by Mark Simmons
VALF had left the battle fleet about 19:00 with orders from Cunningham to find the Vittorio Veneto. Pridham-Wippell increased speed to 30 knots; his ships began to spread out in a search pattern seven miles wide. However they soon sighted ships ahead that seemed to be dropping back towards them. He ordered his ships to concentrate again and reduced speed. He feared the enemy might turn back to drive them off. About 19:40 he was only a dozen miles from the Italian fleet, and he informed the C-in-C he had sighted the enemy vessels. From his position they had seen the flashes of anti-aircraft fire and searchlights as the air attack had gone in.
About 20:15 Vice-Admiral Pridham-Wippell’s flagship Orion received a report from the radar-equipped Ajax that she had plotted a ship six miles ahead. Further plots over the next few minutes revealed the vessel was stopped. About the same time Gloucester sighted a lone object low in the water. Further reports indicated a ship larger than a cruiser.
By 20:30 Orion was some way from the target, and the VALF informed Cunningham of the position and that it might be the damaged Vittorio Veneto. He decided to try and regain contact with the rest of the Italian fleet and leave the following battle fleet to deal with the mystery ship. However he never managed to regain contact.3
The news that an unknown ship was lying stopped reached Cunningham about 21:11. ‘We went after the enemy’s fleet, and altered course slightly to port to close the stopped ship.’ Warspite led the battle fleet, followed in line astern by Valiant, Formidable and Barham about 600 yards apart. One mile to starboard were the destroyers Stuart and Havock and Greyhound and Griffin one mile to port.
The Warspite was not fitted with radar, but at 10:10pm the Valiant reported that her instruments had picked up what was apparently the same ship 6 miles distant, which VALF had reported, on her port bow. She was a large ship. The Valiant gave her length as more than six hundred feet.4
Aboard the destroyer Stuart they found that night the sea
… as flat as a river. Above the masthead the stars hung countless in a luminous haze. The moon had not yet risen and the faint starlight seemed only to accentuate the darkness which fell wide and dense on all sides.5
On Formidable, after a hard day of flying operations many were trying to catch up on sleep. Pack had completed his weather chart before turning in; he had found the weather still fair, and a haze had reduced visibility to four or five miles. It was a dark night and the wind was light.6
The C-in-C changed course toward the radar target, hopes were running high it might be the Vittorio Veneto. The two screening destroyers on the port side were ordered to take station to starboard to clear the line of fire. The radar range plots steadily shrank.7
Commodore [John] Edelsten, the new chief-of-staff had come to gain experience. And a quarter of an hour later at 10:25, when he was searching the horizon on the starboard bow with his glasses, he calmly reported that he saw two large cruisers with a smaller one ahead of them crossing the bows of the battle fleet, from starboard to port.8
They were rapidly identified as two Zara class 8-inch gun cruisers. Cunningham, even with the advantage of radar, had been surprised. Where he expected to find one ship he had found three. They were Admiral Cattaneo’s ships Zara and Fiume and the destroyers looking for the Pola.
On the Italian ships they were completely unaware of the deadly danger; half their crews were stood down from battle stations in order to assist the Pola. On Fiume, towing cables were out and ready. Fatally, Cattaneo had at last found the stricken vessel. A red signal rocket had been sent up by Pola about 22:25; when her lookouts had seen dark shapes passing to the north these were in fact Cunningham’s fleet.9
With the use of short range radio Admiral Cunningham ordered his battleships to change course to starboard, bringing them back into line ahead. All British ships by now knew the Italians were out there and close, and the crews were at action stations. Formidable drew out of line to starboard, being no use in this kind of action.
In the dead silence, a silence that could almost be felt, one heard only the voices of the gun control personnel putting the guns onto the new target. One heard the orders repeated in the director tower behind and above the bridge.10
HMAS Stuart
… was directly astern of the line of battleships as they swept up. Looming out of the night six big ships rushed to meet them. From their course it seemed that the battleships hadn’t been sighted. On Warspite, the leading British 15-incher, the huge barrels of her twin turrets trained smoothly round.11
The British ships moved steadily on, the range getting shorter. On the bridge of Warspite, according to signalman Donald Auffret, nerves were taut.
