GOODS DELIVERED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 June 1942, Page 3

GOODS DELIVERED

DARING & DETERMINATION OF THE NAW BRITISH LOSSES RELATIVELY LIGHT. ITALIANS SUFFER HEAVILY. (British Official Wireless.) - RUGBY, June 16. Thesupplies got through—that is the keynote of the reaction in London to the latest details of the great sea and: air battles in the Mediterranean. The morning newspapers acclaim the daring and determination with which the Royal Navy pressed forward its expedition through the most dangerous areas of the Mediterranean in the lightest season and in face of tremendous opposition from the Axis warships, submarines and planes. The Naval correspondent of the “Daily Express" says that no British battleship or aircraft-carrier was even damaged. The British naval losses have been comparatively light, and maA not involve even a cruiser. fhe “Daily Mail” says: “The Italian version is substantiated only in the fact that, this was one of the biggest air and sea actions of the war, but the Italian claims to have damaged eight British warships are absolutely untrue. It turns out, as usual, that the heavy losses were suffered not by the British but by the Italian fleet. We must assume, in view of the strength of the attack, that our losses of merchantmen are unlikely to have been light.” It is now possible to piece together a picture of the fluid battle, which covered 500 miles of sea. A Malta-bound convoy sailed from Gibraltar, and the other, bound for Tobruk, sailed from Alexandria.'. Several separate actions then resulted. Powerful air squadrons attacked the Malta-bound convoy south of Sardinia. The results of these attacks are not yet known. An Italian naval squadron, in the meantime, was hovering off Pantellaria awaiting a chance •to attack the convoy should it be sufficiently weakened by the air onslaught, but this squadron, consisting of cruisers and destroyers, never got a chance. Dual air attacks launched from air-craft-carriers and from Malta savaged it, setting fire to a cruiser and probably hitting a destroyer. This squadron appears to have taken no further part in the battle. ITALIANS AGAIN RUN FOR HOME. Meanwhile, the main Italian battlefleet was steaming full-speed southward from Taranto, in the heel of Italy, and its obvious purpose, according to the “Daily Mail’s” naval correspondent, was to get among the convoy from Alexandria and smash it up immediately it had been reasonably “softened” by the violent air attacks from planes drawn from the Aegean and African bases; but, like the smaller Italian squadron, it was never given the opportunity. A swarm of torpedo planes was loosed on it from Malta and another swarm swooped down from Africa. Then came the greatest shock of all—a strong force of American Liberators. The sea was alive with torpedoes and powerful armour-piercing bombs from the Liberators dropping all round the twisting, writhing Italian warships. Fires and explosions broke aboard the battleships. Bombs burst on the decks ui a heavy Trento-class cruiser, and before long she was ablaze from stem to stern. British torpedo planes swooped in for the death blow and she sank in a few minutes. There were fires in other warships and the Italians turned north at full speed for home. Once again a major sea action appears to have been fought out without surface ships coming into action against one another. The damage the British inflicted appears to have been the work entirely of planes, and our aircraft effectively prevented the two Italian naval squadrons from making battle contact.