Thanx for the info Paul!

And now:

On battle of Matapan

I myself was inclined to think that the Italians would not try anything… I bet Commander Power, the Staff Officer, Operations, the sum of ten shillings that we would see nothing of the enemy.’ Admiral Andrew Cunningham


http://www.watersideweb.co.uk/Barham/matapan.htm


It was the first fleet action of the WWII, the first since the Battle of Jutland, the first in the Mediterranean since the Battle of the Nile in 1798, and the first fought at night. It was the first time that carrier-borne aircraft played a vital and indispensable role and radar-equipped ships were used in a fleet action .

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/5798.html

German dive-bombers had seriously damaged the aircraft carrier Illustrious in January and their intelligence believed that Admiral Cunningham’s Mediterranean Fleet possessed only one operational battleship. Accordingly the Italians, whose battlefleet was crippled at Taranto, calculated that a force of heavy cruisers supported by the battleship Vittorio Veneto would be sufficient to deal with light British forces around Crete.

In fact the British were in much better shape. All three battleships were intact and another carrier, Formidable, had recently arrived.

Ultra had broken Axis codes and warned when the Italian fleet sailed on 26 March.

Cunningham cleared the area of convoys and despatched Vice Admiral Pridham-Wippell’s cruiser squadron to the south of Crete. On 27 March a reconnaissance aircraft from Malta spotted three Italian cruisers and four destroyers heading for Crete. Cunningham sailed with his battlefleet that evening.

The battle commenced at 0745 on 28 March when Pridham-Wippell’s four light cruisers sighted a squadron of three Italian heavy cruisers. The Italians 203mm guns opened fire at a range at which the 152mm weapons of the British ships could not initially reply. Pridham-Wippell retired towards Cunningham’s force at the full speed in the hope of drawing the enemy into a trap, but at 0855 the Italians suddenly withdrew.

The Italian commander, Admiral Iachino, planned to annihilate the British cruisers involving a pincer movement with the battleship Vittorio Veneto. The action began well for the Italians when the Veneto’s 381mm guns opened fire at 1055 to the complete surprise of the British. Pridham Wippell’s cruisers laid a smokescreen, but were caught in the crossfire between the Veneto and the Italian cruisers.

Formidable’s Albacore torpedo-bombers attacked the Italian battleship without success, but having no air cover Iachino realised his vulnerability and ordered his forces to retire. The chase was on. In a further attack at 1510, the Veneto was hit by one torpedo and her speed was reduced. Cunningham knew he had no chance of catching the Italian battleship unless she was hit again, so he ordered at final air strike at dusk. Instead the heavy cruiser Pola was torpedoed and stopped dead in the water.

The Italian Admiral, unaware of the Cunningham’s pursuing battlefleet, now made fateful error. He ordered a squadron of cruisers and destroyers to return and protect the Pola. None of the Italian ships were equipped for night fighting. The British battlefleet detected the Italians on radar shortly after 2200. In one of the most dramatic moments in the war at sea during World War Two, the battleships Barham, Valiant and Warspite opened fire at only 3500 metres annihilating two Italian heavy cruisers in five minutes. In the melee that followed British destroyers sank two Italian destroyers and the unfortunate Pola.

Five ships were sunk and around 2,400 Italian sailors were killed, missing or captured. The British lost only three aircrew when one torpedo bomber was shot down. Cunningham lost his bet, but added another famous victory to the annals of the Royal Navy.



http://www.ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/BattleofMatapan.html

The German Vice Admiral E. Weichold, writing about Matapan, said:

"The unhappy result of this action, the first offensive operation which the Italian Fleet had undertaken through German pressure after nine months of war, was a shattering blow to the Italian Navy and it's prestige. If they attributed blame to the false German report of the torpedoeing of Battleships, and failure of Aircraft support, there at any rate remained an inner reaction, a more stubborn refusal to undertake offensive operations against a superior British sea power."

[ 18. December 2003, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: Kai-Petri ]

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