The British cruisers were urged to maintain close visual contact and, to clarify the picture, Warspite’s Swordfish was catapulted again at 5.45p.m. Before the aircraft went, Manley Power briefed Lieutenant Commander Bolt on what was needed from this mission – the location of the Vittorio Veneto was known, but what was her speed and the disposition of her escorts? The Swordfish arrived over the Vittorio Veneto at 6.20p.m. and reported the Italian battleship was forty-five miles away from Warspite, doing an estimated fifteen knots heading west. The enemy force was composed of half a dozen cruisers and eleven destroyers drawn tightly around the limping battleship.
The Swordfish stayed with the Italian fleet until sunset, when Petty Officer Rice watched another wave of Albacores going in for the attack provoking an immense amount of flak. The Italian ships also made smoke and tried to dazzle British pilots with searchlights. Petty Officer Rice recalled:
We had spotted the Italian fleet from about 5,000 feet up. They didn’t even bother opening fire at us. We made our report then Formidable launched the Albacores to carry out an attack. It was like watching 5 November.
With fuel getting low again, the Swordfish called it a day at 8.00p.m.
An Albacore took up aerial tracing duties and, as there was no chance of us being picked up by Warspite, we decided to head for Crete. It was dark when we arrived and we dropped our own flares to make a path for landing. I had landed at Suda Bay three or four times previously so I knew what I was doing. We landed and went to the boom. They asked us what vessel we were and we said a floatplane. After shining a big light on us to check us out they let us in. We refuelled and then flew back to Alex.
Cunningham now had to decide if he should work his way carefully to the north-west, to catch the Vittorio Veneto the following day, or race after her into the night.
Some of my staff argued that it would be unwise to charge blindly after the retreating enemy with our three heavy ships, and the Formidable also on our hands, to run the risk of ships being crippled, and to find ourselves within easy range of enemy dive bombers at daylight. I paid respectful attention to this opinion and as the discussion happened to coincide with my time for dinner, I told them I would have my evening meal and would see how I felt afterwards.16
As the sun sets, Formidable, in close company with Warspite again launches another wave of Albacores against the Vittorio Veneto. K. Smith Collection
According to a staff officer who was present at the pre-dinner discussion with the Admiral he was rather more caustic in his assessment of the advice he was being given than he later let on. The Admiral thought his staff lacked guts. Rather than paying ‘respectful attention’ to their opinions he actually told them:
‘You’re a pack of yellow-livered skunks. I’ll go and have my supper now and see after supper if my morale isn’t higher than yours.’17
Either way, when the Admiral came back from dinner he ordered an eight-strong destroyer striking force off after the enemy and decided on a ‘steady pursuit’ for the rest of the fleet. The Vittorio Veneto was now a mere thirty-three miles away and still only doing fifteen knots.
Meanwhile the Royal Navy cruisers had tried, and failed, to make contact. But at 9.11p.m. Warspite received a signal from them saying a ship had been spotted dead in the water. A mystery vessel was soon picked up by radar six miles away on Warspite’s port bow. Lieutenant Commander Lamb didn’t have much to do during the pursuit but was fascinated how the Warspite’s Gunnery Officer had swiftly realized the benefits of new technology.
It was very interesting to see that he had established telephone communication between the air defence radar and the gunnery control system of the ship. This was the first occasion on which radar had been used to establish the range for the gunnery system.
Admiral Cunningham hoped he would soon be able to bag himself an Italian battleship.
Our hopes ran high. This might be the Vittorio Veneto. The course of the battle-fleet was altered forty degrees to port together to close. We were already at action stations with our main armament ready. Our guns were trained on the correct bearing.18
In that singularly aggressive turn of the battle fleet towards the enemy Cunningham retrieved the reputation of the Royal Navy, so badly tarnished by Jutland. In May 1916 the Grand Fleet had been largely incapable of night fighting and, when there looked to be an unknown risk, turned away from the enemy.
At 10.25p.m. Cunningham’s Chief of Staff, Commodore Edelsten, was searching the horizon through binoculars on the starboard bow and reported two large ships and a smaller vessel crossing the path of the fleet from starboard to port. The British battleships now ignored the mystery vessel and turned into line ahead. The Italian warships straying into the killing zone were two Zara Class heavy cruisers, the Fiume and Zara (10,000 tons displacement and carrying 8-inch guns) together with a destroyer escort. They had been sent back to assist another Zara Class ship – the Pola – which had been stopped dead in the water after being hit by a British airborne torpedo earlier in the day. The Italian admiral aboard the Vittorio Veneto wrongly believed the British to be ninety miles astern of him, therefore failed to appreciate the risk involved in detaching the Zaras.
The Italians met their deaths not only completely unaware of how near the British actually were, but also blind thanks to a lack of radar. They were also lacking the skills, to fight at night. The British, on the other hand, had the skills – Warspite in particular being an expert at night fighting. The range between the British battle fleet and the Italians got shorter and shorter and, in the bridge wireless office, Signalman Donald Auffret and the other ratings were getting tenser and tenser.
