by Mark Simmons
To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the ass. This is what I shall do. I do not forget that in 1918 there were 540,000 deserters in Italy. And if we do not take advantage of this opportunity to pit our navy against the French and British forces, what is the use of building 600,000 tons of warships? Some coast guards and some yachts would be enough to take the young ladies on a joy ride.12
Notes
1 Bosworth, R.J.B. Mussolini p.369
2 Ciano, G. Ciano’s Diary 1937–1943 p.341, 347
3 Ibid p.362
4 Ibid p.357
5 Playfair, Major-General I.S.O. The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume 1 p.39
6 Deakin, F.W. The Brutal Friendship p.12
7 New York Times 11 June 1940
8 Bosworth, p.369
9 Ibid p.370
10 Garibaldi, Luciano, Mussolini: The Secrets of his Death p.130
11 Deakin, p.6
12 Ciano, p.341
2
The Regia Marina
When Italy declared war in June 1940 the armed forces had been on a war footing since the Ethiopian campaign of 1935. For a brief period after that some Regia Marina (Italian Navy) auxiliary services were reduced but by the end of 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out in which Italy became heavily involved. That was followed by various international crises, and finally the occupation of Albania in April 1939.
The Regia Marina had planned – like the other services – for a major war in 1942; when war came in 1940 it was far from ready. It had only two of the Andrea-Doria class of reconstructed battleships in commission; built during the First World War, they had been completely modernised, weighing 23,622 tons and with a speed of 27 knots they mounted 10 12.6-inch guns, 12 5.2-inch, 10 3.5-inch and 19 37mm anti-aircraft guns. Armour protection had also been improved over the magazines and vital machinery areas. A main armament gun turret had been removed from the midship section to reduce weight. Two more ships of the class, Duilio and Doria, were near to entering service after a similar reconstruction.1
More impressive were the Vittorio Veneto class (also known as Littorio class) ships; four vessels were laid down making use of the maximum dimensions permitted by the Washington naval treaty. They displaced 35,000 tons and were capable of 30 knots. They mounted 9 15-inch guns and 12 6-inch, 4 4.7-inch, 12 3.5-inch and some 50 anti-aircraft guns.2 These ships were comparable to the British King George V class battleships. However they were more heavily armed and armoured and faster than the British Queen Elizabeth class predominately used by the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Work on the fourth ship of the class Impero was ultimately suspended in 1943; Roma (the third) did enter service in the spring of 1943.
Two more years might have helped the Regia Marina to improve any technical weakness in its vessels, but it was also behind most of the other leading navies in the areas of night fighting, torpedo launching, radar and asdic. Lack of radar in particular hampered early warning, gunnery, and night actions. Radar and asdic were well known in principle, but home industries were well behind in research and development. It was only towards the end of the war that the navy received a few experimental radar sets.3
In most areas of supply the navy was well catered for. The naval shipyards worked throughout the war, using almost exclusively supplies stockpiled before the conflict. Changing fortunes in the Libyan desert war forced the navy to re-equip various ports several times from its own stocks. At times it even helped out the other armed services as well.
However in the supply of fuel oil the navy was always hampered. In June 1940 the navy had 1,800,000 tons of oil stored. Under war conditions it was estimated the fleet would need 200,000 tons per month. However Mussolini considered this more than enough for the ‘three month campaign’, which he felt was the likely duration of the war. He even insisted the navy give up 300,000 tons to the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) and civilian industry. As the war progressed the Regia Marina was gradually forced to limit ship movements to reduce consumption. By 1943 it was down to 24,000 tons a month.
