Battle of Taranto (1940): The Fleet Air Arm Strikes Italy's Navy

The Battle of Taranto was a British air attack on the Italian battle fleet in its home base at Taranto, southern Italy, on the night of 11–12 November 1940. Twenty-one obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplanes flown from the carrier HMS Illustrious put half of Italy’s battleships out of action in a single night. It was the first time a fleet had been crippled in harbour by aircraft alone, and it changed how navies thought about the aircraft carrier.

Background: the struggle for the Mediterranean

Italy entered the Second World War on 10 June 1940. Its navy, the Regia Marina, had modern, fast battleships and a central position in the Mediterranean. The British Mediterranean Fleet, under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham at Alexandria, had to protect convoys to Malta and Egypt while facing an enemy that could choose when to fight.

The Italian main fleet usually lay at Taranto, a large, well-protected anchorage in the “heel” of Italy. The idea of attacking it from the air was not new. Rear-Admiral Lumley Lyster had studied such a plan in the 1930s while serving in the Mediterranean, and when he arrived with the new armoured carrier Illustrious in 1940 he and Cunningham revived it.

Planning Operation Judgement

The attack, code-named Operation Judgement, was first planned for 21 October, Trafalgar Day. A fire in Illustrious’s hangar forced a delay. The older carrier HMS Eagle was also meant to take part, but damage to her fuel system kept her out, so several of her aircraft and crews were transferred to Illustrious.

Reconnaissance flights by Martin Maryland aircraft from Malta photographed the harbour in the days before the raid and confirmed that all six Italian battleships were present. The planners knew about barrage balloons, anti-aircraft guns and anti-torpedo nets. British torpedoes had been fitted with “Duplex” pistols, designed to detonate either on contact or under a ship’s hull, and the planners judged that the torpedoes could run beneath the nets, which did not reach the seabed.

The operation was folded into a larger movement of the fleet, known as MB8, which also covered convoys to Malta and Greece. This helped disguise the carrier’s approach.

The attack

On the evening of 11 November Illustrious launched her aircraft from a position roughly 170 nautical miles south-east of Taranto, near the Greek island of Kefalonia. The first wave of 12 Swordfish, led by Lieutenant-Commander Kenneth Williamson, took off at about 20:35. The second wave of nine, led by Lieutenant-Commander John “Ginger” Hale, followed about an hour later; one of these turned back with a fault, so 20 aircraft reached the target.

Each wave combined torpedo bombers with aircraft carrying bombs and parachute flares. The flare droppers lit up the eastern side of the anchorage while the torpedo bombers came in low over the water from the west, flying between balloon cables and under intense anti-aircraft fire. The bombers attacked cruisers, destroyers and the oil depot in the inner harbour.

Williamson’s aircraft was shot down during the first wave, and he and his observer were captured. A second aircraft was lost in the second wave and both crewmen were killed. All the other Swordfish returned to the carrier in the early hours of 12 November.

The Italian defences

Taranto’s anchorage is divided into two basins: the large outer harbour, the Mar Grande, where the battleships lay, and the enclosed inner harbour, the Mar Piccolo, which held cruisers and destroyers. The base was protected by many anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights, balloons and nets. But several balloons had been lost in bad weather shortly before the raid, and the nets around the battleships were incomplete and too shallow to stop torpedoes running deep.

Italian listening posts detected aircraft approaching, and the guns fired heavily throughout both attacks. Much of the fire was aimed too high, since the Swordfish came in just above the water, and the gunners risked hitting their own ships. The Italian fleet commander, Admiral Inigo Campioni, had little warning that a carrier was within range, and the Italian air force had not spotted Illustrious on her approach.

Results

The Littorio, one of Italy’s newest battleships, was hit by three torpedoes and settled by the bow. The older battleship Conte di Cavour was hit once, sank in shallow water and never returned to service. The Caio Duilio was hit once and had to be beached. A cruiser and a destroyer were struck by bombs that failed to explode, and the seaplane base and oil storage were damaged.

Littorio was repaired within about four months and Caio Duilio within about six. For a crucial period, however, Italy had only a few battleships fit for action, and the Italian navy moved its heavy units north to Naples and other ports further from British air attack. On the same night a British cruiser force attacked an Italian convoy in the Strait of Otranto, adding to the blow.

Key people

Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham commanded the Mediterranean Fleet and approved the attack. He later wrote that Taranto showed the Fleet Air Arm to be the navy’s most devastating weapon.

Rear-Admiral Lumley Lyster commanded the carriers and had done much of the early planning. Kenneth Williamson and John Hale led the two waves. Many of the aircrew received decorations, though some felt the awards were modest given the scale of the success.

Taranto and Pearl Harbor

The attack drew close attention from other navies, above all Japan’s. Japanese officers studied reports of the raid, and the lessons about shallow-water torpedo attacks were relevant to the attack on Pearl Harbor a year later. Japan’s plans had their own origins, so historians usually describe Taranto as an important example rather than a direct blueprint, despite the subtitle of one well-known book.

The two operations differed hugely in scale. At Taranto, around 20 aircraft attacked; at Pearl Harbor, more than 350 took part in two waves.

Limits of the victory

Taranto did not knock Italy’s navy out of the war. Its damaged ships were repaired, and the Regia Marina continued to contest the central Mediterranean. Britain’s next major success came at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941, where carrier aircraft again played a part by slowing Italian ships so that British battleships could catch them.

Italian weakness in the Mediterranean also drew Germany in. In January 1941 German dive-bombers based in Sicily attacked and badly damaged HMS Illustrious herself, showing that carriers were just as vulnerable to air attack as battleships. The Fleet Air Arm still marks the anniversary of the raid each November with “Taranto Night” dinners, a tradition that reflects how central the attack is to its history.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1940, 10 June: Italy declares war on Britain and France.
• 1940, 21 October: Original date for the attack, postponed after a hangar fire on Illustrious.
• 1940, 6 November: The British fleet sails from Alexandria as part of Operation MB8.
• 1940, 11 November, about 20:35: The first wave of Swordfish takes off.
• 1940, 11 November, about 23:00: The first wave attacks the harbour.
• 1940, 12 November, early hours: The second wave attacks; surviving aircraft return to Illustrious.
• 1940, 12 November: Reconnaissance photographs confirm the damage to three battleships.

Why it matters

Taranto proved that carrier aircraft could defeat battleships at anchor, a lesson soon confirmed on a far larger scale in the Pacific. It also gave Britain a badly needed success in the Mediterranean in 1940 and temporarily shifted the naval balance in its favour.