The British Knock Out the Italian Fleet with Biplanes

The Fairey Swordfish as marked/painted for the Taranto attack

The planning for the attack on the Italian fleet at the harbor of Taranto began in earnest in 1938 during the Munich Crisis when it seemed that Europe was headed for war. Though boasting a force of six battleships, five cruisers and twenty destroyers at the start of the conflict that could have caused significant headaches for the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, Mussolini rarely ordered the fleet to sail far from the home port of Taranto and they would return at the earliest opportunity, failing to engage the British Mediterranean fleet. With the threat of war looming, captain of the HMS Glorious, Capt. Lumley Lyster, was asked to draw up an attack plan to knock out the Italian fleet while it sat in harbor. Essential to any attack given the strength of the defenses of the harbor would be surprise, necessitating a night attack. By the time 1940 had come around and maintaining the sea links with the British forces in North Africa took added importance, the need to proceed with the attack, codenamed "Operation Judgement", the trained Fairey Swordfish aircrews that trained aboard the HMS Glorious were now serving aboard the HMS Illustrious and under strict secrecy, the attack was planned for 12 October 1940 on Trafalgar Day. Unfortunately, a fire in the hangar deck of the Illustrious resulted in the Swordfish aircraft being drenched in saltwater, necessitating their clean up and repair. Also, the original attack plan called for the HMS Eagle to accompany the Illustrious on the attack, but Eagle had suffered damage from an accidental bomb explosion earlier in the year. As a result, some of Eagle's Swordfish and aircrew were transferred to the Illustrious. The attack was rescheduled for the night of 11/12 November 1940. 

Given the nature of the defenses based on the latest British reconnaissance, the first wave to attack Taranto would consist of twelve Swordfish, only six of which would carry torpedoes while the balance of aircraft carried bombs and flares. At the time, the conventional naval wisdom was that torpedoes were only usable in deep water, but the Royal Navy had modified their torpedoes to run in the shallow water of Taranto Harbor. The photos showed that the battleships were protected by torpedo nets, but they were standard keel-depth nets. The torpedoes used were configured to magnetically detonate below the ships' keels. 

Diagram of the attack on the Italian fleet

At 8:30pm the first wave took off from the HMS Illustrious. The gunners weren't carried, their place being taken by a supplemental fuel tank to allow a two-man crew to fly the 340-mile roundtrip mission. By 9:00pm the twelve aircraft were all airborne and they set off for Taranto. Several of the Swordfish became separated from the main formation and had to make their own way to the target- one pilot arrived at Taranto ahead of the main force and had to await the rest of the aircraft- some references indicate that this may have alerted the Italians. Arriving over the harbor at 11:00pm, the strike force immediately came under fire. One of the Swordfish peeled off from the group and dropped a series of flares at 7,500 feet along the eastern perimeter of Mar Grande, the outer harbor. A second Swordfish followed suit, illuminating the area for the rest of the strike force. Lt. Commander K. Williamson, the CO of No. 815 Squadron, made the first torpedo run against the battleship Conte di Cavour, blowing a hole in the side of the ship but getting shot down in the process. Two more Swordfish that accompanied Williamson then pressed their attack against the battleship Andrea Doria, which was unsuccessful. The last group of the first wave attacked two cruisers and four destroyers as well in Mar Piccolo, the inner harbor. The Swordfish's agility paid dividends as the seemingly archaic aircraft managed to weave around the barrage balloons and jink hard to throw off the anti-aircraft fire. 

HMS Illustrious with a Swordfish on the deck

With the first wave turning back for the Illustrious, the only aircraft shot down was that of their CO, Lt. Commander Williamson, who was taken prisoner along with his crewman. The second wave, under the lead of Lt. Commander J.W. Hale, the CO of No. 819 Squadron, had left the Illustrious thirty minutes after the first wave took off. Of the twelve Swordfish in the second wave, only eleven arrived at Taranto due to technical problem with the twelfth aircraft that forced it to return to the carrier. Arriving over the harbor at midnight, again the flare-dropping Swordfish lit up the area while the bomb and torpedo-armed aircraft set to work on the rest of the Italian battle fleet. Two aircraft attacked the battleship Littorio, but only one scored a hit. Another aircraft despite taking damage pressed an unsuccessful attack against the battleship Vittorio Veneto. The battleship Caio Duilio was also hit, and only one aircraft from the second wave was shot down, the two aircrew being killed. By 240am, the last of the Swordfish landed on the Illustrious. A third wave was planned the following night, but bad weather prevented a final blow to the Italian fleet. 