Commander Marc Antonio Bragadin wrote: ‘Following its service tradition the navy was largely impervious to Fascist political infiltration.’ This was true up to a point and certainly true of the older aristocratic officers, but many of the younger officers had been imbued with Fascist principles.4 Admiral Cunningham visited the Italian Naval Academy at Livorno (Leghorn) in 1934, and observed
the Italians appeared to give their young officers a good training which ended in an extensive cruise on a sailing training ship. According to our values the discipline was unnecessarily harsh, imprisonment in a cell being awarded for quite minor offences. The Italian Navy was always royalist, and such conversations as I had with the more senior officers disclosed considerable resentment with the Fascist Regime, particularly because two Fascist officials, in the guise of physical training experts, had recently been appointed to the staff presumably to keep an eye on what went on and to indoctrinate the cadets in the Fascist creed.5
Although Benito Mussolini had been Prime Minister and was dictator of Italy, unlike Adolf Hitler he never became head of state. His Black Shirts might swear loyalty to him but the armed forces did not. Their allegiance was to King Victor Emmanuel III, and it was the power of the King through the armed forces that removed Mussolini from power in 1943.6
In 1938 Cunningham was entertained to lunch on board the battleship Conte di Cavour when an Italian squadron visited Malta. He found the battleships ‘fine examples of old ships modernised and the work had been skilfully done.’ He came to the conclusion such was their reception, ‘that he [Admiral Riccardi] must have embarked the whole catering staff and band from one of the best hotels in Rome, so distinguished was his entertainment.’ He found he ‘liked Admiral Riccardi and the senior officers who were most courteous and pleasant. The younger officers however, were ill-mannered and boorish.’7
On the whole before the war the two navies had a good relationship. For the Regia Marina it was a pity a good relationship did not exist with the air force, the Regia Aeronautica. The four major navies of the world in the years after the First World War had come to the conclusion individually that it was critical to develop aircraft carriers and a naval air arm. The Regia Marina did develop its own air arm at this time, but with the creation of the Regia Aeronautica in 1923 the navy was ordered to discontinue all aviation activity.
In Britain towards the end of the First World War, when the Royal Air Force came into being, the Royal Navy also had to hand over all its aircraft and personnel. The RAF then controlled naval aviation for the next 21 years. However the relationship between the two services, although prickly at times, did bear fruit. Naval aviation made significant progress, and just in time for the Second World War an independent Fleet Air Arm was formed.
In Italy Mussolini and the Regia Aeronautica argued that the Italian peninsula represented a great aircraft carrier in the middle of the Mediterranean. Therefore naval proposals to build carriers were firmly rejected. Had the two services worked in close tandem this might have been a reasonable stance. However the Regia Aeronautica greatly overrated its own capabilities. Count Ciano observed: ‘The usual air force boasts were inspired by their hatred and distrust of the navy.’8 An example of this hubris was that the air force entered the war with no torpedo-carrying aircraft and only developed one, with naval help, once the war was in full swing.9 During the war the two Italian services made great efforts to overcome their difficulties but years of neglect and mistrust could not be quickly forgotten. The result was that the navy fought its war without adequate air cover, and more specifically a lack of aircraft carriers. In 1941 Mussolini realised his mistake and directed that two big ocean liners under construction be converted to aircraft carriers. The liner Roma, renamed the Aquila, and the liner Augustus, which became the Sparviero were taken over. All too late however, as both ships never entered service. By 1943 Aquila was finished, only waiting for its aircr
aft.10
On the whole the Supermarina, the Italian Navy High Command was a top-heavy, overly hierarchical organisation. Practically its ‘operations rooms’ worked well, although failed to develop ideas and strategy. Only through its smaller units did the navy display a genius for ideas which had little import from the high command. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (German Intelligence Service), said to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel:
The Italian Navy has for the most part excellent qualities, which should enable it to stand up to the best navies in the world. It is too bad that its High Command lacks decision. But this probably is because it has to work under the disordered directives of the Italian Supreme Command which is controlled by the Army.11
Notes
1 Preston, Antony, Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II p.162
2 Ibid p.163
3 Bragadin, M.A. The Italian Navy in World War II p.4
4 Ibid p.5
5 Cunningham, A.B. A Sailor’s Odyssey p.162–163
6 Bosworth, R.J.B. Mussolini p.401
7 Cunningham, p.190–191
8 de Belat, R. The Struggle for the Mediterranean 1939–1945 p.68
9 Bragadin, p.11
10 Ibid p.98–99
11 Ibid p.13
3
Britain Alone
On 22 June 1940, the aged Marshal Petain, as head of the French Government, signed an armistice with Germany. Britain was alone. But this was not to say that the inhabitants of the island were truly alone, as Britain had the considerable support of her Empire. From Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, troops flooded into Britain, although it took the collapse of the coalition government in South Africa under Barry Hertzog before that country declared war, under a new administration formed by Jan Smuts. Foreign cruisers and destroyers joined the Royal Navy and later the 8th Army would be made up with units from all corners of the Empire.