[W]e were receiving the radar contacts and I can remember it got down to two-and-a-half miles range, almost abeam and still Cunningham didn’t open fire and everybody was saying. ‘For God’s sake why doesn’t he open fire?'12
The official history says the Warspite’s guns ‘steadied on the second cruiser.’ The range was down to 4,000 yards.13
It must have been the fleet gunnery officer, Commander Geoffrey Barnard, who gave the final order to open fire. One heard the ‘tingting-ting’ of the firing gongs. Then came the great orange flash and the violent shudder as the six big guns bearing fired simultaneously. At the same instant the destroyer Greyhound, on the screen, switched her searchlight on to one of the enemy cruisers, showing her momentarily up as a silver-blue shape in the darkness. Our searchlights shone out with the first salvo, and provided full illumination for what was a ghastly sight.14
Inside Warspite’s X turret Roy Emmington was working on the guns but could see little.
Salvoes shook the insides out of you so we were wondering what broadsides would do.
We didn’t have long to wonder, we got the orders to load both guns and we heard the breach workers shout ‘Ready’ and a few seconds later they fired … A number of broadsides were fired that night … It took us hours on the boys messdeck to unwind that night.15
It was 22:27 when Warspite opened fire, the range down to 3,000 yards. The ship that took the brunt of those first six 15-inch shells was Fiume. At least five hit her at this point blank range and she burst into flames just aft of the bridge back to the after turret, which was blown over the side, while others crashed into her just above the water line.
On board the Stuart they saw the Fiume ‘dissolved into a mane of shearing flame. She heeled, stricken under the onslaught, transformed in a few awful seconds from a proud fighting ship to a twisted tangle of iron.’16 On the bridge of his flagship Cunningham was now largely a spectator.
The Italians were quite unprepared. Their guns were trained fore and aft. They were helplessly shattered before they could put up any resistance. In the midst of all this there was a milder diversion. Captain Douglas Fisher, the captain of the Warspite, was a gunnery officer of note. When he saw the first salvo hit he was heard to say in a voice of wondering surprise. ‘Good Lord. We’ve hit her.’17
Seconds after Warspite’s first salvo her searchlights were on, and she fired star-shells. Seconds later the 6-inch secondary armament opened fire. At the same time Valiant opened up with her 15-inch and 4.5-inch guns battering Fiume, which was now listing badly. A mass of flame, she fell out of line and sank in half an hour.
After the third of Warspite’s rapid fire 6-inch salvoes the crew switched target to the second ship in the line, which actually appears to have been the third. The destroyer Alfieri had been leading followed by Zara, the second ship in line, and then the third ship Fiume.
Italian sources maintain that when Admiral Cattaneo’s division left the Vittorio Veneto to aid the Pola, Zara had been leading; this would make the Fiume second not third, but survivors from Fiume maintain she was the first ship to have been attacked.
About 22:15 Cattaneo had sent a destroyer ahead having seen a red Very light in the search for Pola. Thus Alfieri might have looked as if she was leading when the British ships opened fire a few minutes later.
Pack w
as rudely awoken from his slumbers on board Formidable.
Whether it was the actual roar of the big guns of the battleships, or the alarm rattler on Formidable that I first heard, I cannot be certain. I remember rushing up the ladder to my action station on the Compass platform, donning jacket, muffler, steel helmet, anti-flash gear … The picture was dazzled by the vivid flashes of 15-inch guns, the bright beams of search lights, and the orange glow of huge fires that broke out in the ships under fire.18
By now the picture began to become confused, as Cunningham saw.
Our searchlights were still on, and just after 10:30 three Italian destroyers which had apparently been following their cruisers, were seen coming in on our port bow. They turned and one was seen to fire torpedoes, so the battle fleet was turned 90° to starboard to avoid them. Our destroyers were engaging and the whole party was inextricably mixed up.19
In the main action lasting only seven minutes Warspite had fired 40 rounds of 15-inch armour piercing shells and 44 of 6-inch high explosive shells. In the confusion, as Cunningham indicated, it was a wonder no ships had been hit or sunk by friendly fire.
