The Battle of Matapan 1941

by Mark Simmons

  According to Mavis Batey:

  I was able to scupper the idea that we had been given codebooks captured by Cynthia or anybody else, if we had such books we shouldn’t have needed codebreakers as it would have been child’s play … At last the Italians had got what they needed to exonerate poor Admiral Lais. They asked me if they brought the actual Matapan battle messages from Rome whether I would show them how they had been broken individually without a code book.

  A tall order for Mavis after 40 years.

  Dr Giulio Divita went with the Admiral in charge of Italian naval history to see the Ultra decodes.

  When I held the message headed SUPERMARINA in my hand it seemed as if time had stood still and I was nineteen again and wearing a green jumper … Cynthia was finally put to bed too, no seduction and no codebooks but just hard cryptographic slogging and a lucky break.8

  Of course Admiral Cunningham knew all about this years before. Mavis met the Admiral, the ‘Nelson of the Mediterranean’, at Bletchley Park.

  Almost as soon as the last shot was fired, Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, rang through to Bletchley Park with the message ‘Tell Dilly that we have won a great victory in the Mediterranean and it is entirely due to him and his girls.’ Our sense of elation knew no bounds when Cunningham came down in person to congratulate us a few weeks later. Somebody rushed down to the Eight Bells public house to get a couple of bottles of wine, and if it was not up to the standard of the C-in-C Mediterranean was used to, he didn’t show it when he toasted ‘Dilly and his girls.’ ‘Dilly’ was Dillwyn Knox, a classical scholar, papyrologist and brilliant cryptographer from the First World War and I was one of his ‘girls’.9

  For 30 years after the war Mavis said nothing about her work at Bletchley, until the secret was finally revealed in 1974. ‘I said, “This is what I did in the war.” My husband said. “That’s interesting. What’s for tea?”’10

  Notes

  1 Bragadin, M.A. The Italian Navy in World War II p.99

  2 Ibid p.99

  3 Ibid p.100

  4 Ibid p.101–103

  5 Erskine Ralph & Michael Smith, Action this Day p.107

  6 Hyde, H. Montgomery, Cynthia. The Spy who Changed the Course of the War

  7 Sebag–Montefiore, Hugh, Enigma: The Battle for the Code p.130–131

  8 Erskine & Smith, p.107–109

  9 Ibid p.96

  10 The Times, 7/9/2009

  21

  What If

  What if there had been no battle of Matapan? After all the Italian fleet had been goaded into action in March 1941, mainly at the behest of their German ally; the operation seemed doomed to failure from the beginning.

  Admiral Iachino was ordered to ‘carry out an attack on enemy shipping in the zone south of Gavdos and in the west Aegean’, to cut the British military aid to Greece from Egypt, yet the Germans did not attack Greece until 6 April. Really the Italian fleet stood little chance of achieving anything under such circumstances other than meeting the Mediterranean Fleet; far better if it had been deployed during the British retreat and evacuation from Greece and/or Crete.

  On 21 April General Wavell, after meeting the Greek leaders, decided he had no alternative but immediately to embark such part of his force as he could. The attempt to try and hold Greece in the face of the German invasion had been a disaster, one long series of retreats. The withdrawal tasked Admiral Cunningham with a hazardous and intricate operation at a time when his forces were already severely taxed.1 Operation Demon, as it was known, was commanded by Vice-Admiral Pridham-Wippell, with all the available cruisers and destroyers. He had his headquarters at Suda Bay, Crete, while Cunningham remained in Alexandria.

  The C-in-C’s policy for the evacuation was that as many men as possible were to be got away, carrying their small arms and valuable equipment such as gun sights and optical instruments. Supplies and stores of value were to be given to the Greek people; everything else would be destroyed.

  Embarkation took place at widely scattered beaches. Ships laden with troops would go to Alexandria, except the landing ships Glenearn and Glengyle and the destroyers which would ply between Greece and Crete.2

  Admiral Cunningham wrote of the operation, in which 50,672 soldiers were carried away from Greece.

