The Battle of Matapan 1941
Page 16
The loss of Barham was particularly shocking to Admiral Cunningham.
I was sitting in my bridge cabin in the Queen Elizabeth having tea. I suddenly heard and half felt the door give three distinct rattles, and thought we had opened fire with our anti-aircraft guns. I went quickly up the one ladder to the bridge, and then I saw the Barham, immediately astern of us, stopped and listing heavily over to port. The thuds I heard were three torpedoes striking her. She had been torpedoed by a U-boat. The poor ship rolled nearly over onto her beam ends, and we saw the men massing on her unturned side. A minute or two later there came the dull rumble of a terrific explosion as one of her magazines blew up. The ship became completely hidden in a great cloud of yellowish-black smoke, which went wreathing and eddying high into the sky. When it cleared Barham had disappeared.15
Ken Gibson remembers escaping the ERA (Engine Room Artificers) mess on Barham, making his way on deck.
I went aft, to an open water-tight door which led to ladders going up through the structure immediately behind ‘B’ turret. Climbing ladders became increasingly difficult as the list continued. The ship was at about 30° as I struggled to get out of the upper door. I vaguely remember crawling and jumping and trying to keep my balance, before I eventually dived off the side of ‘B’ turret. On surfacing everything was pitch black. The ship had exploded while I was submerged. Gradually the black smoke cleared revealing a widely spread slick of bunker oil. The silence was uncanny. The only sign of movement was black heads bobbing amongst the oil covered debris.
Ronald Dando, an engine room rating, was on deck enjoying a smoke amidships leaning over the port rail when the torpedoes struck.
Men came scrambling on to the upper decks, getting from below decks as quickly as they could … We must have been at a forty-five degree angle now with water lapping over the port side.
It was useless jumping off the port side, there being the danger of being sucked back into the ship by water that was rushing in.
Ronald dragged himself over to the starboard side which was getting higher as the ship rolled; there he slid down the side and into the sea.
I must have been a few hundred yards astern of Barham when there was a terrific roar and she blew sky high, men, guns, all sorts flying through the air, a great wave. It seemed like a mile high, came rushing towards us, struggling and floundering in the swell. I remember thinking to myself, this is the end, and then the wave crashed down on us. I felt myself rammed down then whirled round and round like a cork.
Ronald was picked up by an Australian destroyer just in time.
I was getting very tired, I went down twice … I fought my way back to the surface, the destroyers seemed miles away. I tried to float, swallowed more water and oil, I floundered helplessly just about giving up the struggle when someone put an arm around me and a voice said, ‘Take it easy mate, have a breather.’
His new friend helped him to some debris where two other men were clinging from which they were all picked up.16 There were 450 survivors, including Vice-Admiral Pridham-Wippell, from Barham, out of a complement of 1,311 men.
Meanwhile another crushing blow was struck, although not with such great loss of life. As Admiral Cunningham put it, something ‘unpleasant’ happened at Alexandria, while commander Bragadin felt ‘the stars had unexpectedly favoured the Italian Navy.’
The Italians were past masters at the use of human torpedoes, the Mignatta, which they had used in the First World War to sink the Austrian battleship Viribus Unitis. The Second World War version, the two-man torpedo, was used by the Italian assault teams against British ships in Alexandria and Gibraltar. These units were organised under the Special 10th Mas Flotilla.
The ‘pigs’ – as the two-man torpedoes were known – were transported close to the target by conventional submarines, from which they were launched. In October 1940 they almost managed to blow up Barham in Gibraltar harbour but all three pigs sank because of defects. In May 1941 they tried again at Gibraltar but failed again due to breakdowns. However in September, despite new British defences against such attacks, 10th Mas managed to sink the merchant ship Durham, a 10,893-ton vessel loaded with ammunition, and the 8,000-ton tanker Denbydale.
On the night of 19 December an attack was launched against Alexandria. Commander Bragadin takes up the story, when the submarine Scine had worked her way skilfully within a mile of the entrance to Alexandria, on the evening of 18 December.
There, in the immediate vicinity of a mine field three ‘Pigs’ were disgorged at 20:47, and the submarine turned back for home. The three torpedoes were manned by crews captained by Lieutenant Durand de la Penne, who had made the first attempt against Gibraltar, naval Engineer Captain Marceglia … and naval Ordnance Captain Martellotta. [Officers in the technical branches of the Italian Navy carried army titles of rank.]
The three torpedoes reached the port by following British destroyers through the open harbour gate. The three ‘pigs’ made their way to their respective targets, de la Penne Valiant, Marceglia the Queen Elizabeth and Martellotta, a large tanker.
Each crew quickly located its own target and attached the warhead of its torpedo at a predesignated point, determined by a study of the plans of the ship … de la Penne was the only one who encountered any trouble. His ‘pig’ stopped dead in the water a short distance from Valiant, but he and his companion by a tremendous effort, dragged the torpedo along the sea bottom until they were under the hull. Escaping, the two men surfaced near a buoy, where they were discovered by a patrolling motor boat.17
Admiral Cunningham observed what happened next.
