The Italian Navy in WW2

[herakles]

The Second World War was a dramatic defeat for Italy and consequently for the Italian Navy. The reasons of the naval disaster are several:

a) Wrong attitudes of Supermarina (Naval Head Quarter) in conducting the war strategies - crews and Captains demonstrated every day an extraordinary courage and skill but their initiatives were always frustrated by Supermarina's too prudent policy;
b) absolutely poor coordination with the Air Force;
c) inadequate equipment in terms of radar and unsatisfactory precision of gun aiming systems;
d) fuel lack;
e) the enemy was the British Royal Navy, for centuries the most powerful armada of the world;
f) the Royal Navy was able to read almost all encrypted messages that should have been kept secret.

Most of these reasons are the obvious consequences of the irresponsible political decision by the Mussolini's government to join the war, thinking it would be ended in a few months with the aid of their German ally on every front.

War began for Italy on June 10, 1940, with only only two battleships that were combat ready, the Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare, battleships. Littorio and Vittorio Veneto were still under training. Others would be ready in several months: Caio Duilio, Andrea Doria. The rest of the fleet included: 7 heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers, about one hundred and twenty destroyers and torpedo boats and over one hundred submarines.

The British were slightly numerically inferior and were based in Alexandria (Mediterranean Fleet) and Gibraltar (Force H). Two of the advantages the British had were the availability of aircraft carriers and tactics based on the use of aircraft in reconnaissance and strike roles. The Italians lacked totally from this point of view, all their planes were controlled by the Air Force. Mussolini thought that the Italian peninsula was a huge aircraft carrier; this though would be tragically wrong.

During the first days of war the Italians lost 5 submarines and the British lost the cruiser Calypso sunk by the submarine Bagnolini. On June 27, 1940 Italian destroyer Espero was sunk by 5 British cruisers.

The first clash between the two navies was at Point Stilo.

On the night of October 12, 1940 British cruisers Ajax, Orion , York and Sidney sunk Italian torpedo boats Airone , Ariel and Artigliere.

The night of November 11, 1940, the "Night of Taranto", was the saddest in Italian Seamen's history and one of the most brilliant for the British. That night all of the six Italian battleships were in the Taranto harbour; the Royal Navy planned a daring action: two strikes of torpedo-carrying Swordfish aircraft took off from carrier Illustrious, that approached undetected to within 170 miles of Taranto. Battleships Conte di Cavour, Caio Duilio and Littorio were hit by torpedoes. Only two of the twenty-one British aircraft were shot down. Littorio and Duilio were moored to prevent their sinking. Cavour sank with only her superstructures above water. Littorio and Duilio were repaired in some months while Cavour was ready again only at the time of the armistice.

On November 27, the Italian and British Fleets met again at the south-West of Sardinia, the Battle of Capo Teulada.

On February 9, 1941, there was another British daring action: Force H consisting of the battleship Malaya, battle cruiser Renown, carrier Ark Royal, a cruiser and ten destroyers, bombarded Genoa for half an hour totally undisturbed.

On February 25, 1941 British submarine Upright sunk the Italian cruiser Diaz.

On March 28, 1941, an Italian force, under Admiral Iachino, made up of Veneto, 8 cruisers and 13 destroyers neared Cape Matapan, in order to interdict convoy traffic between Egypt and Greece. They contacted four British light cruisers and 8 destroyers. But it was a trap of Admiral Cunningham: these ships were only the scouts for the Mediterranean fleet, made up of the battleships Warspite, Valiant, and Barham, Formidable, and nine destroyers. The British ships, radar equipped unlike their foe, attacked the Italian forces, completely unaware of the enemy's presence. The result was: Fiume, Pola, Zara and two destroyers, Alfieri and Carducci were sunk. 2303 Seamen died. The only British loss was the cruiser Bonaventure sunk by Italian submarine Ambra but during an action independent from this clash.

On April 14 1941 while escorting a convoy to Africa Italian destroyers Tarigo, Lampo and Baleno were surprised by 4 British destroyers. Tarigo's Captain, Pietro de Cristofaro had a leg riped off but continued to lead his men under the British fire. Tarigo was almost destroyed when Tenente di Vascello Ettore Besagno and Sottocapo Marchetti managed to launch three torpedoes before sinking. One of these torpedoes sunk the destroyer Mohawk. Lampo and Baleno were seriously damaged.