  The large convoys taking the troops on from Crete to Alexandria came through without loss, and it has to be remembered that the whole operation was carried out without any cover from the battle-fleet. Every available destroyer was engaged in the actual evacuation, and none was left to take the battle-fleet to sea until the very end, when it was essential to provide cover for the large convoys to Egypt. We owed much to the inertness of the Italian fleet. Had they chosen to interfere, Operation Demon would have been greatly slowed up. At the worst, it might have been interrupted altogether.3

  As it was, although Cunningham greatly regretted it, only 8,000 soldiers were left behind and forced to surrender.

  Why then did the Italian fleet not put in an appearance at this critical time when it might have been effective? Also why did they not put in an appearance during the ‘Tiger’ convoy run from Gibraltar via Malta to Alexandria? This convoy passed through the straits of Gibraltar during the night of 5/6 May; or they could have attacked the slow convoy that left Alexandria for Malta on 5 May.

  Commander Bragadin in the official Italian naval history felt an attack during the evacuation of British troops from Greece

  … could have produced excellent results. Nevertheless, such an attack was never carried out, and there are those who criticise the navy for being as prudent in this case as it had been imprudent at the battle of Matapan.

  This criticism however, is only valid in retrospect. The fact the British Air Force in the eastern Mediterranean was then in a critical situation was only discovered by the Italians later. As for the British air forces at Malta, they were up to strength. Add to this the fact that the operation with only light units did not signify anything, for the Alexandria fleet was on the alert and ready to bar the way to any opposition.4

  This seems at first glance to appear to be a catalogue of excuses. Surely moving into the Aegean north of Crete would not have been that difficult. Of course most heavy units of the Regia Marina had been moved to the northwest coast of Italy. But they should have been able to pass Malta at night, and two Cesare class battleships were at Taranto. However there were other considerations.

  In the Aegean the navy’s ships could be protected effectively only by the 4th German Air Corps [IV Cat], just arrived from Germany. That organisation rejected the proposal to provide such cooperation. The writer has reason for believing that IV Cat did not want any Italian naval assistance in the Aegean, for it wished to keep for itself full credit for any and every victory.

  Such was the relationship between the Axis allies. Also Mussolini and Supermarina had ordered the Regia Marina not to operate heavy units beyond the range of fighter cover. A similar, if not even better opportunity presented itself during the battle for Crete.

  Although several occasions that could have been exploited presented themselves, the means was lacking to take advantage of them. Beyond the reasons similar to those noted above, the decisive argument for the Italians not taking part in the campaign was IV Cat’s definite affirmation that ‘its planes were all that were necessary’, and its ruling out of any possibility of giving the necessary air cover to the Italian naval units.5

  Fliegerkorps IV pointed out that its pilots were unable to distinguish between friendly and enemy ships. Thus it was the Germans who threw away the use of one of the best weapons available to the Axis through their lack of training. Even then some smaller Italian ships did take part in the Crete operation and were attacked by the Luftwaffe. Stukas attacked the Italian destroyer Sagittario escorting German landing troops. Another group of five destroyers loaded with German troops were attacked by the Luftwaffe shortly after leaving Piraeus, resulting in one destroyer being badly damaged. All this in spite
of IV Cat’s orders not to attack naval units north of Crete smaller than cruisers.

  Also the Germans revealed none of their plans to the Italians, not even included Italian Supreme Command. Bragadin believes this was due to the German thirst for glory. On the other hand they may have been influenced by the poor security of the Matapan operation that they believed had been compromised by Italian traitors.

  In many ways the German plan to take Crete was as flawed as the British decision to defend the island. Admiral Cunningham wrote:

  Looking back I sometimes wonder whether the loss of the island was really such a serious matter it seemed at the time. Had we defeated the German attack and held the island the problem of its maintenance and supply would have been extraordinarily difficult.6

  However he was to admit that German aircraft operating from Crete made the maintenance of Malta far more difficult from the eastern Mediterranean.

