Who commanded the Royal Navy taskforce which destroyed much of the Italian fleet off Cape Matapan in 1941?
"head of a research section, which contributed significantly to cryptanalysis of the Enigma. Knox's team at ""The Cottage"" used rodding to decrypt intercepted Italian naval signals describing the sailing of an Italian battle fleet, leading to the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence credited the Allied victory at Matapan to this intelligence; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, who had commanded the victorious fleet at Matapan, went to Bletchley to personally congratulate 'Dilly and his girls'. In October 1941, Knox solved the Abwehr Enigma. Intelligence Services Knox (ISK) was established to decrypt Abwehr communications.In"
"the attack on Taranto torpedo bombers sank three Italian battleships in their naval base at Taranto and in March 1941 it sank three cruisers and two destroyers at Cape Matapan. The RN carried out an evacuation of troops from Greece to Crete and then from that island. In this the navy lost three cruisers and six destroyers but rescued 30,000 men. The RN was vital in interdicting Axis supplies to North Africa and in the resupply of its base in Malta. The losses in Operation Pedestal were high but the convoy got through. The Royal Navy was also vital in"
"HMS Matapan (D43) HMS ""Matapan"" (D43) was a later or 1943 fleet destroyer of the Royal Navy (RN). She was named after the Battle of Cape Matapan between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina, which ended in a decisive victory for the RN force, resulting in the destruction of three cruisers and two destroyers of the Italian Navy and was a heavy blow to the Italians. So far, she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear that name. She was placed in reserve on completion of her sea trials and would remain in such a"
"to escort convoys between Italy and Albania. On 28 November, an Italian squadron bombarded Corfu and on 18 December and 4 March, Italian task forces shelled Greek coastal positions in Albania. From January 1941, the main task of the RHN was to escort the convoys of Operation Excess to and from Alexandria, in co-operation with the RN. As the convoys transporting Lustre Force began in early March, the Italian Fleet sortied against them and the British were forewarned by ""Ultra"" decrypts. The Mediterranean Fleet intercepted the Italians at the Battle of Cape Matapan on 28 March and sank three cruisers"
"Battle of Taranto The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces, under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Italian naval forces, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 21 obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. The attack struck the battle fleet of the ""Regia Marina"" at anchor in the harbour of Taranto, using aerial torpedoes despite the shallowness of the water. The success of this attack augured the ascendancy of"
"Battle of Cape Spartivento The Battle of Cape Spartivento, known as the Battle of Cape Teulada in Italy, was a naval battle during the Battle of the Mediterranean in the Second World War, fought between naval forces of the Royal Navy and the Italian ""Regia Marina"" on 27 November 1940. On the night of 11 November 1940, the British incapacitated or destroyed half of the Italian fleet's battleships in a daring aerial assault as they lay at rest at Taranto. Until then, the Italians had left their capital ships in harbour, hoping its mere presence as a fleet in being"
"designed its fleet operations in the Pacific Ocean around its carriers instead of its battleships as capital ships. Battleships were found to be less useful in the expanses of the Pacific than in the confines of the Mediterranean; the older ships were too slow to escort the carriers, and were chiefly used as fire support for amphibious operations. Battle of Taranto The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces, under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Italian naval forces, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. The Royal Navy launched the"
"and sailed after dark on the 27th to intercept the Italians. The following morning, they were spotted by an aircraft from the carrier and the Battle of Cape Matapan began. Multiple air strikes by ""Formidable""s Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers damaged the battleship and crippled the heavy cruiser later that evening. Admiral Angelo Iachino, commander of the Italian fleet, ordered the two other heavy cruisers of the 1st Division to render assistance to ""Pola"" in the darkness. The Italian ships and the British arrived almost simultaneously at ""Pola""s location, but the Italians had almost no clue that the British were nearby."