On night of March 25, 1941, there was one of the many intrepid assault of Italian commandos in British harbours to be a diversion for Matapan. Two destroyers Crispi and Sella approached within 10 miles of Suda bay and lowered 6 small "Barchini" ( they were tiny speedboats, very fast, full of explosive and driven by one man who had to aim the target ship and jump off the boat at the very last moment; it required of course an enormous amount of courage). These "Barchini" were led by Tenente di Vascello Luigi Faggioni. They entered the harbour, where there were 4 cruisers and many merchant ships. The result was cruiser York severely damaged (it would be totally destroyed later by German Stukas), one petrol ship damaged. The six brave Italians were captured, to be set free by the Germans later.

On September 19 1941 Gibraltar harbour was forced by X Flottiglia Mas "Maiali" and 4 cargoes were sunk by Tenenti di Vascello Catalano, Vesco, Visentini.

On November 9, 1941 an Italian convoy to Lybia escorted by several destroyers was intercepted during the night by the radar-equipped Force K under the command of Admiral Agnew (Cruisers Aurora and Penelope and destroyers Lance and Lively): Destroyer Fulmine was sunk immediately, Grecale was damaged and there was a slaughter of Italian cargoes; destroyer Libeccio was sunk instead by submarine Upholder.

The night of December 1, 1941, Force K again attacked a convoy escorted by destroyer Da Mosto that was sunk after an epic struggle attempting to save the cargoes from British ships and planes. Iachino kept his forces between the British and the Italian convoy, which reached its destination safely. Supermarina claimed this non-battle a victory for propaganda reasons.

The next night, the Alexandria port were raided again by commandos and Valiant and Queen Elizabeth were sunk with a tanker as well.

On April 14th, 1942, Italian torpedo-boat Pegaso sunk the most glorious British submarine of WW2, the terrible Upholder, his brave captain, David Wanklyn died with his ship.

In mid June 1942 there were a series of battles involving British and Axis convoys to Malta and to Lybia respectively.

On August 12, 1942, again attempting to supply Malta, the British lost cruiser Cairo (by submarine Axum) and Manchester (by torpedo boats); British ships Nigeria, Kenya, Ohio and Italian ships Attendolo and Bolzano were also damaged.

On December 1942, Italian submarines Dessiè, Porfido, Uarsciek, Granito and Emo were sunk.

Between the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1943, were sunk destroyers Folgore, Aviere, Pancaldo, Lampo, Malocello, Ascari, Corsaro, Bombardiere, Saetta; the same fate for torpedo boats Animoso, Perseo, Climene, Ciclone, Cigno, Uragano and Procellaria. Whilst Italian torpedo boats sunk the British submarines Sahib and Thunderbolt.

On June 10, 1943 the Allies invaded Sicily. The last Italian ship sunk by the Allies was the destroyer Gioberti.

on August 9, 1943. Italians decided to preserve the remaining fleet, because of the total lack of fuel, for a final huge and hopeless battle against the coming Allied forces in order to save at least some honour before being defeated. But the armistice arrived on September 8 1943 and the Allies were no longer the enemy: the foe was now the Germans.

After the end of the war the Italian Navy had to face a sad fate: the winning nations claimed the best of the remaining Italian ships and the treaty imposed on the Italians very hard restrictions on possessing and building ships. During the tragedy of Second World War 33,000 Italian Seamen lost their lives and were lost 270,000 tons of warships. 412,000 tons of enemy warships were sunk (with the ones sunk by the Air Force and by German U Boats). The Italian merchant Navy lost 2,513 ships (522,120 tons).

[kookaburra]

HERK, was a bit astonished your list missed the July 19, 1940 action off Cape Spada, Crete - in which HMAS Sydney (11), arrived in support of out-ranged British destroyers, engaged the fast Italian Condottieri Class cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni delle Bande Nere , destroyed the former and severely damaged the latter before she sped out of range (their class were the fastest cruisers in the world, and trialled at 40knots+).


It was the first cruiser duel of the war, and as such an important psychological victory for the allies - and of course, Australia's most noted ship-to-ship naval victory in WW11. It made Captain (later RA) John Collins famous, and the action itself prompted George Johnston's wartime book Grey Gladiator .. Mussolini's papers later showed that he was downcast by the outcome of this early ship-to-ship action, because he felt that the Italian commander, Rear Admiral Ferdinando Casardi, had simply not handled his ships well.