To my horror I saw one of our destroyers the Havock , straddled by our fire, and in my mind wrote her off as a loss. The Formidable also had an escape. When action was joined she hauled out to starboard at full speed, a night battle being no place for a carrier.
When she was about five miles away she was caught in the beam of the Warspite’s searchlight sweeping on the disengaged side in case further enemy ships were present.
We heard the 6-inch control officer of the starboard battery get his guns on to her, and were only just in time to stop him from opening fire.20
On the blazing and listing Fiume the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship at 23:15. Zara was in as bad a shape; the flames were leaping as high as her masts and the crew was also ordered to abandon ship, but she was sinking slowly so the second-in-command went below to set charges to blow her up. At 00:30 she blew up taking Admiral Cattaneo and many others on board down with her.
The destroyer Alfieri had been hit many times and had dozens of casualties. They still managed to fire some torpedoes, but they all missed, probably because of the list of the damaged ship. Finally her commander made the order to abandon ship. On the destroyer Carducci the crew were unable to bring the fires under control; the commander scuttled the ship, going down with her.
The Oriani, although damaged, managed to make it home as did the Gioberti, the only ship under Cattaneo’s command that was undamaged. It was probably the Gioberti’s brave torpedo attack on the British battleships that forced the latter to turn away.21
At 22:40 Admiral Cunningham had ordered his destroyers to finish off the cruisers, while the battle fleet withdrew to the north. The Stuart used all her torpedoes attacking two ships, while the Havock could find no target.
About 23:00 Stuart got in a fire fight with two enemies she thought were cruisers; in fact they were destroyers, and later Captain Waller was able to identify one as a Grecale class destroyer. One was Oriani, the two ships passing within 150 yards of each other. Greyhound and Griffin also got involved in the melee; they believed that they scored several hits on an enemy cruiser, and chased some enemy destroyers for some miles, until they were ordered to withdraw.
Just after 11am I made a signal ordering all forces not engaged in sinking the enemy to withdraw to the north-eastward. The objects of what I now consider to have been an ill-considered signal were to give our destroyers who were mopping up a free hand to attack any sizeable ship they saw and to facilitate the assembly of the fleet next morning. The message was qualified by an order to Captain Mack, and his eight destroyers of the striking force, now some twenty miles ahead, not to withdraw until he attacked. However, it had the unfortunate effect of causing Vice-Admiral Pridham-Wippell to cease his efforts to gain touch with the Vittorio Veneto.22
Notes
1 Bragadin, M.A. The Italian Navy in World War II p.92
2 Cunningham, A. B. A Sailor’s Odyssey p.330
3 Playfair, Major-General I.S.O. The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume II p.67
4 Cunningham, p.331
5 HMAS Stuart. www.diggerhistory.aus
6 Pack, S.W.C. The Battle of Matapan p.112
7 Playfair, p.67
8 Cunningham, p.331
9 Bragadin, p.93–94
10 Cunningham, p.332
11 HMAS Stuart. www.diggerhistory.aus
12 Ballantyne, Iain, Warspite p.123
13 Playfair, p.67
14 Cunningham p.332
15 Coward, Commander R. B. Battleship at War p.173
16 HMAS Stuart. www.diggerhistory.aus
17 Cunningham, p.332
18 Pack, p.113
19 Cunningham, p.332–333
20 Ibid p.333
21 Bragadin, p.94–95
22 Cunningham, p.333
17
The Italian Cruisers
At 22:27 when Warspite opened fire, the Italian cruisers were taken completely by surprise and were unprepared for action. Pola had been hit by a Swordfish torpedo at 19:50 during the dusk attack. At the time she was the middle ship of the 1st Cruiser Division on the starboard side of the centre group around the Vittorio Veneto. At that moment Captain De Pisa had slowed his ship as he was closing on Zara ahead. The force of the torpedo explosion struck the no 3 boiler room and the port engine, the torpedo exploding under the ship, Resulting in a complete loss of power. All electrical power was gone as well, but the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking. Captain De Pisa tried to raise steam but all his boilers were damaged. The 1st Cruiser Division and 9th Destroyer Flotilla turned back to find Pola at 21:06. They were near Pola when they met the British.
