by David Row
It had only required 20 of the dive bombers to reduce the oil tanks to an inferno, and so the remaining twelve planes were ordered to target the destroyers lying in the harbour. At anchor, a destroyer is a much easier target than when it is manoeuvring at full speed. One destroyer was hit by two 500lb bombs, and was left sinking; a second was hit by one bomb, and although badly damaged was saved by the prompt actions of its crew. One dive bomber was lost in this attack to the destroyers AA fire.
The job finished, the strike headed back to the Force H carriers; as soon as they had been struck below deck, the force turned south to head back to Gibraltar, and readied the fighters on deck ready for the morning. Total losses would be two Cormorants and one SeaLance (which failed to return, probably due to fuel loss), although a further five planes were written off due to combat damage.
Taranto, 2300 (first strike)
Taranto, a major naval base, was rather more awake that Naples. At the first sound of the approaching aircraft, the searchlights lit up, searching the skies for them. It took a while, because they were looking in the wrong place - again, the Italians were expecting a high-altitude bombing attack by RAF planes. This allowed the first waves of attackers to get into position before an alert operator realised what was happening, and the defences started to illuminate the correct areas.
The first planes to attack was a group of twelve dive bombers carrying 1,000 lb bombs - targets the oil storage tanks overlooking the harbour. The tanks were illuminated by one of the flare aircraft, and the bombers turned into their dives as soon as they could see the target. Oil tanks are big, bulky, and don't manoeuvre out of the way of a bomb nearly as well as a ship. One aircraft was hit by AA fire (it ditched in the harbour), but as the other eleven pulled out of their dives the oil storage depot was rapidly becoming a mass of flames.
While the noise of exploding bombs (and a number of exploding oil tanks) was distracting the defenders, a torpedo strike was going in against the battleships. The time of the raid had been carefully planned so the rising moon, as well as the flares, helped to silhouette the targets. The netting surrounding the ships limited the angles of approach of the planes, and once they had been spotted it was clear that the Italian AA guns knew this also. Fortunately for the attackers, the chance of hitting a plane at night was still very low. The first attack by nine SeaLance targeted the modern battleship Littorio. While getting into a good attacking position through the barrage balloons ready to avoid the netting was difficult, the ship itself was a lovely big, stationary target. The torpedo bombers attacked straight into the battleships AA fire, which shot down one of the planes - although it dropped its torpedo when hit, no-one knew where it went. The other eight planes were far more successful - three torpedoes hit the battleship (it was not until much later in the war that the Royal Navy found out for certain that the nets were indeed useless against deep-running torpedoes), tearing large holes in her. The Pugliese Torpedo Defence System was probably the least effective of any in use in WW2, especially against the duplex fuse, and two of the holes were very large for aerial torpedoes.
At the same time, another group of nine planes were aiming their torpedoes at the Vittorio Venetto (the other modern battleship at anchor). Two of the planes were caught in searchlights, and although both escaped without being shot down (although not without damage), this caused them to miss badly with their torpedoes. The other seven planes had more luck. The huge plumes of water showed two torpedo hits, which again caused sizeable holes below the waterline. One plane was shot down by the shore-based AA as it made its escape.
Next to receive the friendly interest of the FAA was the modernised battleship Cavour. In order to work their way around the defences, and also to help reduce the chance of the torpedoes 'bottoming out' the planes were flying as slowly as practical. While the massed AA fire and the searchlights weren't doing a wonderful job of shooting down the attackers, they were causing some confusion and loss of night vision. One of the pilots, somewhat disorientated and concentrating on his target, asked his observer where the balloon barrage he was supposed to be avoiding was. He was told 'we've flown through the bloody thing once, and we're just about to do it again'.