  When Hitler’s armies had taken mainland Greece they faced a stark choice: to continue with a Middle Eastern strategy or to turn against the Soviet Union. Of course the destruction of that country was the strategic and ideological project closest to Hitler’s heart, so there was no choice for his advisors no matter how much they protested.

  Oil was vital to Germany and Italy and supply was always a problem, yet ample oil lay close at hand, even closer when they had completed the conquest of Greece. Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia where the biggest oil producers and a direct route lay across the eastern Mediterranean, provided the Axis forces in the area were reinforced, part of which reinforcement should have been in the shape of the Italian fleet, supplied and used correctly.

  The Germans could have used stepping stones, some already Axis territory, the Italian Dodecanese islands of the Turkish coast and Rhodes. An airborne assault against Cyprus might have made far better use of the 7th Airborne Division, in practice uselessly thrown away on Crete. Behind an airborne bridgehead in Cyprus and employing local shipping protected by German airpower, a sizeable amphibious assault force with the Italian fleet could have been built up for landings in Syria and Lebanon. Once secure in the French Levant, mobile columns could have moved against Iraq and onward. The oil wealth yielded would have solved all Hitler’s difficulties in maintaining his military machine.7

  When Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941, she committed 27 divisions to the operation, seven of which were panzer divisions, a third of all such units in the German Army. The victory in Crete cost the Germans 8,000 troops, many drowned in ships sunk by the Mediterranean Fleet, and 400 aircraft. It disrupted any chance Hitler had to turn towards Syria and the oilfields, and proved disastrous to operations later in Russia when in October 1941 the German armies were caught by the Russian winter in front of Moscow. As Admiral Cunningham wrote ‘Our defence of Crete, therefore, May have served its purpose in the overall pattern of the war.’8 Indeed Matapan cast a long shadow.

  What about the ‘Tiger’ convoy? Why did the Italian fleet not put to sea then? On 8 May the convoy had been sighted and the Mediterranean Fleet was located heading for the central basin. If heavy units of the Italian fleet had sailed on the evening of the 8th, they should have been able to join action some time on the 9th. Bragadin felt that the British would have moved away south, and the Italian ships would have been unable to follow.

  Furthermore, at that particular moment only the battleships Cesare and Doria were operational, as against three in the Alexandria fleet. Nor was it possible for the Italians to rely on effective air escort; yet it was certain that there would be air attacks, at least by the planes from the British aircraft carrier. On the whole, the risks were greater than the dubious results that could have been expected from the venture.

  It does seem to have been the case that things were never quite right for the Regia Marina, that even when it had an advantage it was unwilling to take risks. They were also crippled by a lack of air reconnaissance; they had no idea the battleship Queen Elizabeth had joined the Mediterranean Fleet until informed by sources at Alexandria.

  The Italian surface fleet did from time to time attempt operations but none really came off. They put to sea in August 1941 with the battleships Littorio and Vittorio Veneto, both repaired after British aerial torpedo strikes at Taranto and Matapan respectively, with several cruisers and destroyers. However, the British force from Gibraltar they were trying to intercept, consisting of the battleship Nelson, carrier Ark Royal and escorts which were on their way to carry out an operation against Sardinia, turned back after sighting the Italian ships. Cooperation between Axis naval forces and air forces seemed to have improved, but the cruise had consumed a large amount of fuel and Supermarina warned the Supreme Command ‘it is no longer possible to repeat such missions except and when they are absolutely necessary.’

  In September another British convoy, ‘Hulherd’, was routed through to Malta from Gibraltar. Admiral Somerville’s covering force included the battleships Nelson, Rodney, Prince of Wales and the carrier Ark Royal. The Italians hoped to send all five of their serviceable battleships to sea to counter the British; fuel shortages reduced the fleet to the two modern battleships. Admiral Iachino was still bound by the general policy that action was to be sought only if the Italian surface forces had a clear superiority, and by the directive issued after Matapan that they were to remain within range of land-based fighter aircraft.

