World War: AT SEA: Battle of the Bottleneck

From the meeting of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini last week (see p. 21) welled ominous indications that a new campaign was about to be launched—possibly in a matter of a few days. The big question was where. The war, slowing to a lull in the Balkans and in Greece, bogging down in a seven-day sandstorm at Tobruch, flaming fitfully in the ragged weather over Britain, gave little clue. But the British, sure trouble was coming, thought they knew the answer (see below). Meanwhile the important military news of the week was the story of the battle of the Illustrious (see col. 2), an engagement which may possibly be a turning point in the war in the Mediterranean.

The question last week was whether a decisive battle had been fought in the Mediterranean. The Italians had already made extravagant claims of vast damage to a British convoy but eyewitness reports finally gave a fairly coherent account of the action. It added a new chapter to the war of theory between seamen and airmen.

When Italy entered the war, the British Navy, fearful of Italian air attacks, was resigned to abandoning Malta as a base, and feared it would have to give up all east-west traffic through the Mediterranean. Its fears proved unfounded—until last fortnight.

The action began between the island of Sicily and the prong of Tunisia where the Mediterranean is squeezed into a 90-mile-wide channel, through which all east-&-westbound convoys must pass. Dead in the middle lies the island of Pantelleria, loaded with Italian shore batteries. One hundred and twenty miles to the east is the British stronghold of Malta. The waters of the strait make an ideal hunting ground for Axis submarines, torpedo boats and bombers.

The British, by all accounts, scored first, just at dawn, when a cruiser sighted two of Italy’s torpedo boats, sank one at once. At 11 o’clock the Italians returned by air and were driven off by British fighters, but not before they had spotted the new position of the fleet.

Main Event. At 12:30 the real show began. Warning was given of a squadron of dive bombers—lean, bat-winged Junkers 87B, the first to appear against the British in the Mediterranean—streaking in from the north at 18,000 feet. In an instant the Illustrious was achurn. Over the loudspeaker system brassed the marine bugler’s warning, the boatswain’s call: “All hands to action stations.” Gun crews jumped to their pompoms. Pilots raced for their planes. Down the deck roared the first flight of Fairey Fulmar fighters, bouncing up into the sky. Behind them the rest stood ready, propellers ticking over.

High above, the Stukas wheeled, broke up into sections of three and peeled off downward in screaming, vertical dives. Just as the British planes left the deck, the first Stuka dived through the crashing anti-aircraft fire, let go and flattened out. In a searing flash, a 1,000-pounder blew a hole in the flight deck to starboard, smashing planes about to take off in the next flight, causing heavy casualties among the mechanics servicing them. Another tore through the side plate, another plunged close by into the sea, its bursting fragments spattering the crew of one pompom.

In that first smashing attack the Nazis had accomplished what every carrier’s commander most fears: With his flight deck immediately out of service, fighter planes could not go up for protection, and Rear Admiral Arthur Lumley St. George Lyster had no defense but his anti-aircraft and the few fighters already in air. Those aloft could not return for refueling, would have to use an air base at Malta. The attack was a great deal more severe than a previous attack on the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, pictures of which last week reached the U. S. (see cuts, p. 29).*

For a time it looked as though the few British planes in air might be able to turn the trick. Four Stukas crumpled under their fire. The Ju. 87Bs—dreadful when unopposed, but so slow and defenseless in air battle that they had proved useless over Britain—broke for home.

Running Fight. But in less than an hour they were back again, to finish the ship whose fighter planes aboard could not get off. A sheet of flame and smoke hung over the Illustrious as her anti-aircraft rolled up a curtain of fire. Through it the Stukas kept boring in. Bombs crashed alongside in columns of white water, battered the carrier’s side, set her dancing like a cork in the heaving sea. Machine-gun bullets raked her decks, covered by now with a jagged carpet of splinters and shell casings.

From 2 o’clock to 7:30 there was hardly a letup. Numbed by noise and heat, the gun squads kept their pom-poms hammering incessantly. The rest of the crew raced under fire to rescue casualties, take them to the dressing stations. Above them, the few British fighters in the sky hammered away at the bombers, raised their bag to twelve.

At dusk, with Malta in sight, torpedo planes attacked for the last time. But the Illustrious crowded on speed, and the torpedoes crossed only her wake.

Meanwhile more Stukas and Italian picchiatelli dive bombers had attacked the rest of the convoy. The destroyer Gallant was crippled by an Italian torpedo, but limped into port (the Italians said she foundered). The cruiser Southampton was so badly fired by Nazi bombs that the British were finally forced to sink her. Said Military Expert Hanson Baldwin: “The Southampton’s sinking marks a red-letter day in the history of warfare. Some day, when sufficient forces have been concentrated against it and sufficient hits are made, a battleship, too, will be sunk from the air.”

Raid & Counter-Raid. Two days later, the R. A. F. hunted out the Stuka base at Catania, firing hangars and gasoline dumps, ripping the runways, destroying or damaging some 40 grounded planes. German bombers kept striking back at Malta all week, claiming hits on a cruiser and new hits on the Illustrious, insisting she would be out of action for the rest of the war. The British announced ten German planes shot down over Malta in the first attack, then 15 more, added to their total with every raid. Meanwhile their own bombers hammered away at Catania.

Axis stories grew and fattened. Berlin reported the 31,000-ton British battleship Malaya towed into Gibraltar, after having been put out of action in the Sicilian battle. Italy’s spokesman Virginio Gayda raised Italy’s score to ten British warships, then added another cruiser and the aircraft carrier Eagle, both torpedoed.

Whose Mediterranean? If Axis air attacks can cut Britain’s line of direct communication with her troops in Egypt and Greece, the result will be a severe blow to Britain. The Admiralty pointed out that “the main object of the operations, which was that of passing the convoy from west to east, was carried out according to plan.” But Britain cannot afford to lose an aircraft carrier and a cruiser every time it sends a convoy through the Mediterranean.

The still unknown factor is whether British shipping can get through hereafter without such losses. If the Illustrious had up to 20 minutes’ warning, which her aircraft detectors and scouting planes should have given her, she ought to have been able to get enough fighters into the air in time to minimize the attack. The British had no alibi in the weather, clear and bright, with no cloud banks to mask the attacking bombers. It looked as though they had grown careless and were simply caught napping. In that case, more vigilance and fighter escorts from Malta might solve the problem of getting through the Mediterranean bottleneck.

* As shown by the picture, the attack on the Ark Royal was obviously made by level bombers which flew in from the left (over the bomb splashes) and flew off to the right (note her forward anti-aircraft guns firing at them).