Taranto's Shadow: The Dawn of Naval Air Power

🇮🇹 The Regia Marina's Posture

For decades, the Italian Regia Marina's First Squadron had been based at Taranto, a crucial port on Italy's south-east coast. Following Italy's entry into World War II in 1940, the Italian forces in Libya relied heavily on supply lines from Italy. Adhering to a "fleet in being" doctrine, the Italian navy typically kept its warships in harbor, reluctant to engage the Royal Navy in open battle, especially given the difficulty of replacing lost capital ships. This powerful fleet at Taranto, comprising six battleships (one still in training), seven heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eight destroyers, posed a significant potential threat to British shipping.

🇬🇧 Royal Navy's Strategic Imperative

The British Royal Navy had long considered plans to neutralize the Italian fleet in the Mediterranean. As early as the 1935 Abyssinian crisis, plans for attacking Taranto were explored. Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, initiated training for a night attack using Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers, recognizing the Fleet Air Arm's unique night attack capability. This concept, known as Operation Judgment, gained urgency after the fall of France and the loss of the French Mediterranean fleet, which necessitated a rebalancing of naval power.

🚧 Taranto's Defenses

The Italian naval base at Taranto was equipped with 101 anti-aircraft guns and 193 machine guns. It was also intended to be protected by barrage balloons, though only 27 were in place on the night of the attack due to strong winds having dispersed 60 balloons days prior. Crucially, capital ships were meant to be shielded by anti-torpedo nets. However, only about one-third of the required 12,800 meters of netting was rigged, and these nets did not extend to the harbor bottom, leaving a 60 cm gap that British torpedoes could exploit.

🌌 First Wave: Precision and Sacrifice

The initial wave of 12 aircraft, led by Lieutenant Commander Kenneth "Hooch" Williamson, departed HMS Illustrious just before 21:00 on November 11, 1940. This wave comprised six torpedo-armed Swordfish, two with flares and bombs, and four with bombs. Despite some aircraft straying in thin clouds, the main group approached Mar Grande harbor at 22:58. Flares illuminated the target, followed by dive-bombing attacks on oil tanks. Three aircraft, led by Williamson, attacked over San Pietro Island, striking the battleship Conte di Cavour with a torpedo that created an 8.2-meter hole below her waterline. Williamson's aircraft was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Subsequent attacks targeted Andrea Doria and Littorio, with Littorio taking two torpedo hits.

🌙 Second Wave: Sustained Pressure

Approximately 90 minutes after the first, a second wave of nine aircraft, led by Lieutenant Commander J. D. Hale, approached from the north. One aircraft turned back due to a detached auxiliary fuel tank, and another was delayed by repairs, resulting in eight reaching the target. Flares were dropped shortly before midnight. Two aircraft targeted Littorio again, securing another hit. Another Swordfish, despite being hit twice by anti-aircraft fire, launched a torpedo at Vittorio Veneto, which missed. The battleship Duilio was hit by a torpedo, causing a large hole and flooding her forward magazines. Lieutenant G. Bayley's aircraft was shot down after successfully attacking Littorio, marking the second and final British aircraft loss.

💥 Italian Defense and Casualties

The Italian defenses mounted a formidable anti-aircraft barrage, firing 13,489 shells from land batteries and thousands more from ships. However, the effectiveness was hampered by the limited number of operational barrage balloons and the failure to fully deploy anti-torpedo nets. Notably, Italian searchlights were not used during either attack, which significantly aided the British night operation. In total, 59 Italian personnel were killed and over 100 wounded. Two Italian fighter aircraft were destroyed on the ground, and two unexploded bombs hit the cruiser Trento and the destroyer Libeccio, with near misses damaging the destroyer Pessagno.

📉 Limited Immediate Convoy Disruption

While a tactical triumph, the Battle of Taranto had a surprisingly limited immediate effect on its primary objective: disrupting Axis convoys to Africa. In fact, Italian shipping to Libya actually increased in the months following the attack, from an average of 37,204 tons per month in the preceding four months to 49,435 tons per month between October 1940 and January 1941. Some historians argue that the British naval authorities "failed to deliver the true knockout blow that would have changed the context within which the rest of the war in the Mediterranean was fought."

🛠️ Shallow-Water Torpedo Innovation

A significant technical innovation demonstrated at Taranto was the Royal Navy's method for preventing torpedoes from diving too deep in shallow waters. Naval aviation experts had previously believed that torpedo attacks required a minimum water depth of 23 meters (75 feet). Taranto harbor, however, was only about 12 meters (39 feet) deep. The British solution involved attaching a drum beneath the aircraft's nose, from which a wire led to the torpedo's nose. As the torpedo dropped, the wire's tension pulled its nose up, resulting in a "belly-flop" entry rather than a deep dive, allowing it to function effectively in the shallow harbor.

🇯🇵 Influence on Pearl Harbor

The Battle of Taranto served as a crucial case study for the Imperial Japanese Navy during their planning for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese Lieutenant Commander Takeshi Naito, assistant naval attaché in Berlin, personally investigated the Taranto attack and later had extensive discussions with Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the Pearl Harbor strike. A Japanese military mission also visited Italy in May 1941 for detailed discussions with the Italian Navy. While the Japanese had been developing shallow-water torpedo solutions since 1939, Taranto provided invaluable real-world validation. The Pearl Harbor attack, a much larger operation involving six Japanese fleet carriers, resulted in far greater devastation and cemented the U.S. Navy's shift towards carrier-centric fleet operations in the Pacific, recognizing battleships as less effective capital ships in vast ocean theaters.

📜 References