Battle of the Mediterranean

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Battle of Mediterranean
Part of the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II

From top left to clockwise:
British aircraft carrier during the Operation Pedestal, the Italian Zara cruiser opens fire during the Battle of Cape Spartivento, an Italian merchant ship under enemy air attack, the Italian 'Gondar' submarine with the SLC cylinders on the deck.
Date10 June 1940 – 2 May 1945
(4 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and 1 day)
Location
Result Allied victory
Belligerents
 United Kingdom
 France (until 1940)
 United States (from 1942)
 Canada
 Free France
Poland
 Australia
 New Zealand
 Yugoslavia
 Greece
 Netherlands
Brazil
 Italy (from 1943)
 Italy (until 1943)
 Germany
 Italian Social Republic (from 1943)
 Vichy France[nb 1]
Commanders and leaders

Casualties and losses
Up to September 1943:
Total:
76 warships of 315,500 tons
48 submarines
Up to September 1943:
Fascist Italy Italy:
83 warships totaling 195,100 tons
84 submarines
2,018,616 tons of merchant shipping[1]
c. 21,000 Royal Italian Navy personnel and c. 6,500 Italian Merchant Navy personnel killed at sea[2][3]
Nazi Germany Germany:
17 warships
68 submarines
Vichy France Vichy France
11 warships of ~72,000 tons
7 submarines[4]

The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945.

For the most part, the campaign was fought between the

Axis naval and air forces, those of Nazi Germany and Vichy France, and the British Royal Navy, supported by other Allied naval forces, such as those of Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, and Greece
.

American naval and air units joined the Allied side on 8 November 1942. The Vichy French scuttled the bulk of their fleet on 27 November 1942, to prevent the Germans seizing it. As part of the Armistice of Cassibile in September 1943, most of the Italian Navy became the Italian Co-belligerent Navy, and fought alongside the Allies.

Each side had three overall objectives in this battle. The first was to attack the supply lines of the other side. The second was to keep open the supply lines to their own armies in North Africa. The third was to destroy the ability of the opposing navy to wage war at sea. Outside of the Pacific theatre, the Mediterranean saw the largest conventional naval warfare actions during the conflict. In particular, Allied forces struggled to supply and retain the key naval and air base of Malta.

By the time of the Armistice of Cassibile, Italian ships, submarines and aircraft had sunk Allied surface warships totalling 145,800 tons, while German forces had sunk 169,700 tons, for a total of 315,500 tons. In total the Allies lost 76 warships and 46 submarines. The Allies sank 83 Italian warships totalling 195,100 tons (161,200 by the British Empire and 33,900 by the Americans) and 83 submarines.[5] German losses in the Mediterranean from the start of the campaign to the end were 17 warships and 68 submarines.[6]

Main Combatants

British Mediterranean Fleet

The Mediterranean was a traditional focus of British maritime power. Outnumbered by the forces of the Regia Marina, the British plan was to hold the three key strategic points of

Mediterranean Fleet held open vital supply routes. Malta was the lynch-pin of the whole system. It provided a needed stop for Allied convoys and a base from which to attack the Axis supply routes.[7]

Italian Royal Fleet

Italian dictator

New Roman Empire" into Nice, Corsica, Tunis and the Balkans. Italian naval building accelerated during his tenure. Mussolini described the Mediterranean Sea as Mare Nostrum "(our sea)."[8]

The warships of the

rangefinder and fire-control systems for daylight combat. Only by the spring of 1943, barely five months before the armistice, twelve Italian warships were equipped with Italian-designed EC-3 ter Gufo radar devices. In addition, whereas Allied commanders at sea had discretion to act on their own initiative, the actions of Italian commanders were closely and precisely governed by Italian Naval Headquarters (Supermarina).

Italian battleship Roma (1940) starboard bow view

The Regia Marina also lacked a proper fleet air arm. The aircraft carrier Aquila was never completed and most air support during the Battle of the Mediterranean was supplied by the land-based Regia Aeronautica (Royal Air Force).[8] Another major handicap for the Italians was the shortage of fuel. As early as March 1941, the overall scarcity of fuel oil was critical. Coal, gasoline and lubricants were also locally hard to find. During the Italian war effort, 75% of all the fuel oil available was used by destroyers and torpedo boats carrying out escort missions.[10]

However, the most serious problem for the Axis forces in North Africa was the limited capacity of the

troop transports. On a monthly basis, Tripoli had an unloading capacity of 45,000 short tons (41,000 t). Tobruk added only another 18,000 short tons (16,000 t). Bardia and other smaller ports added a little more.[11]

In general, the Axis forces in North Africa exceeded the capacity of the ports to supply them. It has been calculated that the average Axis division required 10,000 short tons (9,100 t) of supplies per month. If the Italians had a fault in respect to logistics during the Battle of the Mediterranean, it was that they failed to increase the capacity of Tripoli and the other ports before the war.[11]

French Fleet

In January 1937, France began a programme of modernisation and expansion. This soon elevated the French Fleet to the fourth-largest in the world. However, the French Navy (formally the "National Navy" – Marine Nationale), was still considerably smaller than the navy of its ally, Britain.