With the threat of a cross-channel invasion looming and Italy’s entry into the war, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, suggested on 17 June that the Mediterranean Fleet should sail for Gibraltar, where it could better support the Home Fleet and the vital trade routes across the Atlantic, thus withdrawing from the eastern Mediterranean. Admiral Cunningham ‘replied later the same day, detailing my proposed arrangements for the withdrawal of the navy, saying that the possibility had already been considered by General Wavell, and that in this event it was his opinion that Egypt could not be held for long.’1 On paper this was not an unreasonable stance for the Admiralty to take. The number of Italian troops in Libya so greatly outnumbered the British Army of the Nile that the safe retention of Alexandria as a supply base was in question. However Winston Churchill would have none of it. The Mediterranean must be held; anything less would be tantamount to giving up the Empire. And from the Mediterranean, Jews, Arabs, Maltese and Cypriots had flocked to the colours.
Egypt itself had been in the throes of a major political crisis; Mohammad Mahmoud Pasha had resigned and had been replaced by the chief of the royal household, Aly Maher Pasha. This was an indication that the government, perhaps, did not reflect the anti-German feeling of the people. Egypt would become a hotbed of clandestine Axis-Fascist supporters and sympathisers, requiring a large garrison.
Malta was another problem; the British Army and RAF believed the island could not be held in the event of war with Italy. However the Royal Navy urged that everything possible should be done to retain the island, arguing that the fleet might be unable to fulfil its objective of severing Italian sea communications with North Africa and the position in the eastern Mediterranean could be endangered.2 This attitude reflected that of Horatio Nelson, who on arriving in Grand Harbour in June 1803, wrote to the Admiralty: ‘I now declare that I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India; and that it will give us great influence in the Levant, and indeed in all the southern ports of Italy. In this view, I hope we shall never give it up.’3
However, the Royal Navy was well aware in the event of war with Italy, Malta would no longer serve as a fleet base. If the fleet was deprived of the use of the island, it might be unable to control the passage through the central basin. The only port in the eastern Mediterranean that could accommodate a reasonably sized fleet was Alexandria, where many commercial facilities existed, and it would have to serve both as an operational and main base. It was far from ideal, being 800 miles from the Italian mainland and an almost equal distance to Malta, and the port itself was difficult to protect from the sea. There were questions too over oil fuel supply, ship repairs, docking facilities and general supplies. At Port Said there were the Shell Company’s storage tanks, well situated, but at Alexandria the tanks were exposed and if bombed might result in the harbour waters being set on fire. It was therefore planned to keep 25,000 tons of fuel oil stored afloat in dispersed tankers, a wasteful use of these vital ships. They would replenish at Haifa where well situated storage tanks held 60,000 tons. Supply by an overland pipeline was thought to be far too vulnerable. Supply could also come via the Red Sea and Suez Canal, which might be targeted by the enemy but Cunningham was confident he could maintain this route.
The repair ship HMS Resource was berthed in Alexandria harbour, to conduct running repairs. Also destroyers and submarines had their own repair and depot ships. However dockyard facilities were a pressing problem. There was only one graving dock (the classic form of drydock) in the eastern Mediterranean capable of taking warships up to a 6-inch gun cruiser of the Arethusa class. This was the Gabbari dock, owned by the Egyptian Ports and Lights Administration, later taken over by the Admiralty Dockyards. Docking was of vital importance, not only for repairs, but also for cleaning the bottoms of ships. The weed growth that accumulated in Alexandria harbour would soon reduce the speed of ships and would give the Italians an advantage. Even by March 1939 the docking of capital ships had still not been solved. It was suggested the Malta floating dock, capable of docking the most modern battleships, should be moved to Alexandria.