Of course I know you will remember it immediately I make this point, and I'm just correcting the list for the record, as the action did have some significance in giving the allies an early sense of having the upper hand operationally. C-i-C Admiral Andrew Cunningham attributed much in Sydney's success to the fact that the ship had fired 2,200 rounds in action during the preceding six weeks - the destruction of the gallant little destroyer Espero, the action with the E-boats, and the bombarding of the forts at Bardia.

[herakles]

Ohhhhhh! There's been a response to my thread. :mad:

I agree K. It is an omission. The thread was getting rather long at the time. That's not to want to play down the importance of what you say.

[astraltrader]

TBF in the past I wrote a thread on Cape Matapan and also one on the Battle of the Tarigo convoy - and had little response on them either.
From memory I think you were about the only person to have replied then! I have also posted galleries on Italian warships as well.

Other than MMM [Miro] who is away at present I dont think many of our members are particularly interested in the Italian Navy!

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1141&highlight=tarigo

Still I suppose we can keep trying!

[herakles]

Other than MMM [Miro] who is away at present I dont think many of our members are particularly interested in the Italian Navy!

Still I suppose we can keep trying!

I suppose we can. There aren't any Italian members here to the best of my knowledge.

However ... ... my post featured the RN heavily. Dare I suggest that some of the RN and RAN's most significant battles in WW2 were against the Italian navy?

[designeraccd]

Well I for one am interested in Italian and virtually all other navies + warships from 1880s on up to present day. Always nice to see "new" pics + read more about actions, people, ships! One of my oldest books is The Italian Navy in WW II, published by USNI @ 1957, IIRC. Also have similar volumes on German and Royal Navies of WW II.....DFO :D

[tinduck]

I too am interested in the Italian Navy in WW2 and appreciate all the posts and photos.

You may be surprised or amused to know that some modern Italian historians and writers claim that the Italian Navy actually won the Mediterranan naval war as they maintained the supply lines to Libya till the end of the land fighting and that they only surrended because their government ordered them too! Another bizarre claim is that the RN and presumably the RAN, was involved in a mass conspiracy to distort the official records so as to hide the fact that the Italian Navy was a lot more successful in the Med gunnery actions, scoring more hits that than the RN admitted!

I understand that some of this is written as fact in the Italian version of Wikkipedia.

I've also seen it claimed on a message board by an Italian naval historian, that the Cape Spada action was an Italian 'Moral Victory' because the Bande Nere escaped!

Dave

[herakles]

Well, they probably feel better for saying all that!

I wonder what they are saying about other disastrous Italian ventures, like Greece and North Africa? Poor dears, they are just not a belligerent nation.

[tinduck]

Ha! Good comment Herakles!

The military campaign failures tend to be ignored or are blamed on Mussolini, or that the soldiers were just conscripts or colonial troops - as though that meant it didn't matter. Naval failures are again blamed on Mussolini, or the Italian Air Force and the Germans too. British successes were due to luck or because the RN had radar.

Dave

[designeraccd]

Well, fortunately for us the axis did have "Admirals" mussolini and adolf, both did significantly contribute to the ultimate failure of the axis war machine....with much help from ALL the Allied military arms! DFO :D

[kookaburra]

Heroic Italian Destroyers and a Mystery - who sank the Zeffiro?

My intention here was to briefly tell the tale of two very heroic and sacrificial actions in 1940 by the Italian Turbine Class destroyers, Espero and Zeffiro - both of which involved the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney (11) - but cursory research on the latter case has raised a bit of a mystery.

There are two widely published and entirely separate accounts of the sinking of Zeffiro, in different actions in different places four days apart ! I think we need an Italian Regia Marina specialist to come in somewhere to resolve this fog of war mystery for us.


Espero

'The Battle of the Espero Convoy took place just before sunset on June 28, 1940. It was the first major encounter between Italian and British naval forces of WW11. The fast Turbine Class destroyers Espero, Zeffiro and Ostro were carrying an Italian anti-tank unit to Tobruk when they encountered a powerful British naval force under Vice-Admiral John Tovey escorting several convoys from Malta to Alexandria. Tovey had seven cruisers and 16 destroyers, and as the Italians turned to run Tovey despatched five cruisers - Orion, Neptune, Gloucester, Liverpool and HMAS Sydney - to deal with them.

