Raiders by Ross Kemp Read Free Book Online

the observers heaved their weary, frozen bodies from the cockpits and hurried stiffly into the ship’s island to be debriefed, the exhausted pilots went below to inspect the damage to their battle-torn biplanes. Almost every Swordfish had been punctured and perforated, their cloth fabric shredded and singed by the shells and machine guns of the Italian defenders. Sarra’s aircraft alone had seventeen shell holes along its fuselage and wings, while Wellham’s was so badly damaged that the riggers and fitters were astonished he’d been able to keep it aloft, let alone fly it two and a half hours back to the ship. Had the Swordfish been made from metal, it is doubtful whether more than one or two of them would have survived to tell their tale of what the Italians still call
La Notte Di Taranto
– ‘Taranto Night’.
    Most of the aircrews were convinced that the raid had been a failure. The bombs had failed to detonate, that much was sure, and it was impossible to know if the torpedoes, striking far below the surface, had caused any damage or even hit their targets. Neither striking force was going to hang around in the umbrella of flak over Taranto to inspect the results of their night’s work. But the opinion expressed by one of their number in the wardroom that night – that they had made ‘a complete cock of it’ – summed up the general mood of despondency, a mood that was deepened when the news filtered through that they were going to be asked to launch a further attack. On hearing the speculation, one wit was heard to wisecrack: ‘Bloody hell, even the Light Brigade was only asked to do it once!’
    The exhausted pilots and observers who took part in the Taranto raid had been living on their nerves for months, and few of them attempted to disguise their delight when it was announced the following day that Admiral Lyster had decided against a third strike. His decision is often put down to worsening weather conditions, but there was a more weighing factor. At first light, the three Italian battleships that had not been targeted by the Swordfish torpedo-bombers slipped harbour and steamed as quickly as possible for the safety of Naples. With the major prey gone, there was little point in Lyster risking his precious aircrews and aircraft in the pursuit of the smaller warships that were now even less likely to venture out of port and risk action against the Royal Navy.
    At the same time that the Italian battleships were weighing anchor and the dumbfounded authorities of the Regia Marina began inspecting the destruction in the oil-choked harbour,
Illustrious
was joining up with the rest of the Mediterranean Fleet off the south coast of the Peloponnese mainland. If the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Cunningham, was impressed by the efforts of his Fleet Air Arm, he had a peculiar way of expressing it. As
Illustrious
steamed within view, flags were hoisted aboard his flagship, HMS
Warspite
, spelling out a message from the Admiral which read: ‘
Illustrious
manoeuvre well executed’. The signal has since become a famous footnote in naval history, and Cunningham, as already noted, no great fan of naval aviation, was roundly barracked in some quarters for his lukewarm congratulations.
    In mitigation, two points need to be made. Firstly, Cunningham was of the old naval school and believed no man should receive special praise for doing his duty and carrying out the job he was trained to do. More relevant, however, was the fact that it was early in the morning and the RAF reconnaissance aircraft was yet to produce its post-raid images of Taranto. Cunningham had no idea of the scale of the damage the Swordfish had inflicted. Had he known that the clumsy-looking, obsolete biplanes had effectively knocked the Italian Fleet out of the war and given him almost total control of the Med, then no doubt even he would have overcome his natural reserve and offered more effusive praise for their efforts.