By agreement with the British Admiralty, the strongest concentration of French vessels was in the Mediterranean. Here, the Italian Fleet posed a threat to the vitally important French sea routes from Metropolitan France to North Africa and to the British sea routes between Gibraltar and the Suez Canal.[12]

Vichy French Fleet

In 1940, after

France fell to the Germans, the Marine Nationale in the Mediterranean became the navy of the Vichy French government
. As the Vichy French Navy, this force was considered a potentially grave threat to the Royal Navy. As such, it was imperative to the British that this threat be neutralised.

As the opening phase of

James Somerville). The Vichy French government broke off all ties with the British as a result of this attack and the Vichy French Air Force (Armée de l'Air de l'armistice) even raided British installations at Gibraltar
.

At least two Allied freighters were captured by French forces in Tunisia and later handed over to the Italian navy.[13]

In June and July 1941, a small Vichy French naval force was involved during

Operation Exporter. This was an Allied action launched against Vichy French forces based in Lebanon and Syria. French naval vessels had to be driven off before the Litani River could be crossed
.

In 1942, as part of the occupation of Vichy France during "

bulk of the fleet was scuttled at anchor
.

German Navy

The Mediterranean U-boat Campaign lasted approximately from 21 September 1941 to May 1944. Germany's Kriegsmarine aimed at isolating Gibraltar, Malta, and the Suez Canal so as to break Britain's trade route to the far east. More than 60 U-boats were sent to disrupt shipping in the sea, although many were attacked in the Strait of Gibraltar, which was controlled by Britain (nine boats were sunk while attempting the passage and ten more were damaged). The Luftwaffe also played a key part in the Battle of the Mediterranean, especially during the summer of 1941. German war strategy, however, viewed the Mediterranean as a secondary theatre of operations.[14]

History

First actions

On 10 June 1940,

France surrendered
on 24 June, the Axis leaders allowed the new Vichy French regime to retain its naval forces.

The first clash between the rival fleets—the Battle of Calabria—took place on 9 July, just four weeks after the start of hostilities. This was inconclusive, and concurrent with a series of small surface actions during the summer, among them the battle of the Espero convoy and the battle of Cape Spada.

Battle of Taranto

To reduce the threat posed by the

HMS Illustrious attacked the Italian fleet on 11 November 1940 while it was still at anchor. This was the first time that an attack such as this had been attempted and it was studied by Japanese naval officers in preparation for the later attack on Pearl Harbor. British Fleet Air Arm aircraft badly damaged two Italian battleships
and a third was forced to run aground to prevent her sinking, putting half of the Regia Marina's major ships out of action for several months. This attack also forced the Italian fleet to move to Italian ports further north so as to be out of range of carrier-based aircraft. This reduced the threat of Italian sallies attacking Malta-bound convoys.

Cunningham's estimate that Italians would be unwilling to risk their remaining heavy units was quickly proven wrong. Only five days after Taranto, Inigo Campioni sortied with two battleships, six cruisers and 14 destroyers to disrupt a British aircraft delivery operation to Malta.

Furthermore, as early as 27 November, the Italian fleet was able to confront the Mediterranean fleet again in the indecisive battle of Spartivento. Two of the three damaged battleships were repaired by mid-1941 and control of the Mediterranean continued to swing back and forth until the Italian armistice in 1943. Measured against its primary task of disrupting Axis convoys to Africa, the Taranto attack had little effect. In fact, Italian shipping to Libya increased between the months of October 1940 – January 1941 to an average of 49,435 tons per month, up from the 37,204-ton average of the previous four months.[15] Moreover, rather than change the balance of power in the central Mediterranean, British naval authorities had "failed to deliver the true knockout blow that would have changed the context within which the rest of the war in the Mediterranean was fought."[16]

Battle of Cape Matapan

The

Andrew Cunningham—intercepted those of the Italian Regia Marina under Admiral Angelo Iachino. The Allies sank the heavy cruisers Fiume, Zara and Pola and the destroyers Vittorio Alfieri and Giosue Carducci, and damaged the battleship Vittorio Veneto. The British lost one torpedo plane and suffered light splinter damage to some cruisers from Vittorio Veneto's salvoes. The factors in the Allied victory were the effectiveness of aircraft carriers, the use of Ultra
intercepts and the lack of radar on the Italian ships.

Fall of Crete

The effort to prevent German troops from reaching

Fiji) and six destroyers (HMS Kelly, HMS Greyhound, HMS Kashmir, HMS Hereward, HMS Imperial and HMS Juno). Seven other ships were damaged, including the battleships HMS Warspite and Valiant and the light cruiser Orion
. Nearly 2,000 British sailors died.