Seeing his force was hopelessly outgunned, the Italian commander, Captain Enrico Baroni on Espero sought to engage the British ships single-handedly (hitting HMS Liverpool once) and to lay a smokescreen between them while the rest of his force escaped. Acting independently HMAS Sydney undertook the task of destroying the 1073 ton Espero while the rest of Tovey's cruisers made their way through the smoke to go after the other Italian ships , which eluded them in the fading light as a result of the Espero's gallant actions.

In his war-time book Grey Gladiator (A&R, 1942)George H. Johnston gives a rather piteous account of
Espero's end. From 14,000 yards she was raked by Sydney's salvoes from end to end, leaving the ship ablaze. Sydney briefly set off to join the pursuit of the others, but was sent back to pick up survivors, and closing to 4000 yards, Captain John Collins must have been astonished when amid the flames two guns on the burning Espero opened fire again, and two torpedoes were launched at him. Further salvoes soon finished this resistance, and as the Italian ship sank bow first, Collins set off his whalers, which rescued 47 survivors, several of whom died aboard soon after.

Captain Baroni was gone (he was later to be posthumously awarded the Medaglia d´oro al valor militare), but there were many burned men still in the water screaming when Collins decided he had the leave, due to the proximity of coastal Italian submarine and air bases. A cutter laden with stores was left at the scene, but there is a minor mystery about this also. Johnston's book says the cutter was found empty by a patrolling destroyer two days later. But Michael Montgomery's 1981 book Who Sank The Sydney? cites Vice Admiral Collins as saying that it was learned many years after the war that seven men had made it to the cutter left by Collins, and made it ashore.

Apparently the rescued Italians were very well treated on Sydney - so much so, Johnston's book states,- that on reaching Alexandria they signed a petition asking to stay with the Australian ship (a bit of wartime propaganda maybe - it's a rather bombastic book). Johnston's book, however, does give some possible insight, if true, into the Regia Marina's performance. It states that while the Italian officers were first rate, most of the crews were conscripts with peasant backgrounds, and many with only seven days training behind them.


Zeffiro

Zeffiro had escaped this first encounter with the British unscathed, but - by one widespread version of events - was to perform an equally gallant screening action at the Battle of Calabria (Battle of Punta Stilo to Italians), the first great - but inconclusive - clash between the Mediterranean fleets on July 9, barely six weeks later.

As the damaged Italian Fleet withrew, a single destroyer - identified in many books and other sources as Zeffiro - made its way down the line in the face of the entire British Fleet, laying a smokescreen to cover the fleet withdrawal, and under immense fire from battleships, and cruisers. Again according to George Johnston's account, miraculously the little Zeffiro came through this hail of continuous fire almost unscathed when she reached Sydney's line of fire, and the book claims that there were many on the cruiser almost hoping she would escape.

But right at the end, she exploded in flames. Again, a number of sources, both Italian, Australian and British, attribute her sinking too to HMAS Sydney, and although his may have been the final case, obviously it was by joint action of the many British ships also.

The mystery is this:

An almost equal number of sources, both Italian and British, also state that the destroyer Zeffiro was sunk by Swordfish torpedo planes from 813 squadron on HMS Eagle in Tobruk Harbour on July 5 (four days before Calabria), along with the merchant ships Manzoni (3,955 tons) and Serenitas (5,171 tons) besides damaging the Liguria (15,354 tons) which was later scuttled. These accounts are on both the Italian Regia Marina , and the HMS Eagle websites for example, and a number of others.

I've looked around a little but have been unable to resolve this. As the photo of Espero below shows, these destroyers were pretty clearly marked, so obviously there was a subterfuge or mis-identification somewhere. Second photo shows battleship Guilo Cesare in action during the Battle of Calabria (Punta Stilo).

[Vince O'Hara]

A few comments about the last post. Liverpool's opening salvos caught the Italians by surprise. Espero had a top speed of 25 knots at the time of this engagement due to a machinery defect that prevented her third boiler from steaming. Her captain, Enrico Baroni believed--rightly or wrongly--that given the laden condition of his ships and the need to chase salvos, the enemy would run him down before dark. This is why he choose to sacrifice his ship so the other two would have a better chance to escape.

By the way, more than half the enlisted men in the Italian navy were volunteers on four year enlistments. Men were not sent to sea with seven days training.