  The reports that reached the Italian C-in-C left him with doubts concerning the size and location of the British forces, and he was further handicapped by poor visibility. The opposing fleets never came within sight of each other.9

  The battleship Nelson was hit on the port bow by a torpedo from an Italian aircraft resulting in the flooding of several compartments with thousands of gallons of water, and her speed was soon reduced to 15 knots. One of Rodney’s officers described the Italians as attacking ‘with great courage’ considering the large target they presented, and they met with tremendous fire. ‘Everywhere you could see them falling into the drink.’10

  It was seen as another failure by Supermar ina, according to Commander Bragadin:

  On the whole its mission was marked with a depressing ‘nothing to report’ and with an enormous consumption of precious fuel, plus the collapse of the hopes of effective air-sea cooperation.

  The Italian Air Force had actually sent heavy forces into the battle and had inflicted more than a little damage on the enemy. But it forgot completely about its promise of cooperation with the naval forces at sea.11

  The battles of Sirte in December 1941, sometimes known as the battle of the convoys, were fought during the attempts by the Italians to run convoys to Libya while the British did the same with a convoy from Alexandria to Malta. A large Italian convoy was supported closely by the battleship Duilio, with further distant heavy support units consisting of Littorio, Vittorio Veneto, Doria and Cesare. On 14 December the British submarine Urge hit the Vittorio Veneto with two or three torpedoes causing serious damage, while the submarine Upright sank two merchant ships.

  Three days later a British force commanded by Rear Admiral Philip Vian in the cruiser Naiad was described by a German aircraft as one battleship with cruisers and destroyers. In fact the battleship was a tanker. The Italian battle fleet headed towards it at their best speed of Cesare’s 24 knots but were 250 miles away.

  Another British force of cruisers and destroyers left Malta to meet Vian and take the tanker in. By this time Vian had been warned of the Italian battleships as they closed in and hoped to attack them at night. In Alexandria, Cunningham was frustrated.

  For me it was galling in the extreme. Part at least of the enemy fleet was at sea, and there was I, fretting and fuming at Alexandria, with my battleships immobilised in harbour through lack of a destroyer screen.12

  By 17:00 Admiral Iachino’s fleet had still not made contact with the British. With night fast approaching and no radar on his ships, and hamstrung by the necessity of protecting convoys, he decided against attacking, slowed his shi
ps and began making preparations for the night.

  Commander Bragadin wrote that at 17:30

  … the Littorio group unexpectedly observed a heavy curtain of antiaircraft fire over the horizon to the east, where it was already getting dark. It was the British group, which was defending itself against a violent attack by Italian and German planes.

  The Littorio group turned immediately towards the enemy and the tops of the superstructures of the British ships were sighted just as the sun was disappearing beyond the horizon. At 17:53, in the gathering dusk and in spite of the long range at 32,000 meters, the Littorio opened fire, and the other Italian ships joined in immediately.13

  The British had been taken by surprise; Admiral Vian immediately had a smokescreen laid and moved away to break contact. Both sides sent in destroyers for a torpedo attack.

  By 18:04 darkness had descended; the action lasted barely eleven minutes by which time Vian’s force was cloaked in darkness. The Italian battle fleet moved back west to protect the convoy.

  Commander Bragadin summed up the operation from the Italian side:

  The fact that the British did not have any aircraft carrier with them had contributed notably to the success of this Italian operation. On the Italian side, however, some of the failures of the air reconnaissance were conspicuous. For example, the Italian attack on the British fleet grew out of the chance sighting at dusk. If Admiral Iachino had been more exactly informed as to the position of the enemy’s ships, he could have established contact earlier.14

  For the Royal Navy the last months of 1941 were a time of adversity and heavy losses, even greater than those inflicted in the Battle of Crete. The carrier Ark Royal of Force H was lost 25 miles from Gibraltar to a U-boat on 14 November. Barham, a veteran of Matapan was sunk by U331 on 25 November off the Libyan coast with a heavy loss of life. On 14 December the light cruiser Galatea was sunk by U557. Three days later the cruiser Neptune and destroyer Kandahar were lost to mines near Tripoli.