At about 4 am on December 19 I was called in my cabin on board the Queen Elizabeth with the news that two Italians had been found clinging to the bow buoy of the Valiant. They had been taken on board and interrogated; but had vouchsafed nothing and had been sent ashore under arrest.
I at once ordered them bought back to the Valiant and confined in one of the forward compartments well below the waterline. The boats of all ships were called away to drop small charges around them, while the ships companies were turned out of their hammocks below and chain bottom lines were dragged along the ships’ bottoms.18
Around 06:00 there was an explosion under the stern of the tanker Sagona, close to the Queen Elizabeth. The destroyer Jervis was alongside the tanker. Both ships were badly damaged. Repairs to the Jervis would take a month.
About 20 minutes later Valiant was blown up, and a few minutes later Queen Elizabeth. Cunningham was right aft by the ensign staff.
I felt a dull thud and was tossed about five feet into the air by the whip of the ship and was lucky not to come down sprawling. I saw a great cloud of black shoot up the funnel and from immediately in front of it, and knew at once that the ship was badly damaged. The Valiant was already down by the bows. The Queen Elizabeth took a heavy list to starboard.19
In one blow the Italians with their ‘pigs’ – known to the British as ‘Sea Chariots’ – had changed the balance of power at sea. Two weeks earlier Japan had entered the war and crippled the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor; three days later Japanese naval aircraft sank the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse off Malaya.
Cunningham now had only a handful of cruisers and destroyers in the Mediterranean and no carrier. Formidable had joined Illustrious in the US for repairs, the former having been badly damaged during the Battle of Crete, while the new carrier Indomitable had run aground. The battleship Warspite, Cunningham’s flagship at Matapan had also been badly damaged off Crete and made her way to the west coast of the US for repairs, reaching Puget Sound Navy Yard near Seattle on 11 August.
Roger J. Paquette was working on a warship in Puget Sound that day.
We were on the quarterdeck that morning and we watched HMS Warspite slowly come into Port Orchard Bay to the navy yard in Sinclair Inlet. It was 8am and we heard their call to colours. We were impressed by the marines on deck formally marching with their beautiful hesitation steps [slow march] a
much classier ceremony than the Arizona’s with its squawking public address system.20
Fortunately the two battleships in Alexandria harbour had settled vertically in shallow water, and all the crews of the ‘pigs’ were captured. These men became legends in both navies. After the war Captain C.E. Morgan of Valiant, by then Admiral Morgan, was chief of the Allied Naval Mission in Italy, and requested the privilege of personally pinning the Gold Medal of Honour on Durand de la Penne himself.
The British organised their own two-man diver swimmer teams with ‘pigs’ along Italian lines. In January 1943 at Palermo they sank the cruiser Traiano.
Cunningham managed to bluff out his situation in Alexandria harbour and it was weeks before the enemy realised what had happened. Rear Admiral W.J. Yendell wrote
… as I was arriving at the office I thought the Queen Elizabeth was lower in the water with a slight list. But for colours that day ABC had the press down; and photographs of colours and ABC were in the papers next day (with no sign of the list or the submarine alongside providing power to the stricken ship) and I believe it was months before the Italians knew the results of the attack.21
Valiant was lightened as much as possible and put into the floating dock. Her damage was bad, 80 feet long including the keel. It took two months to complete temporary repairs making her ready for sea.
Yet the year 1942 would prove the turning point of the war with the Allied victories at Midway, El Alamein and Stalingrad. Winston Churchill said ‘Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.’ What about Taranto and Matapan when the Royal Navy held the ring in the Mediterranean?
The veteran battleships of Matapan, Warspite and Valiant would be back in the Mediterranean in 1943 for Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily.
Notes
1 Playfair, Major-General I.S.O. The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume II p.95–96
2 Ibid p97
3 Cunningham, A. B. A Sailor’s Odyssey p.356
4 Bragadin, M.A. The Italian Navy in World War II p.105
5 Ibid p.105–106
6 Cunningham, p.391
7 Cowley, Robert, What If: John Keegan, How Hitler Could Have Won the War p.301–302
8 Cunningham, p.392
9 Playfair, p.276–277
10 Ballantyne, Iain, Rodney p.158
11 Bragadin, p.122–123
12 Cunningham, p.431
13 Bragadin, p.148
14 Ibid p.150
15 Cunningham, p.424
16 Barham Association. www.hmsbarham.com
17 Bragadin, p.284–285
18 Cunningham, p.433
19 Ibid p.433
20 Plevy, Harry, Battleship Sailors p.193
21 Pack, S.W.C. Cunningham: The Commander p.199
Appendix A
The British Fleet at Matapan
Battleships
Warspite
Flagship of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham KCB DSO C-in-C
Mediterranean Fleet
Captain D. B. Fisher, CBE
30,600 tons
24 knots
8 x 15-inch
20 x 4.5-inch
She was completed at Portsmouth in 1913, then reconstructed and modernised in the 1930s. She was damaged during the battle for Crete and wrecked at Prussia Cove, Cornwall, 1947.