Another strike of nine planes swept in at 50 feet towards the Cavour. The Cavour was an old battleship, which had been completely rebuilt before the war, but she was still small and relatively poorly protected compared to a modern design. Only seven of the planes managed to drop their torpedoes. Two were hit on the way in; one dropped into the harbour, the second managed to get away, damaged, by dropping its torpedo, which went somewhere. Nowhere near the ship, unfortunately. However the remaining planes registered two hits on the old ship. The terrible underwater damage caused to her old hull left her sinking into the mud of the harbour (although this was not immediately realised)
The last of the first four torpedo strikes was aimed at the Cesare, another modernised old ship. Or at least that had been the idea, but the lead crew had got rather confused by all the illumination and pyrotechnics flying about and instead were actually aiming at the Duilio. Again, this old ship had been heavily rebuilt, but was still well below modern standards. By now the defences were beginning to get an idea of what the planes were aiming at, and although the first flight of three planes got their attack off successfully, two of the next flight crashed into the water. The defences also shot down one of the final flight. Despite this, the six surviving planes managed two hits on the ship. Again, the old ship was damaged badly underwater by the hits, although the crew managed to hold the flooding at bay before it got out of control
While the torpedo attacks had been going in at low level, the dive bombers had been circling high above. This had attracted the attention of some of the AA fire, but hitting a small plane at night without radar was proving difficult - so difficult that so far none of them had been hit, and it helped to reduce the fire being aimed at the vulnerable torpedo planes.
The first group of twelve planes dove onto the Andrea Doria. She had been chosen because even though modernised, her deck armour was less than 4" thick. She would be the first ship to be attacked by the new 1,600lb AP bomb, as this should penetrate her deck easily (the newer battleships had much thicker deck armour, and it was not certain if even the AP bombs would penetrate). In fact, even some of the 1,000 bombs would penetrate the poor deck armour of the ship. The first six planes were carrying the AP bombs, and the attack caught the defences by surprise - they were still concentrating on the torpedo planes. As a result the first two flights made a textbook attack on the helpless ship, hitting her with three of their six bombs. One of the AP bombs didn't explode (it was later found it had speared straight through the armoured deck and actually made a hole as it exited the ship!). The other two worked as advertised; although they didn't carry the explosive content of the smaller GP bombs, they sent thick, heavy splinters of their casing in all directions, penetrating bulkheads, and managing to wreck the forward engine rooms. They also caused flooding as the splinters tore their way out through the side of the ship.
While the attack was satisfyingly successful, it did unfortunately alert the defences to what was going on. The next six planes met a hail of AA fire, one of them being hit and diving straight down into the harbour, where its bomb exploded in a huge plume of water. Of the remaining five planes, only one got a hit, the others being somewhat distracted by the AA fire (although two bombs fell close enough to cause underwater damage). The hit, although only by a 1,000lb bomb, actually penetrated the relatively thin armour deck before it exploded, causing severe damage and starting a large fire amidships. The ship was left burning as the planes made their escape at low level.
The final group of nine divebombers were targeting the Duilio. They had seen her hit by at least one torpedo, which was unexpected, but although the ship was listing, she was still above the water. The first flight was again carrying the 1,600AP bomb, and one of these hit - it was this hit that actually doomed the ship. The bomb exploded just as it
entered the remaining operational boiler room, where it enthusiastically sprayed every piece of working machinery in range with jagged metal splinters - at which point the working machinery turned into non-working machinery. This caused a total loss of power as the electrical breakers opened automatically, which did nothing to help the crews trying to contain the torpedo damage. The final six planes managed two hits; one plane was lost as it never pulled out of its dive, the others managed two hits on the helpless battleship. One of these exploded above the armour (causing severe damage and fires in the superstructure), the second just under the armour, causing considerable damage, and also ruining the efforts of the crew to handle the increasing flooding. As a result, the list caused by the earlier torpedo damage kept increasing; the crew had no option but to abandon ship before she turned over into the mud of the harbour bottom.