"escort for the Operation ""Excess"" convoy was heavily hit by German dive bombers, sinking the cruiser and badly damaging the aircraft carrier and the cruiser . During March 1941, ""Calcutta"" escorted a series of troop convoys, known as Operation ""Lustre"", carrying four British divisions from Egypt to Greece. An Italian attempt to attack these convoys resulted in the Battle of Cape Matapan in which three Italian heavy cruisers were sunk. On 18 April 1941 ""Calcutta"" sailed with the Mediterranean Fleet when it escorted the fast transport to Malta, continuing to escort the fleet as it bombarded the port of Tripoli"
"Peter Reid (Royal Navy officer) Admiral Sir (John) Peter (Lorne) Reid GCB CVO (10 January 1903 – 26 September 1973) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Controller of the Navy. Reid joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1916. He served in World War II in operations off Norway and then off Algeria before taking part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941. He was Chief Signal Officer to Field Marshal Lord Wavell during defence of the East Indies in 1941 and then served on the staff of Sir James Somerville, Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Fleet,"
"Battle of Cape Passero (1940) The Battle of Cape Passero (1940), was a Second World War naval engagement between the British light cruiser and seven torpedo boats and destroyers of the Italian Regia Marina, southeast of Sicily, in the early hours of 12 October 1940. It took place in the aftermath of a British supply operation to Malta. In October 1940, the Mediterranean Fleet mounted a resupply operation to Malta from Alexandria, designated ""MB6"". The convoy had four cargo ships escorted by two anti-aircraft cruisers and four destroyers. The screening force was led by Vice-Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's flagship, ,"
"February, which was en route to bombard Genoa. The two forces did not encounter each other, and the Italian fleet returned to La Spezia. ""Vittorio Veneto"" returned to Naples on 22 March, and four days later led an attempt to attack British shipping off Greece, in company with eight cruisers and nine destroyers. The fleet would be supported by the ""Regia Aeronautica"" and the German ""Fliegerkorps X"" (10th Air Corps). This operation resulted in the Battle of Cape Matapan; the engagement began when the Italian 3rd Division—comprising the two heavy cruisers and and commanded by Vice Admiral Luigi Sansonetti—encountered the"
"under him the major formations of the Fleet were the 1st Battle Squadron (, , and ) 1st Cruiser Squadron (, , and ), 3rd Cruiser Squadron (, , ), Rear Admiral John Tovey, with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Destroyer Flotillas, and the aircraft carrier . In 1940, the Mediterranean Fleet carried out a successful aircraft carrier attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto by air. Other major actions included the Battle of Cape Matapan and the Battle of Crete. The Fleet had to block Italian and later German reinforcements and supplies for the North African Campaign. In"
"29 September, ""Giuseppe Garibaldi"" and the rest of the Italian fleet made another ineffectual sortie against Operation MB 5, a successful British attempt to ressuply Malta. On 11 November, ""Giuseppe Garibaldi"" was anchored at Taranto when British aircraft attacked the Italian fleet in the harbour. On 27 March, ""Giuseppe Garibaldi"" participated in the Battle of Cape Matapan. The commander of the ship at the time was Captain Stanislao Caraciotti. On 8 May she was part of an Italian force that failed to intercept Tiger convoy. On 28 July the cruiser was torpedoed and damaged by the British submarine . On"
"Greece, departing that evening to Crete, then heading north to join Force A (cruiser ) at Pireaus. From there the combined force under the command of Vice Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell moved east into the Straits of Otranto to divert the Italian Fleet whilst the balance of the British forces attacked the port of Taranto in Operation Judgement. Whilst in the straits, the cruisers intercepted an Italian convoy of four ships and destroyed three. In March 1941, again under Pridham-Whippel, ""Ajax"" and the cruisers ""Orion"", and formed Force B in an operation to bring the Italian fleet to battle, resulting in"
". Between 26 and 29 March 1941 ""Ascari"" and the rest of her division escorted the 3rd Cruiser Division during the Battle of Cape Matapan. Between March and September 1941 ""Ascari"" escorted a number of convoys between Italy and Libya. Most of these convoys were successful, but on 24 May 1941 the troopship was torpedoed and sunk by with the loss of nearly 1,300 men. On 23 September 1941 ""Ascari"" and sister ships laid a minefield off Malta, and on the following day they participated in a sortie by the 3rd and 8th Cruiser Divisions aimed at intercepting a British"
"battleships in port by using carrier borne aircraft, the obsolescent Fairey Swordfish, in the Battle of Taranto. As a result, the Italian fleet was withdrawn from Taranto and never again based in such a forward position. The Japanese used lessons from this battle in planning their attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The first fleet action of the war in the Mediterranean was the Battle of Cape Matapan. It was a decisive Allied victory, fought off the Peloponnesus coast of Greece from 27 March to 29 March 1941 in which Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces, under"