Valiant
Captain C.E. Morgan, DSO
32,700 tons
24 knots
8 x 15-inch
20 x 4.5-inch
She was completed at Fairfield in 1914, then reconstructed and modernised at the outbreak of war. She was sunk in Alexandria harbour in 1941 by an Italian two-man submarine, and then refloated. She was scrapped in 1948.
Barham
Flagship of 1st Battle Squadron, Rear Admiral H. B. Rawlings OBE
Captain G.C. Cooke
31,000 tons
22 knots
8 x 15-inch
12 x 6-inch
She was completed at Clydebank in 1914 and sunk in November 1941 by U331, with the loss of 861 officers and men.
Aircraft Carrier
Formidable
Flagship of Rear Admiral, Air, D.W. Boyd CBE DSC
Captain A.W. La T. Bisset
23,000 tons
30 knots
16 x 4.5-inch
She was completed at Belfast 1940. She was badly damaged during the battle for Crete and scrapped at Inverkeithing in 1953. The aircraft squadrons embarked in Formidable were 803, 826, 829 (operating from Crete: 815).
Cruisers
Orion
Flagship of Vice Admiral Light Forces Vice-Admiral H.D. Pridham-Wippell CB CVO
Captain G.R.B. Back
7,215 tons
32 knots
8 x 6-inch
She was completed in Devonport in 1932 and scrapped in 1949.
Ajax
Captain E.D.B. McCarthy
6,985 tons
32 knots
8 x 6-inch
She was completed at Barrow in 1934 and scrapped in 1949.
Perth
RAN Captain Sir P.W. Bowyer-Smith Bart
7,165 tons
32 knots
8 x 6-inch
She was completed at Portsmouth in 1934. She was transferred to RAN in 1940 and sunk at the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942.
Gloucester
Captain H. A. Rowley
9,600 tons
32 knots
12 x 6-inch
She was completed at Devonport dockyard in 1937 and sunk by German aircraft at Crete in 1941.
Destroyers
14th Destroyer Flotilla
Jervis
Captain D.P.J. Mack DSO
1,760 tons
36 knots
6 x 4.7-inch
Janus
1,760 tons
36 knots
6 x 4.7-inch
Lost 1944
Mowhawk
1,870 tons
36 knots
8 x 4.7-inch
Nubian
1,870 tons
36 knots
8 x 4.7-inch
Badly damaged, Crete 1941
10th Destroyer Flotilla
Stuart
RAN Captain D.H.M.L. Walker DSO
1,530 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Greyhound
1,335 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Sunk at Crete 1941
Griffin
1,335 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Transferred to RCN 1942
2nd Destroyer Flotilla
Ilex
1,370 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Hasty
1,340 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Lost 1942
Hereward
1,340 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Sunk at Crete 1941
Havock
1,340 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Lost 1942
Hotspur
1,340 tons
36 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
Appendix B
The Italian Fleet at Matapan
Battleship
Vittorio Veneto, His Excellency Admiral Angelo Iachino’s flagship. Completed at Trieste, 1940, damaged at Matapan by an ariel torpedo, and eight months later by torpedoes from the submarine HMS Urge. After Italy surrendered, Vittorio Veneto was sent to the Suez Canal as war reparations. She was scrapped in 1948.
35,000 tons
30 knots
9 x 15-inch
12 x 6-inch
Cruisers
1st Division Vice Admiral C. Cattaneo on Zara
Zara
10,000 tons
32 knots
8 x 8-inch
sunk during Matapan
Fiume
10,000 tons
32 knots
8 x 8-inch
sunk during Matapan
Pola
10,000 tons
32 knots
8 x 8-inch
sunk during Matapan
3rd Division Vice Admiral L. Sansonetti on Trieste
Trieste
10,000 tons
35 knots
8 x 8-inch
sunk at Sardinia by USAF bombers 1943
Trento
10,000 tons
35 knots
8 x 8-inch
sunk in the Ionian Sea by British submarine HMS Umbra 1942
Bolzano
10,000 tons
36 knots
8 x 8-inch
scrapped 1947
8th Division Vice Admiral A. Legnani on Abruzzi
Abruzzi
7,874 tons
35 knots
10 x 6-inch
scrapped 1972
Garibaldi
7,874 tons
35 knots
10 x 6-inch
scrapped 1976
Destroyers
6th Destroyer Flotilla
Da Recco
1,628 tons
39 knots
6 x 4.7-inch
Pessagno
1,628 tons
39 knots
6 x 4.7-inch
sunk by the British submarine HMS Turbulent 1942
9th Destroyer Flotilla
Gioberti
1,568 tons
39 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
sunk by the British submarine HMS Simoom 1943
Alfieri
1,568 tons
39 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
sunk during Matapan
Carducci
1,568 tons
39 knots
4 x 4.7-inch
sunk during Matapan
10th Destroyer Flotilla
Maestrale
1,449 tons
39 knots