Last to attack were the remaining group of six torpedo bombers. While all the attention was on the battleships, they had been sneaking around to make an attack on the heavy cruiser Fiume in the outer harbour. As the attention was all on the battleships, they managed to start their runs before they were detected. The ships AA was immediately directed against them and one of the planes did not survive to get into range. The other five managed good launches, although one torpedo was dropped poorly and hit the harbour bottom, two of the remaining four hit the ship - one near her B turret, the other near her stern, wrecking both her propeller shafts. The ship immediately started to take on water and list, but at that time was not in immediate danger of sinking.
Taranto, 2400 - second strike
While the first strike had been finishing its efforts in the outer harbour, the group of 16 Wellingtons from Malta had arrived. Finding Taranto had proved easy, the now splendidly-burning oil tanks made it visible from a long way off. As they closed, the sight of all the massed AA fire from the port and from the ships in harbour, as well as the blazing oil tanks, was quite impressive. 'Guy Fawkes night come two weeks early' as one of the crew put it. Their job was not to add to the chaos in the outer harbour. Instead, using the convenience of the searchlight positions to make sure they were on target, they dropped mines around the harbour entrances. Sixteen Wellingtons carry a considerable quantity of mines, and the task was made easier by them being completely ignored. While it had been realised that there was a small danger of them interfering with the raid aircraft (it would have been embarrassing to lose a carrier plane to having a naval mine dropped on it), the chance was small and it was a perfectly acceptable risk. As it turned out, none of the strike aircraft even noticed they were there. Admiral Cunningham was sure he would have to make a strike on the following night to do the damage he really wanted to do to the Italian fleet. Since it was expected that the Italians might consider this, and get as many ships away as possible during the day, the mines were to dissuade them, hopefully long enough for another strike to do yet more damage. Job done, the Wellingtons headed back to Malta for breakfast. They had more to do tomorrow night as well.
Shortly after the first strike had headed for home (less two planes carrying the raid leaders, who remained to evaluate the damage and suggest targets for the second wave), the rest of the carriers planes arrived. This consisted of twelve torpedo carrying SeaLance, 18 divebombers and four more divebombers armed with flares. The raid leaders had already decided on their targets.
The first target of the torpedo planes was the Littorio. Already hit badly by three torpedoes, she had just managed to get under way, although it wasn't apparent what a ship obviously damaged was going to do. It fact, the captain had already decided to find a good soft spot to run her ashore so that she was no longer in danger of sinking. Sadly for him he ran out of time. The first attack runs benefitted from surprise; the defences had obviously assumed the attack had finished, and the growl of more aero engines in the night seemed to completely confuse them for a few minutes. Enough time for all twelve planes to make their runs at the slowly-moving ship. Even the ships own AA seemed asleep for the first two flights, and even though they belatedly realised they were under attack, and managed to damage one of the third flight so badly it had to land in the harbour (fortunately the crew escaped), eleven torpedoes were swimming towards the already-damaged battleship. Although she was at least no longer at anchor, she was hardly racing along, and in quick succession three huge plumes of water hung in the night air for a moment. The two hits to the centre of the ship were damaging enough - again, the deep strike with the duplex head doing severe damage, but the final blow was the torpedo that hit her engine room, cutting off the power for some crucial minutes. Having been hit now by a total of six torpedoes, all on the same side, the battleship slowly leant over more and more onto her starboard beam. All the Captain was able to do was to order the crew to abandon ship as the Littorio tried her best to turn turtle. The shallow harbour actually prevented this, but she ended up almost underwater, on her side, and in fact later found to be unrecoverable despite the best efforts of the Italian engineers.
As the torpedo bombers streaked out of the outer harbour at full throttle and zero feet, the first six dive bombers commenced their dives at the Andrea Doria, already on fire from her earlier bomb hits. These planes were all carrying AP bombs. Although the ship was a stationary target, the first flight of three planes all missed. It was the second flight that managed one of the more spectacular hits of the war; two of the bombs hit - it was never certain if one of them exploded or not, as the second sliced easily through the deck armour and buried itself in the forward magazine before doing its patriotic duty. The resulting explosion seemed not only to light up the harbour but also to lift the whole front of the ship. As the aircrew regained their night vision, the ship was seen sinking forward. As one of the pilots later remarked, 'I'd have said she was sinking by the bow, except she didn't have a bow any more'.
