"ملف 28/7 II الحرب: البروباجاندا - الرأي المحلي" [و‎‎١‎١‎٣] (٦٨٦/٢٢٥)

whereby the strategic ring was held. And in this connection
it is interesting to note that curing the whole three years
of the war in the l editerranean the British Navy has not
lost a single ship by enemy surface action.
First action: Calabria, Cth July, 1940. The
Italians tried to draw the British Mediterranean Fleet
close to the Italian coasts m order to destroy it by sea
and air power. F.h.S. "Warspite” damaged the Italian flag
ship at twenty-six thousand yards and chased the Italian
fleet to within sight of the Calabrian coast. Heavy bor ting
attacks were made on the British fleet by the greater part
of the Italian Metropolitan air forces but were completely
unsuccessful although the "barspite” alone had five hundred
bombs dropped around her. We had no fighters at sea to
Intercept these attacks. For months after this, the Italian
fleet avoided cruising into the open Mediterranean.
The next great action was Taranto - since the
Italians wouldn’t come out, Britain went in. At Taranto
on the night of 11/12 November, 1940, three Italian battle
ships were heavily damaged, two actually partly submerged
after an attack by our Fleet air arm. Two cruisers and
two Fleet auxiliaries were also badly damaged. Italy’s
effective battleship strength was thus halved at least for
many months. Y/hat is worth stressing is the great courage
and audacity of the utterly outnumbered British naval
forces which brought attacking aircraft to within one hundred
and fifty miles of the enemy’s main naval base. But between
the battles of Calabria and Taranto, memorable Fleet actions
occurred. In the first place again and again convoys were
passed during this period right through the entire length
of the Mediterranean including the Narrows in spite of
enormous Axis air superiority of land-based aircraft along
the whole length of the Narrov/s. Also on the 19th July,
1940, the cruiser "Sydney” engaged two Italian cruisers
each more powerful and faster than herself, and yet sank
"Bartholomeo Colleoni” and put the other to flight. Also
our cruiser "Ajax” on the 2nd October, 1942, in a single-
handed action against an Italian heavy cruiser and seven
destroyers, sank three destroyers and put the cruiser to
flight. After Taranto the Italian fleet was reduced
almost to impotence arid the locking of the British strstegic
ring via the Mediterranean became an accomplished fact.
Now comes phase 2. Germans saw in the spring of
1941 that Italy was nearly out of the war. So they ran
reinforcements to fill the gap. Here then we get a great
diversion of German air forces and later a considerable
diversion of German land forces in an attempt to break the
British strategic ring in the Mediterranean. Over four
hundred German firstline craft, long-range divebombers,
fighters and reconnaissance machines were based on Sicily
in the spring of 1941. In spite of this, large British
convoys continued to pas ., right through the Mediterranean
including British convoys going to Greece with whole
divisions of men; added to this the British offensive in
Libya was supported from the sea. But heavy losses were
sustained. The first attack on the "illustrious” was made
on the 10th January, 1941. In all ten attacks within
twenty-four hours were made on this aircraft-carrier at sea
and in Malta. In a second attack forty German divebornbers
were concentrated on the "Illustrious” alone. Several
heavy bombs hit her and fires broke out fore and aft -
the ship steering out of action with a heavy list. Yet
the "Illustrious” steered by engines continued to beat off
all subsequent attacks with her ack ack guns and was saved.
Next, on the 27th March, 1941, emboldened by the German
air forces the Mediterranean Italian fleet again put to
sea with the purpose of cutting British convoy routes to