About Zeffiro, there is no mystery. She was not at the Action off Calabria. The only Italian destroyer damaged in the action (none were sunk) was Alfieri--a six inch shell grazed her bow. Toward the end of the destroyer action the 12th Squadron led by Lanciere broke free of the smoke and came in view of the British fleet. She was under general fire for a time.

Vince

[Tiornu]

You may be surprised or amused to know that some modern Italian historians and writers claim that the Italian Navy actually won the Mediterranan naval war as they maintained the supply lines to Libya till the end of the land fighting and that they only surrended because their government ordered them too!
I've never seen it claimed that the RM won the war, which demonstrably wasn't the case, but I have seen the claim that the RM was not defeated. This is not unreasonable since the navy did carry out its mission of seeing supplies to North Africa. On the other hand, the Allies were able to keep Malta in action, and the RM should have prevented it.
As for the end of the fighting, naturally it would be only at the direction of the government.

Another bizarre claim is that the RN and presumably the RAN, was involved in a mass conspiracy to distort the official records so as to hide the fact that the Italian Navy was a lot more successful in the Med gunnery actions, scoring more hits that than the RN admitted!
That claim, I have seen.

[designeraccd]

No doubt the Italian Fleet fought bravely many times. However, not having aircraft carriers for air cover and attack; plus the constant shortage of fuel certainly handicapped the Italian Fleet. Given how "tight" things were in the Med for the RN, those two massive shortcomings of the Italian Fleet were a major assist to the razor thin RN units fighting them.

No matter how you look at it tens of thousands of lives were lost thanks to two meglomaniac dictatators, just luvlee....NOT! DFO :(

[Tiornu]

When it came to making war, Mussolini was no prize. As I recall, he instructed the RM to make plans for an aggresive war against Britain at a time when there were only two Italian battleships in service.
Administrative blunders in the 1920's set the stage. The fact that Mussolini would feel the need to make himself the head of the navy tells us that he had failed to understand the navy's legitimate interests. Denuding the fleet of its aircraft was as stultifying as the analogous decision in Britain. But unlike the British, the Italians never corrected the error.
At the time of the 1943 armistice, almost one half of the fleet's oil reserve was in the ship's bunkers. I would call that a crisis...!

[kookaburra]

Yes, Mussolini regarded Italy itself as an aircraft carrier that could control the Med. Tiornu, thank you for clearing up the matter of Zeffiro. Strange how many texts and sites still have it wrong - an example of how wartime propoganda and mistakes , particularly concerning Italy and the RM I feel, get perpetuated.

[Tiornu]

Glad to help. And especially glad to steal credit from Vince.
I do think we're starting to get information from the "other" side. For some reason, German sources made it into the English-language main stream quite early on. Japanese material is only starting to leak out due to the language barrie and general secretiveness. The Soviet situation has been improving ever since the Soviet Union bowed out. I'm not sure why Italian matters have been so hidden.

[kookaburra]

Yes, thanks Vince O'hara. My reading was at sea. Incredible really: that 1942 Johnston book (Grey Gladiator) has quite a graphic and extended description of the destruction of Zeffiro in the face of the fleet at Calabria, and it's all bullswool. Hmmm. The same book (about HMAS Sydney in the Med), btw, has a description of the Australian turret crews going into action against Bartolmeo Colleoni and Giovanni Del Bande Nere singing 'Roll Out The Barrel' - which always jarred, and never rang true to me.

Not the way Australians act, and not the right song if they did. I'm suddenly doubtful whether this George Johnston was the same man (newspaperman and war correspondent) who later wrote the Australian fiction classic, 'My Brother Jack', a truly wonderful and sensitive book, about a boy who did in his teenage years acquire a fascination with ships. I therefore assumed it was him, and if it was it was clearly a wartime 'quickie.'.

[Vince O'Hara]

Herakles, back at the beginning of this thread, fairly summarized the popular thinking on how the naval war went for the Regia Marina. I’d like to chime in with my opinions on these points.

“Wrong attitudes of Supermarina (Naval Head Quarter) in conducting the war strategies - crews and Captains demonstrated every day an extraordinary courage and skill but their initiatives were always frustrated by Supermarina's too prudent policy;”

Was Supermarina’s policy too prudent? Navies don’t set policies, governments do. That said, Supermarina’s leadership clearly believed that the continued existence of its battlefleet guaranteed the sea lanes with Africa and the security of Italy’s long coastline. They likewise understood they could not replace any major ships that were lost – at least none of the battleships before 1943. The Allied situation was clearly different. For example The RN could suffer losses that would have crippled the Regia Marina and still muster massive strength for specific operations—like the mid June 1942 Malta convoys-- by drawing from the Home and Eastern Fleets, (with an American squadron replacing the Home Fleet units temporarily dispatched to Gibraltar).

