been expected, it seemed a good idea to Kelly to take advantage of the lull to dine his captains ashore, though it was a pity they couldn’t include Smart who was doubtless eating omelettes and bully in hungry Malta with Verschoyle.

  As they turned out of the docks into Ras-el-Tin Street, the sun was still hot, and the pavement contained the usual hordes of cringing dogs, blind beggars, shoeshine boys, fly-whisk vendors, acrobats and snake charmers. After England, it all seemed a little unreal, despite its familiarity, with the native children, their stick-like legs twinkling, crying for biscuits, bully or baksheesh. The restaurant seemed to be packed with army officers, all apparently staff.