The final group of twelve planes were rather put out by this - it hardly seemed fair to hog such a fat juicy target without giving them a crack at it. Instead, they were pointed to the heavy cruiser Gorizia (the Cesare, a higher priority target, had been missed in the natural confusion of the raid - ironically the smoke from one of the burning ships had been effectively concealing her). By now the defences were furious, and they turned into their dive amidst a hail of AA fire - even though it was poorly directed, the sheer volume was dangerous even to dive bombers, and three of the planes crashed into the water, not pulling out of their dives. The remaining nine managed to hit the cruiser with two 1,000lb bombs, which left her listing and on fire (she was to be towed to shallow water to avoid her sinking).
The final act of the raid was for the raid leaders to take photographs for later analysis, as the pilots headed back to the carriers. While the losses during the raid had been heavy, they were less than had been expected. Eight torpedo planes had been shot down during the attack, and three more failed to return (one crash-landed on the Italian coast, the crew being picked up by local fishermen). Only five of the divebombers had been lost during the raid, although four more failed to make it back to the carriers. Total losses were 20 planes out of 115 taking part - the original estimate had suggested up to 50 planes could have been lost.
Chapter 2 - Second Strike
22nd October, Force H
Force H had already started to retire back to Gibraltar; in order to make even a long-range strike on Naples they had had to position themselves between Sardinia and Sicily, uncomfortably close to the airfields on the two islands. They had started to steam Southwest at 0200, and as soon as the returned strike planes had been tucked back into the hangers, the first CAP and A/S patrol aircraft were spotted on deck ready to be launched at first light.
The first of the British fleets to be spotted was Force H. That had been expected; their escape route was far closer to the Italian airfields, and it was far easier to predict where they would be. At 0800 the CAP intercepted a reconnaissance plane out of Cagliari, and although it was shot down there was enough cloud to allow it to dodge the interceptors
for long enough to make a sighting report. With the covering heavy ships being two battlecruisers, the force was making 28 knots and it was hoped that they would be out of the range of the Italian planes by the next day.
The first air attack on Force H came from the Italian airfields in Tunisia; this was a mixed force of twelve SM.79 torpedo bombers and fifteen BA.88 level bombers. They were escorted by eight MC.200 fighters. The two carriers carried 54 fighters between them, and had a CAP of twelve Goshawks in the air with another twelve warmed up on deck. The raid was detected on radar at 1200, distance 65 miles, and the ready fighters started to launch. As planned, half the CAP headed for the high level formation (the ready fighters would not have time to get to altitude, but would easily be able to intercept the lower group (the torpedo planes), and half for what where supposed (correctly) to be torpedo planes. The Italian commander had allocated his fighters to guard the torpedo bombers - they were the most dangerous to the ships, and also the most vulnerable to attack.
The first group to be intercepted was the BA.88 formation. With no fighter escort they were terribly vulnerable to the cannon-armed Goshawks, who intercepted them some 25 miles from the fleet, giving them ample time to make multiple attacks on the lumbering bomber formation. After the first two coordinated attacks, 5 of the 15 bombers had been shot down, and two more had been seen to turn away trailing smoke. Still well over 10 miles from the fleet, at this point the bombers all turned and dived for home, although one more was lost to the Goshawks before their controller pulled them back to engage the much more dangerous torpedo planes.
The fighters closing on the torpedo planes had realised that they were escorted when one of their number was shot down by the diving Italian fighters (at this stage in the war, it was often difficult to determine by radar if the planes in the formation were at different altitudes). They turned to engage the fighters, leaving the torpedo planes to be intercepted by the second wave of defenders. As a result of the following dogfight, four Italian fighters were shot down for the loss of two Goshawks (while diving unexpectedly on the Goshawks had been a good start, the poor armament of the Italian planes had only shot down one defender, and the others could easily out-dive and catch the remainder.