There were specific instances where Supermarina could have been more aggressive, particularly in the war’s first months, but Italy had absolutely nothing to gain from a naval battle unless it was a resounding victory. Still, when important objectives were at sake, the Italians risked their capital ships and generally fought them well.

“absolutely poor coordination with the Air Force;”

True. Instead of poor, I would say disgraceful.

“inadequate equipment in terms of radar and unsatisfactory precision of gun aiming systems”

Lack of radar was a handicap. Sonar would have come in handy, although Italian ASW forces preformed creditably without it. Regarding Italian marksmanship, especially in daylight actions, the Regia Marina practiced a different doctrine than the British, looking for range and early hits, but if you take all the daylight surface actions and add up the damage inflicted by each side, you’ll find that the Italians damaged more ships than did the British. Where Italian performance really suffered was with their torpedoes. How many British warships were damaged by Italian torpedoes? Just a few and most of those were fired by MAS or MS boats. The destroyers and torpedo boats, despite many opportunities complied a poor record in this regard.


“fuel lack”

True, especially for the last half of the campaign. Hard to fight with all your options open when you have to keep both eyes on the fuel gauge every time you leave port. On top of that, Italian warships tended to less economical steamers than their British equivalents.

“the enemy was the British Royal Navy, for centuries the most powerful armada of the world”

Most military organizations—despite their traditions/history/self-image—require a shaking out period before they perform effectively. One seldom considered advantage the British had is that they got off to a running start in the Mediterranean war, having nine months to shake out some of their peace time kinks. Their officers and men had had a chance to taste blood and find their warriors, unlike their Italian enemies.

“the Royal Navy was able to read almost all encrypted messages that should have been kept secret”

Much is made of “ULTRA” In fact, the British could read most of the German LW and Railroad signals relating to convoy traffic to Africa for most of the period from July 1941 onward. They could not read the main Italian naval ciphers. On their part, the Italians penetrated many British codes. There is a lot more work to be done in this regard and the complete story of intelligence in the Mediterranean War is still waiting to be told. Nonetheless, the British enjoyed a tremendous advantage in the war against traffic and their failure to make a greater impact than they did must be considered a significant Italian victory, inasmuch as getting the convoys through was the Italian navy’s major mission for much of the war and stopping them was one of the Royal Navy’s major missions for the same period.

--Vince

[herakles]

Vince, I was struck with your last paragraph. Breaking codes is a hugely significant matter. Taking action on the information gauged is another.

The problem always is that by taking action you highlight the obvious - that you are reading encrypted information. This will cause the originator to take appropriate action.

It was often felt prudent not to take action because of this. A good example concerns the German attack on Crete. Freyburg knew a great deal of the German plans from code breaking but was ordered not to take action for fear of disclosing this.

[Vince O'Hara]

Herkles, you’re correct that intelligence is not worth much if it can’t be acted on. You’re correct that taking action can expose the source. The British were very careful and generally they would not act against a convoy—at least with surface units—unless they could establish an alibi by having an aircraft “spot” the convoy first. (The Italians were very jealous of the quality of British aerial reconnaissance). The untold story I was referring to was the degree Italy obtained “actionable” intelligence from its decrypting of British signals. An early example was the Action off Calabria in which Supermarina had intelligence of British intentions based on decrypts.

About Freyburg, who ordered him not to take action? I’m looking at a copy of Hinsley’s (abridged) history of British intelligence and it says: “On 14 May London repeated to the Middle East the warning that the attack could come any day after 17 May, and General Freyberg so informed his troops.” If you’re referring to specific orders not to strengthen the defenses of Maleme beyond a certain level based on Ultra evidence alone, that’s a different thing. Due to intelligence the British expected the Germans and they took action to meet them . . . it’s just that their action proved inadequate, partially based on a lack of resources and partially based on a lack of experience on how best to exploit the intelligence they had. (According to Hinsley, German intelligence was much worse -- they ran into three to five times more Allied troops they they anticipated).

--Vince

[herakles]

I was specifically referring to the defence of Maleme. But also to the earlier information of the movements of German ships. This second problem was solved by the RN finding them "by accident".