"not press the attack and was unable to cause significant damage to the convoys. Operation Vigorous (12-16 June 1942; known in Italy as the ""Battle of Mid June"") was instead his most important success; despite the losses caused by air and submarine attacks (the battleship ""Littorio"" was torpedoed, and the heavy cruiser ""Trento"" was sunk), he kept advancing towards the British convoy sailing from Alexandria to Malta, eventually leading to it aborting its mission and turning back to port. On 5 April 1943 Iachino was replaced by Admiral Carlo Bergamini as the commander of the Italian battle fleet. At the"
"same period (26–31 March 1941), but while the Royal Navy lost four heavy cruisers during the war (""York"", ""Exeter"", ""Cornwall"" and ""Dorsetshire""), at Matapan the Regia Marina lost three in a night. That the Italians had sortied so far to the east established a potential threat that forced the British to keep their battleships ready to face another sortie during the operations off Greece and Crete. After the defeat at Cape Matapan, the Italian Admiral Iachino wrote that the battle had The Italian fleet did not venture into the Eastern Mediterranean again until the fall of Crete two months later."
"coast, bombarding shore targets for the Army, protecting convoys to Malta, and screening major fleet movements. In 1941 ""Jervis"" was involved in a number of fleet actions. In March she was at Battle of Cape Matapan. In the course of the battle she was involved in the destruction of the Italian cruiser which had been crippled by heavy guns in attempting to recover the , which had been stricken by an aerial torpedo. Then ""Jervis"" came alongside ""Pola"" and boarded her, taking off the wounded before, with the destroyer , torpedoing and sinking ""Pola"". In April she led the force"
"Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission by a carrier attack at Taranto and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan. Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa, and at the end of March 1941 Rommel's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back the Commonwealth forces. In under a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged the port of Tobruk. By late March 1941 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact. However, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany responded with simultaneous invasions"
"their defences. On 9 July 1940, the Battle of Calabria was the only time the main Italian and British (with supporting Royal Australian Navy vessels) fleets engaged each other. Both sides claimed victory, but in fact the battle was inconclusive, and everyone returned to their bases as soon as possible. It confirmed to the Maltese people that the British still controlled the seas, if not from the Grand Harbour. This was confirmed again in March 1941, when the Royal Navy decisively defeated the Italian Navy in the Battle of Cape Matapan. The Italians had been heading to intercept the British"
"of Taranto. The raid came in undetected, and three battleships were sunk. Another major defeat was inflicted on the ""Regia Marina"" at Cape Matapan, where the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy intercepted and destroyed three heavy cruisers (, and ; all of the same class) and two s in a night ambush, with the loss of over 2,300 seamen. The Allies had Ultra intercepts, which uncovered the Italian movements, and radar, which enabled them to locate the ships and range their weapons at distance and at night. The better air reconnaissance skills of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air"
"bombs and flares, but the main force carried torpedoes. British decoy maneuvers and the Italians' lack of radar allowed the British to surprise the ill-prepared Italian fleet at anchor in Taranto. Three battleships were put out of action, half of the Italian fleet, for the loss of two Swordfish. Two airmen were killed and two others captured. The next day, the remaining Italian battleships withdrew to Naples, ceding control of the Mediterranean to the British. On 6 April 1941, a single Bristol Beaufort piloted by Flying Officer Kenneth Campbell attacked the German battleship ""Gneisenau"" in Brest harbour in Brittany, where"
"the advance is generally credited to them being unaware of the British strength, and the activity of British naval forces operating in the Mediterranean to interfere with Italian supply lines. There were Royal Navy seaports at Alexandria, Haifa, and Port Said. Following the halt of the Italian Tenth Army, the British used the Western Desert Force's Jock columns to harass their lines in Egypt. On 11 November 1940, the Royal Navy crippled or destroyed three Italian battleships in the Battle of Taranto. Then, on 8 December 1940, Operation Compass began. Planned as an extended raid, a force of British, Indian"
"Battle of Cape Matapan and the fighting at El Alamein as well as supporting the landings at Sicily and Salerno. During the period September 1941 to end of June 1943, No. 828 Squadron, based at RAF Hal Far, Malta, operated a squadron of Albacores under severe blitz conditions during the siege of Malta, mainly against Italian shipping and shore targets in Sicily. On 9 March 1942, 12 Albacores from were launched to attack the German at sea near Narvik. Based on information from one of six radar equipped aircraft already airborne, Albacores from 817 and 832 Squadrons launched torpedoes and"
"interrupted construction plans. The first two ships, ""Littorio"" and ""Vittorio Veneto"", were operational by the early months of Italy's participation in World War II. They formed the backbone of the Italian fleet, and conducted several sorties into the Mediterranean to intercept British convoys, though without any notable success. The two ships were repeatedly torpedoed throughout their careers: ""Littorio"" was hit by a torpedo during the attack on Taranto in November 1940 and again in June 1942; ""Vittorio Veneto"" was torpedoed during the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and while escorting a convoy to North Africa in September 1941."
