MEDITERRANEAN FLEET

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23968, 8 June 1943, Page 6

MEDITERRANEAN FLEET

ENORMOUS ODDS OVERCOME ADMIRALTY’S STORY OF EARLY DAYS OF WAR LONDON, March 19. At dawn on the day Italy declared war, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, despite the enormous odds against him, led the Mediterranean Battle Fleet to sea—and saved Malta, Suez, and Alexandria, writes Commander Kenneth Edwards, naval correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.” The dice were loaded against him, possibly more heavily than the Italians realised. But Sir Andrew was an old destroyer leader, and fighting against odds was inbred in him. From the moment he put to sea he never lost the initiative. The action off Calabria gave him moral ascendancy over the Italian fleet; Taranto, Matapan, and other actions destroyed the enemy’s superiority in material. Naval secrets of these early days of the war in the Mediterranean are revealed by the Admiralty to-day in "East of Malta, West of Suez.” The complexity and diversity of the problems facing Sir Andrew are by the fact that on one day no fewer than 16 British naval operations were in progress in the Mediterranean, apart from submarine patrols. The majority of these operations were closely interlocked, so that each should derive the fullest possible benefit from all the forces available. Wounded Pilot Went Up The book reveals that one naval fighter pilot, flying a Gladiator, formed the only fighter protection for the Mediterranean Fleet for a time after Italy entered the war. On one occasion he went up with a bullet still in his thigh from a previous encounter and shot down an enemy aircraft. This airman was Commander Keigh’.y-Peach, who was then Commander (Flying) in the 20-year-old aircraft-carrier Eagle. Later he trained two naval bomber pilots as fighter pilots, and the three of them protected the Fleet against the Regia Aeronautica. At this stage of the war there was not a single fighter pilot at Malta. There were a few obsolete flyingboats and their crews, and there were four sea-Gladiators consigned to the Eagle in crates in the dockyard. They were uncrated and assembled, and the Royal Air Force flying-boat pilots, who had never before been at the controls of a fighter, took them up against the enemy. One was shot down, and the other three, battling against unbelievable odds, became known in Malta as Faith. Hope, and Charity. _ A historic remark by Sir Andrew is recorded. When told he had been made a Knight Grand Cross of the Bath, he replied: “I would rather they had given me three squadrons of Hurricanes.” Before Taranto A Swordfish crew on reconnaissance before Taranto had to make a forced landing at sea, were rescued by the Gloucester, and were flown back in the captain’s Walrus so that they should not miss the “entertainment.” As they prepared to take off from the Illustrious for the Taranto attack their wing was damaged, but the aeroplane was rushed down to the hangar, repaired, and 15 minutes later left to make its own raid. Two messages were signalled by Admiral Cunningham after Taranto. The first, to Vice-Admiral PndhamWippdl, read: "I trust you had many opportunities of using your heavy mashie,” to which the vice-admiral, a naval golf champion, replied in a detailed affirmative. To Rear-Admiral Lyster, of the Illustrious, whose aeroplanes had at one blow crippled the Italian fleet) the Commander-in-Chief said: “Illustrious manoeuvre well executed” the laconic understatement of a leader who knew the inadequacy of words. The night’s work had made him master of the-Mediterranean. ‘ In the book is noted a gunnery triumph by the Warspite. She hit an Italian battleship at a range of 15 miles. , . . It reveals that through her bombardment of the enemy’s positions on the Libyan coast, the 15in guns of the historic monitor Terror became so worn that their one-ton shells “somersaulted in the Italian positions like skittles in a bowling alley before exploding.’’ . . .. . When destroyers were luring the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni to her doom by letting her chase them towards the cruiser Sydney, the Hasty, last in the line, signalled to the Hero; “Don’t look round now, but 1 thmK we are being followed.” The Colleonffs shells were pitching all around the two destroyers as the signal was made.