The commander-in-chief objected, arguing the disadvantage of losing Malta docking facilities altogether. Instead the Admiralty moved the Portsmouth floating dock (A.F.D.5) to Alexandria where it arrived, after an anxious voyage, only three weeks before the outbreak of war with Germany. It had been built in 1912 and during the First World War had served the Grand Fleet in Scottish waters. On arrival in Alexandria the boilers had to be steamed and the machinery run continually throughout the whole period of the war, and at no point did it break down. However it could only take vessels up to 31,500 tons, which included Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign class battleships in a specially lightened condition but not more modern battleships. This imposed limitations on the makeup of the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet. The Malta floating dock was damaged in some of the first air raids of the war, finally being put out of action and sunk in June 1940.4
Stores and victual supplies for the fleet had to be moved from Malta. In January 1939 depots were set up in Alexandria and Port Said. With the coming of war the main depot buildings covered three acres, which rapidly grew to 30. The good dockside sheds were soon needed as transit stores by all three services. The Royal Navy had to requisition other buildings such as cotton warehouses, even an old church and racehorse stables, which caused delays and security risks with stores scattered over a wide area. It also led to a need for more transport, which the British Army helped provide. Like fuel oil, reserve ammunition for the fleet was stored afloat in merchant ships, while an underground magazine was under construction in caves near Dekheila.
At the outbreak of war with Germany the Mediterranean Fleet was drastically reduced, even though base facilities at Alexandria were well in hand. Also before Italy entered the war Admiral Cunningham had transferred his flag ashore to Malta in November 1939. The battleships Barham and Warspite returned to UK waters, followed later by destroyers, depot and repair ships and MTBs. The battleship Malaya and aircraft carrier Glorious were sent to Aden to operate against raiders in the Indian Oc
ean. The heavy cruisers Devonshire, Suffolk and Norfolk joined the Home Fleet. By December the Mediterranean Fleet consisted of four light cruisers, an Australian destroyer flotilla and two submarines.
After Winston Churchill became Prime Minister the policy of withdrawal from the Mediterranean was reversed. Between April and June 1940 General Wavell received reinforcements from Australia and New Zealand and later South Africa. The Desert Army was reinforced with cruiser tanks and the RAF with Hurricane fighters and Wellington twin-engined bombers.
By May the British Mediterranean Fleet was back to near its pre-war strength of four battleships, eight 6-inch gun cruisers, 20 fleet destroyers and the old aircraft carrier Eagle. Also at Alexandria was a French squadron of one battleship, four cruisers and three destroyers.
Many of the battleships of all three nations in the Mediterranean were of First World War vintage. Only the four Italian ships and HMS Warspite had been modernised in the 1930s. For Warspite this involved new, lighter machinery and boilers, saving weight for additional armour protection and defensive weapons, and her main armament was updated. Reconstruction took three years involving completely gutting parts of the ship. She emerged from Portsmouth Dockyard in March 1937 virtually a new vessel, her major overhaul costing £2.3 million.5
In the western Mediterranean the French Fleet operating from bases at Toulon, Bizerta, Algiers and Oran was powerful, including two modern battlecruisers Dunkerque and Strasbourg, as well as two older battleships. At Gibraltar, under the Flag Officer, North Atlantic, which would later become Force H, was one British battleship, one light cruiser and nine destroyers.
The Italian fleet with their central position could concentrate superior force in the area of their choice, while being prepared for attacks from both directions. They had the advantage of speed over the British and more submarines than the Allies. However, a coordinated attack by the Allies would give them superior force, and the British had an aircraft carrier, though at that time her value was still unknown.