"steaming to bombard Genoa. The two fleets did not make contact, however, and the Italians returned to port. On 26 March 1941, ""Vittorio Veneto"" departed port to attack British convoys to Greece. Germany pressured the Italian Navy to begin the operation, under the impression that they had disabled two of the three battleships assigned to the British Mediterranean Fleet. This resulted in the Battle of Cape Matapan the following day, during which ""Vittorio Veneto"" engaged British cruisers. She was then attacked by torpedo bombers from ; the first wave failed, but the second scored a single hit on both ""Vittorio"
"deal the British a sharp setback in a fleet action. His days of command at sea were numbered. As Iachino remarked, ""the use of these ships, which constituted at that moment nearly all of our fleet's effective units after the blow at Taranto, was decided by Supermarina mainly for reasons of morale, and to demonstrate that our combative spirit remained intact."" The battle features in the 1941 Italian film ""The White Ship"" directed by Roberto Rossellini. Battle of Cape Spartivento The Battle of Cape Spartivento, known as the Battle of Cape Teulada in Italy, was a naval battle during the"
"was covered at a distance to the north by a much stronger naval force – ""Force H"", commanded by Admiral James Somerville. This comprised the battlecruiser , the aircraft carrier , the cruisers and and nine destroyers. The Italians were aware of this operation and despatched a strong naval force (2 battleships, 6 cruisers, 14 destroyers) under Admiral Inigo Campioni to intercept it. They were themselves met by the covering force, ""Force H"", and the Battle of Cape Spartivento ensued. The Italian fleet's orders barred it from a decisive encounter. The Italian destroyer ""Lanciere"" and the British cruiser HMS ""Berwick"""
"progressed rapidly in rank. He commanded a destroyer during the First World War and through most of the interwar period. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and two Bars, for his performance during this time, specifically for his actions in the Dardanelles and in the Baltics. In the Second World War, as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, Cunningham led British naval forces to victory in several critical Mediterranean naval battles. These included the attack on Taranto in 1940, the first completely all-aircraft naval attack in history, and the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941. Cunningham controlled the defence of the Mediterranean"
"May 1940 the squadron provided support to the Dunkirk evacuation. In June 1940, the squadron embarked on and sailed for the Mediterranean in August, attacking and minelaying Benghazi, Rhodes and Tobruk. The squadron gained early fame with its involvement in the Battle of Taranto in 1940, when the Italian Battlefleet in harbour at Taranto was raided; which redefined the use of air power from the sea. The aircraft of the commanding officer was lost, against the crippling of half the Italian fleet. In March 1941, the squadron fought in the Battle of Cape Matapan. The squadron re-equipped in August 1941,"
"who according to survivors had abandoned the ship without a lifejacket as he had given it to a wounded sailor, disappeared in the sea during the night, like most of ""Zara""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s crew. Over 2,300 Italian officers and seamen from the five ships perished in Italy’s worst naval defeat. Admiral Cattaneo was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor. Carlo Cattaneo (admiral) Carlo Cattaneo (October 6, 1883 – March 29, 1941) was an Italian admiral during World War II. He was killed in the Battle of Cape Matapan. Cattaneo was born in Sant'Anastasia, Naples, in 1883, and after attending the"