Cattaneo and his staff were quite confident about their security; the Admiral believed the British battle fleet was still in Alexandria. The crews of Zara and Fiume were making ready to take Pola in tow. He had received the Supermarina report of 17:45 that a British force had been 75 miles astern of Vittorio Veneto, but like Iachino he seemed unconcerned by it.
Pola’s captain, seeing dark shapes passing in the distance but with no power, ordered a red Very light fired. The signal was seen on Zara. Captain L. Corsi of the flagship was heard to say by Sub-Lieutenant Giorgi Parodi: ‘There’s the Pola. Is that our recognition signal?’ Parodi told him it was not.
It was then they were bathed in light by Greyhound’s searchlight followed rapidly by the firing of Warspite’s guns. At first Corsi thought Pola was firing on them. Fiume, ahead, burst into flames and they soon realised the size of the guns that were firing. Alarms and action stations were sounded. Corsi ordered an increase in speed and the helm put hard to starboard. The Zara herself was soon hit and in flames. The first turret, A turret, was hit and exploded. Another shell passed under the bridge wrecking all communications.
Parodi was ordered below to stop the engines, so the crew could abandon ship. For two hours the crew had tried to save the ship and care for the wounded. According to Parodi, Admiral Cattaneo ordered the Zara scuttled. ‘The crew of Zara does not surrender. I have given orders to sink the ship,’ he was heard to say.
Parodi later stated that ‘the water was very cold’ as he swam away from the ship; about 100 metres out he heard and felt the first internal explosions of the charges that blew out the ship’s bottom. A short while later the bow magazine exploded.
When the flames died down the Zara seemed to be trying to lift herself out of the water. Then she began to turn over. A few minutes later there came a succession of huge waves … Then all was dark.1
The early destruction of Zara’s electrical systems by Warspite’s first salvo made it impossible to return fire. Also the Italians’ night fighting techniques were extremely undeveloped; the main 8-inch guns were ineffective at night as they did not have flashless charges, thus the gunlayers would be blinded making accurate fire impossible. The secondary 3.9-inch guns could have been used but lacked electrical powe
r.
The Italians were staggered by the British ability to fight so intensively at night. Admiral Cunningham found the Italian night-fighting hopelessly out of date, on a par with that of the British during the First World War, and the night action as ‘more like murder than anything else’.2
Within minutes of Fiume being hit she stopped and was unable to return fire for the same reasons as Zara. A raging fire took hold around the after turret, and Captain G. Giorg and his crew tried to bring the fire under control. Finding it impossible, all ready to use ammunition was thrown over the side. The ship soon began listing alarmingly and the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. Most of the rafts were put into the sea. Fiume capsized and sank by the stern about 23:15.
Admiral Iachino felt that Cattaneo had made a serious error by steaming in line ahead and too close together. His destroyers should have been fanned out ahead of the cruisers or at some distance on either flank. This would have aided in the search for Pola and was in standing orders. As we have seen, only one destroyer was ahead. Had they been in the correct formation the cruisers would have received some warning of the presence of British heavy units.3
On board the destroyer Alfieri, Sub-Lieutenant Vito Sansonetti, son of Admiral Sansonetti, wrote of what he saw. He was entering the bridge when
I suddenly saw an enormous flame a few hundred metres in front of the bows, which grew larger on the starboard side. It seemed higher than 50 metres and about 100 metres wide. Suddenly, I heard the sound of explosions. I ran out and saw large pieces flying through the air from the cruiser which had been hit.
Alfieri was soon hit, taking most of the first salvoes from Barham.
Our speed slackened as we described a circle. In the meantime I had seen many hits on the cruiser, which must have been the Fiume, and saw many shells fall into the sea near us.