Maleme would have been held, I'm sure of that. But by not being able to react properly to the information, Freyburg had to do the best he could. Even so, it was a close run thing.

I understand that orders came from London to Freyburg not to use the Enigma information.

[ceylon220]

The Italian submarine pictured here in 1935 in the drydock at Massawa was the
LUIGI SETTEMBRINI .
When Italy surrendered in 1943 she was taken over by the Allies and used for training purposes but was lost in November 1944 when she was in collision with a US Navy destroyer in the Atlantic and sank.

[Pedlar]

Two views of an Italian Bandiera class submarine alongside in Malta after the surrender

[tassie48]

Hi looking at ZARA as a radio control model in 1/48 scale she carried the seaplanes on the fore deck which is different good looking ship as well tassie48.

[ginapmorris]

Hi thought that you might be interested to know that my Dad was a gunner on board the Bartolomeo Colleoni when it was sunk off Crete. He survived in the water for about 8 hours and was picked up by the Sydney and was taken as a prisoner of war.




HERK, was a bit astonished your list missed the July 19, 1940 action off Cape Spada, Crete - in which HMAS Sydney (11), arrived in support of out-ranged British destroyers, engaged the fast Italian Condottieri Class cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni delle Bande Nere , destroyed the former and severely damaged the latter before she sped out of range (their class were the fastest cruisers in the world, and trialled at 40knots+).


It was the first cruiser duel of the war, and as such an important psychological victory for the allies - and of course, Australia's most noted ship-to-ship naval victory in WW11. It made Captain (later RA) John Collins famous, and the action itself prompted George Johnston's wartime book Grey Gladiator .. Mussolini's papers later showed that he was downcast by the outcome of this early ship-to-ship action, because he felt that the Italian commander, Rear Admiral Ferdinando Casardi, had simply not handled his ships well.

Of course I know you will remember it immediately I make this point, and I'm just correcting the list for the record, as the action did have some significance in giving the allies an early sense of having the upper hand operationally. C-i-C Admiral Andrew Cunningham attributed much in Sydney's success to the fact that the ship had fired 2,200 rounds in action during the preceding six weeks - the destruction of the gallant little destroyer Espero, the action with the E-boats, and the bombarding of the forts at Bardia.

[astraltrader]

Thanks for that information Gina.

How did your dad find his time as a POW in Britain??

Do you now live in Italy??

[TACKLINE]

Just prior to the Anzio landings,BULOLO arrived at Naples harbour to find many sunken ships and damaged port facilities done by the Germans before leaving. We finished up tying up alongside a sunken Italian Cruiser(Can't remember the name)which had been sunk whilst alongside and was lying on it's side like a beached whale. Our gangway was from the ship to the dockside over the Cruiser,a strange situation. We did get shore leave and conditions for the Neapolitans were dire. It was amazing what was on offer for a bar of toilet soap,cigarettes or chocolate!

[bezukhov]

Hi TACKLINE,
in my library I found a picture that shows exactly what you described. I hope you'll enjoy it.
The troopship in the pic should be the LANCASHIRE, the picture was taken during summer 1944.


Brief history of the sunken ship:
The (unlucky indeed) cruiser was RN Muzio Attendolo, a "R. Montecuccoli"-class light cruiser, commissioned in 1935. She was torpedoed by HMS UNBROKEN at 0800, 13 August 1942, and completely lost her bow.

Attendolo was conducted to Messina and then to Naples, where she was repaired. Works lasted until 3 December,1942. Less than 24 hours later, during an American air raid, the ship was hit by several bombs and finally sunk at 2210, 4 December. 188 men from her crew died and 46 were wounded.

The wreck, as represented in the pictures, was used until the end of the war as a "dock". She was later straightened and scrapped.

Greetings
Michele

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Thank you for this very interesting thread, I too am very interested in the Italian Fleet it was a remarkable and honourable service and they did their duty and much more under very trying circumstances and severe limitations from high command. The ships were some of the best of their day and the crews and officers very fine as well. I am glad to see interest in this fine service.

History is written often by the victors and the emphasis on the RN and its dominance of the situation was exaggerated often, there were major victories by the Italian fleet against the RN even tho some of them were achieved by light forces and not the heavies..they were still significant and had lasting impact.

[Robelfast]

Did any of the Italian ships or subs remain at Malta or was it a case of Alex and the Italian ports for them?