The attack was a stunning success by an aircraft that was older and slower than many of its contemporaries. Just 11 torpedoes and 48 bombs managed to knock out half of the Italian battle fleet at Taranto and while the defenders fired off over 22,000 rounds, only two aircraft were shot down, quite an impressive feat! The attack followed by the Battle of Cape Spartivento two weeks later and the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 consolidated the Royal Navy's control of the Mediterranean, hastening the defeat of the Axis. The planning staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy, at the time putting together the plans for the attack on Pearl Harbor, studied the British attack at Taranto carefully and managed on 7 December 1941 to knock out more battleships in the process, but unlike the Mediterranean, the attack failed to shift the balance of power in the Pacific as the US Navy had shifted its fleet emphasis to the aircraft carrier as the new capital ship. 

Source: International Air Power Review, Volume 27, Winter 2010/11. "Warplane Classic- Fairey Swordfish- the Fleet Air Arm's enigmatic warrior" by Allan Laws, p125-129.

The First Torpedo Bomber: The Shorts 184 of the First World War

Captain Murray F. Sueter, Director of the Air Department of the Admiralty of the Royal Navy, was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of British naval aviation during the First World War. One of his most passionate causes was championing naval torpedo bombers, though in those days a "proper" torpedo bomber was felt to be a seaplane. Working with the Short Brothers, a large two-seat biplane called the Short Type 184 was produced in significant numbers (650 in all) during the First World War. With a pilot and observer and floats, the 225-horsepower Short 184 was the first reliable torpedo bomber to not only go into production, but to prove itself in combat.

Despite successful tests showing that it was possible to air drop a torpedo against a surface vessel, Captain Sueter's ideas got little support within the Admiralty. However, he was given a chance to prove his theories with the Short 184 during the disastrous Dardenelles Campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula against Turkey in 1915. Four Short 184s were embarked aboard a converted steam packet to serve as a seaplane tender, arriving on station in the northern Aegean Sea in June 1915.

On 12 August 1915, Flight Commander C.H.K. Edmonds and his observer flew a Short 184 carrying a single torpedo toward the Straits of the Dardanelles. Sighting a Turkish freighter in the Sea of Marmara that was carrying 3,000 Turkish troops to reinforce the Gallipoli Peninsula, Edmonds slowly descended from 800 feet to only 15 feet and closed within 300 feet of the vessel before releasing his torpedo, which struck the troop transport amidships, making the world's first successful combat aerial torpedo attack.

Five days later Edmonds and his observer again sortied in their torpedo-armed Short 184 along with a second Short 184 piloted by Flight Lieutenant G.B. Dacre. Approaching the Turkish coast at low altitude, both aircraft came under ground fire from Turkish gun batteries on the coast. Weaving at low altitude, Edmonds sighted three Turkish merchant ships and homed in on the largest of the three vessels, again descending to near-wavetop height for torpedo release, scoring a direct hit that set the vessel ablaze.

Edmonds' wingman found himself forced down due to an engine failure. While on the water getting his engine re-started, Dacre noticed a Turkish steam tug cross his nose and he fired his torpedo while still sitting in the water. The torpedo hit the tug squarely and sank it immediately. Having finally gotten his engine restarted, Dacre nursed his Short 184 into the air under heavy fire.

Despite this success, the Admiralty remained lukewarm to Sueter's ideas. He had requested a force of 200 torpedo bombers to act in conjunction with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea in action against the German High Seas Fleet, but his ideas were considered too radical and risky for the Royal Navy. Sueter then proposed using the Short 184 to attack the High Seas Fleet at anchor at Wilhelmshaven, but again was rejected. He then proposed an attack on the Austro-Hungarian fleet at its naval bases on the Adriatic- he managed to win over the First Sea Lord, Earl Jellicoe, who approved the deployment of Short 184s to a seaplane base in Italy to attack the Austro-Hungarian fleet at anchor at its main harbor base in Pola.

The attack was to take place on 2 September 1917 but on the eve of the operation a storm arose and the aircraft were unable to depart. The attack was postponed indefinitely and not resurrected before the war ended in 1918 as many in the Royal Navy felt that the seaplanes were better used for scouting and reconnaissance than for attacks on surface vessels.

Source: Ship Strike: The History of Air-to-Sea Weapons Systems by Peter C. Smith. Airlife Publishing, 1998, p9-12.