World War: Mediterranean Swept

Last week the Italians boasted loudly of mighty sea deeds against the Royal Navy, but the British chuckled at them, called them liars who had only won a “boat race” of which the goal was the Italian Fleet’s home ports.

Action began (both sides agreed) when Italian scouts spied a British squadron steaming west below Crete. Italian airplanes flew out to meet this foe and (said the Italians) damaged a battleship and an aircraft carrier, sank a cruiser. Meantime, an Italian battle squadron put out to protect other Italian warships which were returning from a convoy trip to Libya and evidently were the target of the British raiders from the East. Next day, in an engagement in the Ionian Sea off Cape Spartivento (toe of the Italian “boot”) lasting from mid-afternoon until nightfall, the Italian warships (said the Italians) “drove the British back from a threatened attack on important Italian coast positions.” When night came, the British ran southeast and pursuing Italian units lost track of them. During this excitement, the Italian destroyer Zeffiro was sunk, and a hit by a 15-inch British shell killed 29, injured 69 aboard an Italian battleship.

To Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, Commander in Chief of Britain’s Mediterranean Fleet based at Alexandria, these casualty admissions were welcome news, for his view and version of the Ionian Sea encounter differed widely from the Italian. To make a sweep along the Italian south coast at a moment when the Italians might suppose him preoccupied with disarming surrendered French units at Alexandria, Sir Andrew took his squadron, led by his flagship, the War spite, and two sister battleships on a full-speed dash westward. To scour the sea carefully and not reveal his full force, it was natural for Sir Andrew to split his command into two or more columns, one of which was the force seen by the Italian scout south of Crete. In the night the columns made rendezvous. Off Cape Spartivento next day Sir Andrew encountered the Italians, who had ventured out with two of their six battleships, the fast but thin-skinned Giulio Cesare and Conte di Cavour, together with some heavy (10,000-ton) cruisers and usual destroyer and submarine auxiliaries.

When the Italian commander discovered he was faced by a real battle squadron instead of only a light force from Cyprus or Malta, he turned (said Sir Andrew) and ran for home, spewing smoke screens to cover his departure. Before the smoke got too thick, Sir Andrew opened up with his biggest guns at extreme range (approximately 20 miles). He thought he obtained a hit before the swift Italian ships got to safety. One of his ships sank the Zeffiro when she ran close to the oncoming British to lay smoke. Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, the British submarine Parthian found an Italian submarine cruising at the surface, blew it to bits.

Though harried by bomb-dropping Italian warplanes, Sir Andrew chased the Italians until he came within sight of Italy’s shores. Then, it being R. N. practice not to contend with shore batteries unless absolutely necessary, and because the day was done. Sir Andrew withdrew. Italian units undoubtedly followed him, but were careful not to catch up. In flat contradiction of the Italians’ loud claims, Sir Andrew reported: no British casualties. Furiously the Italians flew after the home-ward-bound British, who again separated into three detachments. Loudly the Italians claimed the enemy had been routed, badly battered, and that the Italian Air Force “now possesses an absolute dominion over the enemy forces and the Mediterranean as a whole.”

Same time that Sir Andrew’s fleet swept the Eastern Mediterranean, from Gibraltar toward Sicily swept the Mediterranean battle squadron of the west, including the 42,100-ton Hood and the much-exercised aircraft carrier Ark Royal. They found no Italian warships at large but south of the Balearics they were attacked by swarms of Italian bombers, of which they shot down four, damaged three. Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville, hero of Dukirk and Oran, reported his ships unscathed, and Spanish observers who saw them return to Gibraltar after two days at sea made no mention of visible damage. Yet, as usual, the Italians claimed to have hit the Ark Royal’s bridge with two big bombs, to have set afire the monster Hood. All the British would admit was loss of the destroyer Escort by torpedoing.

Evidently the sweeps by Britain’s battle squadrons at both ends of the Mediterranean were to cover the passage of a big supply shipment, probably food and munitions, to Britain’s forces in the Middle East along Britain’s old Mediterranean life line, which was abandoned as too dangerous even before Italy mined the narrows between Sicily and Tunis. Italy or no Italy, Britain had apparently been able to reopen the route when she needed it.