...we were receiving the radar contacts and I can remember it got down to two-and-a-half miles range, almost abeam and still Cunningham didn’t open fire and everybody was saying ‘For God’s sake why doesn’t he open fire?’
The Admiral moved to the upper bridge, from where the Commanding Officer of the Warspite skippered his ship, to get a better view of the slaughter his vessels were about to inflict.
I shall never forget the next few minutes. In the dead silence, a silence that could almost be felt, one heard only the voices of the gun control personnel putting the guns on to the new target. One heard the orders repeated in the director tower behind and above the bridge. Looking forward, one saw the turrets swing and steady when the 15-inch guns pointed at the enemy cruisers. Never in the whole of my life have I experienced a more thrilling moment than when I heard a calm voice from the director tower – ‘Director layer sees the target’; sure sign that the guns were ready and that his finger was itching on the trigger. The enemy was at a range of no more than 3,800 yards – point-blank.19
Lieutenant Commander Lamb, looking at the Italian ships though a pair of binoculars, caught tiny glowing dots and silhouettes of men taking the air on their upper-decks. ‘The officers were walking up and down their quarterdecks smoking their cigars after dinner. They had no idea we were there.’
The Fleet Gunnery Officer, Commander Geoffrey Barnard, gave the order to fire. There was a ‘ting-ting-ting’ of firing gongs ‘then came the great orange flash and the violent shudder as the six big guns bearing were fired simultaneously.’20 At the same time the destroyer HMS Greyhound highlighted an enemy cruiser with her searchlight – it was the Fiume (third in line) – which Admiral Cunningham saw as a ‘silvery-blue shape in the darkness’. As the shells carved their path of death, silhouettes of the Zara and the destroyer Alfieri could be seen. Men were also visible running along Fiume’s upper deck. Warspite’s searchlights blazed forth, providing ‘...full illumination for what was a ghastly sight.’21 Five of the Warspite’s six shells hit the enemy cruiser just below her upper deck – Cunningham described this unfortunate ship as being ‘hopelessly shattered’.
Caught cold: Warspite opens fire at Matapan as a searchlight from the destroyer Greyhound catches the Italians. Specially commissioned painting by Dennis C. Andrews.
Thirty seconds after the
first broadside, the second from Warspite hit the Fiume and now she was listing heavily to starboard, a complete shambles gripped by severe fires. Up in the remote control office below the flag bridge Leading Telegraphist Albert Cock was concentrating on monitoring signals traffic around the fleet. ‘To me inside the ship, it was like flashes of lightning.’
The carrier Formidable was third in line behind the Warspite and the Valiant, with the Barham astern of her. As soon as the firing started the carrier was pulled sharply out of line to avoid injury to such a valuable unit which had no business being in a gun fight. Lieutenant T. Campling, one of her Gunnery Control Officers, relates the opening salvos from Formidable’s perspective, and reveals the carrier chipped in with some of her 4.5-inch anti-aircraft guns:
We saw a group of coloured flares fired from Warspite, which were in fact the night challenge signal, then, almost immediately, the battleship’s searchlights were switched on to reveal to our amazement three sleek-looking light grey warships, their guns trained fore and aft. Within seconds there was an ear-splitting roar as the 15-inch guns of our battleships opened fire at almost point-blank range.
The result was immediate and devastating. I vividly recall seeing a complete turret of the leading ship disappear over the side. Masses of flame soon enveloped all three ships.
Although we received the order to open fire the order was almost immediately countermanded as Formidable turned out of line to starboard. One salvo was in fact fired by Formidable, and this must have been one of the few occasions during the Second World War when an aircraft carrier used its main gunnery armament against enemy warships! As we retired from the scene severe explosions continued with white flashes and orange glow of fires lighting up the sky.22
As Formidable pulled away, Warspite’s starboard searchlights held her and orders to fire the starboard 6-inch guns were issued. Luckily they were cancelled instantly.
In Warspite’s X turret Petty Officer Charles Hunter was concentrating on ensuring everything was working smoothly and could neither see nor hear the destruction.
I stood on this platform between the guns. I couldn’t see outside, I had eyes only for the working chamber. My turret fired the most shells during Matapan. We fired six on the right gun and five on the left. Inside the turret during firing you just got a thud – the armour was a foot thick which acted as pretty good insulation. The turret was controlled from the bridge. We would follow a pointer – it moved, you turned your wheel and when the order came you fired.
As a loader on a pom-pom anti-aircraft gun, Jack Worth had a grandstand view:
They never stood a chance. The Italians vanished, blown to bits before my eyes. You don’t think about these things at the time. They become more incredible only with the passing of time when you reflect on what happened.
Signalman Auffret looked across at the unfortunate Italians from the Warspite’s bridge in astonishment. ‘The first in line had opened up like a sardine tin,’ he said.
Directly astern of Warspite, the Valiant also utterly destroyed her target – the Zara. From Warspite, Cunningham admired Valiant’s gunnery prowess: ‘Her rapidity of fire astonished me. Never would I have believed it possible with these heavy guns.’ Beyond Valiant, the Barham was pounding another ship to pieces – the destroyer Alfieri. After her second 15-inch broadside into Fiume, Warspite shifted fire to Zara. Meanwhile the Fiume limped away into the dark and sank three quarters of an hour later. The Barham joined the other two battleships in firing into Zara which was rendered a blazing inferno, drifting off into the darkness to be scuttled later. In a letter mailed to his wife after the battle, Manley Power was almost exultant. He wrote:
It was a wonderful sight. The destroyers ahead of us put a searchlight on them. There one of them was, a lovely graceful ship all silvery in the search light...and in thirty seconds she was a blazing wreck going off like a catherine wheel. Then we switched onto another one and shot her up the same and the other battleships did too. I think there was a third there who got clocked by the Barham. 23
During the action the Fiume was hit by two 15-inch broadsides from Warspite and one from Valiant. Zara was hit by four from Warspite, five from Valiant and five from Barham. The escort destroyers Alfieri and Carducci were also destroyed.
Just after 10.30p.m. some Italian destroyers strayed into the British searchlights, one of them firing torpedoes, forcing the battle fleet to turn ninety degrees starboard to comb them. The British mixed it with the enemy in a wild flurry of action, Warspite firing her main and secondary guns, unfortunately straddling the destroyer HMS Havock, but she escaped unhurt.
HMS Formidable in company with HMS Warspite, viewed from under the battleship’s 15-inch guns. Goodman Collection.
The rest of the night we were just paddling along waiting for daylight and listening to the destroyer’s signals. They were all over the shop fighting like wasps all night.24
At midnight the Havock, which had sunk the Carducci and witnessed the Alfieri capsizing, came across the Pola. The Italian cruiser’s crew were in a state of complete anarchy. Many of them were drunk, waving bottles of Chianti about wildly and their officers could do nothing to control them. Over his headphones on the Warspite, Leading Telegraphist Albert Cock heard the Royal Navy destroyers jockeying to deliver the final blow:
Havock made a signal to Jervis, which was carrying the Captain in command of the destroyer squadron. It was in morse saying ‘I am hanging on the stern of the Italian cruiser Pola – shall I blow his stern off with depth charges?’ The reply from Jervis was rather brusque – ‘get out of my way I have some fish left.’
HMS Jervis took the crew of the Pola off and then, together with HMS Nubian, sank the ship with torpedoes at 4.10a.m. A signal was later sent from the Jervis to Cunningham in the Warspite with regard to the state of health of prisoners taken from the Pola. A list of injuries ended with the immortal words: ‘One senior officer has piles.’ Always quick with some cutting wit, Cunningham flashed back: ‘I am not surprised.’
At dawn the next day scout planes sent up by Formidable could find no trace of the Vittorio Veneto. Deprived of the chance to finish her off, Warspite and the rest of the fleet sailed back through the scene of battle. According to Cunningham the scene was: ‘A calm sea covered with a film of oil and strewn with boats rafts and wreckage with many floating corpses.’
British destroyers tried to pick up as many survivors as possible, rescuing 900, but, with German Ju88 torpedo bombers stalking the area, it was not a good idea to loiter too long. However, the British did send a signal to the Italians telling them where to pick up remaining survivors and a hospital ship rescued nearly 200.
Weathering air attacks on 29 March, the British fleet reached Alexandria on 30 March. A service of thanksgiving for ‘The Great Victory Of Matapan’ was held aboard ships of the fleet on 1 April. A specially written prayer said:
Almighty God hath made this day to be a Joy unto us instead of destruction, therefore among your commemorative feasts keep it a high day with praise and thanksgiving.25
The personal impact on the Italians was severe.
Manley Power wrote to his wife:
I met the Captain of the Pola the evening we got in. He seemed a very nice chap – he had been very down in the dumps and trying to commit suicide which was unreasonably dramatic of him. But he cheered up when I was there and we discussed the battle in bad French until he went off to gaol.
Power was amazed at British luck. ‘Not one of the ships was even scratched. It really does seem extraordinary.’26 It had indeed been a remarkable victory, achieved at minimal cost to the British; 3,000 Italian sailors had lost their lives but only two Fleet Air Arm aircrew were killed. The Italian Navy never recovered.
According to Cunningham:
...the supine and inactive attitude of the Italian fleet during our subsequent evacuations of Greece and Crete was directly attributable to the rough handling they had received at Matapan.27
Notes
2 Ibid
3 Ibid
4 Ibid
5 Power Papers, Imperial War Museum
6 Ibid
7 Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey.
8 Power Papers, Imperial War Museum.
9 Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey.
10 Ibid
11 Ibid
12 Ibid
13 Ibid
14 Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey.
15 S.W.C. Pack, The Battle of Matapan
16 Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey.
17 S.W.C.Pack, Cunningham The Commander.
18 Cunningham, A Sailor’s Odyssey.
19 Ibid
20 Ibid
21 Ibid
22 Andrew M. Ramsay, HMS Formidable.
23 Power Papers, Imperial War Museum.
24 Ibid
25 Taken from an Order of Service contained in the Power Papers, Imperial War Museum.
26 Power Papers, Imperial War Museum.
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