It was a significant victory for the Luftwaffe, as it proved that the Royal Navy could not operate in waters where the German Air Force had air supremacy without suffering severe losses. In the end, however, this had little strategic meaning, since the attention of the

German Army was directed toward Russia (in Operation Barbarossa
) a few weeks later, and the Mediterranean was to play only a secondary role in German war planning over the following years. The action did, however, extend the Axis reach into the eastern Mediterranean, and prolong the threat to Allied convoys.

Two attempts were carried out to transport German troops by sea in caïques, but both of them were disrupted by Royal Navy intervention. The tiny Italian naval escorts, however, managed to save most of the vessels. Eventually, the Italians landed a force of their own near Sitia on 28 May, when the Allied withdrawal was already ongoing.

During the evacuation, Cunningham was determined that the "Navy must not let the Army down." When army generals stated their fears that he would lose too many ships, Cunningham said that "It takes three years to build a ship, it takes three centuries to build a tradition." Despite advance warning through Ultra intercepts, the Battle of Crete resulted in a decisive defeat for the Allies. The invasion took a fearful toll of the German paratroops, who were dropped without their major weapons, which were delivered separately in containers. So heavy were the losses that General Kurt Student, who commanded the German invasion, would later say, referring to the German decision not to use parachutists in any future invasion attempts:

"Crete was the grave of the German parachutists."

The balance shifts

After the battle of Crete in the summer of 1941, the Royal Navy regained its ascendancy in the central Mediterranean in a series of successful convoy attacks, (including the Duisburg convoy and Cap Bon), until the Raid on Alexandria in December swung the balance of power towards the Axis.[17]

The Regia Marina's most successful attack on the British Fleet was when divers attached

limpet mines on the hulls of British battleships during the Raid on Alexandria on 19 December 1941. The battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant
were sunk at their berths, but they were both raised and returned to active service by mid 1943.

Relief of Malta

Malta's position between Sicily and North Africa was perfect to interdict Axis supply convoys destined for North Africa. It could thus influence the campaign in North Africa and support Allied actions against Italy. The Axis recognised this and made great efforts to neutralise the island as a British base, either by air attacks or by starving it of its own supplies.

After a series of hard-fought convoy battles, all of them are Axis victories (such as the

Allied convoys were decimated. The turning point in the siege came in August 1942, when the British sent a very heavily defended convoy under the codename Operation Pedestal. Malta's air defence was repeatedly reinforced by Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters flown to the island from HMS Furious
and other Allied aircraft carriers. The situation eased as Axis forces were forced away from their North African bases and eventually Malta could be resupplied and become an offensive base once again.

Greatest extent of Italian control of the Mediterranean littoral and seas (within green lines and dots) in the summer/autumn of 1942. Allied-controlled areas are in red.

The British re-established a substantial air garrison and offensive naval base on the island. With the aid of Ultra, Malta's garrison was able to disrupt Axis supplies to North Africa immediately before the Second Battle of El Alamein. For the fortitude and courage of the Maltese people during the siege, the island was awarded the George Cross.

The Royal Navy and the RAF sank 3,082 Axis merchantmen in the Mediterranean, amounting to over 4 million tons.[18]

In September 1943, with the Italian collapse and the surrender of the Italian fleet, naval actions in the Mediterranean became restricted to operations against U-boats and by small craft in the

Adriatic and Aegean
seas.

Italian armistice

On 25 July 1943, the

armistice
was signed with the Allies at Fairfield Camp in Sicily. The armistice was announced on 8 September.

After the armistice, the Italian Navy was split in two. In southern Italy, the "

Co-Belligerent Navy of the South" (Marina Cobelligerante del Sud) fought for the King and Badoglio. In the north, a much smaller portion of the Regia Marina joined the Republican National Navy (Marina Nazionale Repubblicana) of Mussolini's new Italian Social Republic
(Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI) and fought on for the Germans.

Notable naval actions of the campaign

1940

1941

1942

1943

1945

  • 18 March, Battle of the Ligurian Sea, two British destroyers intercepts a German flotilla composed of one destroyer and two torpedo boats; the German destroyer limped away, while the two torpedo boats were sunk. This was the last deep-water German naval action of World War II.[23]

Notable Axis and Allied amphibious operations

1941

  • 25-28 February,
    Kastelorizo
    is thwarted by naval and air Italian forces.
  • 20 May, start of the Battle of Crete, the Axis invasion of the island.

1942

1943

1944

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Clodfelter, Micheal. "Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia." Page 485.
  2. ^ Caduti e Dispersi M. M. 2a G.M., Voll. 1, 2, 3, Ormedife C.EL.D. Esercito.
  3. ^ Rolando Notarangelo, Gian Paolo Pagano, Navi mercantili perdute, Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, Rome 1997.
  4. Syria-Lebanon
    (1 submarine).
  5. .
  6. ^ BRITISH LOSSES & LOSSES INFLICTED ON AXIS NAVIES
  7. ^ Mollo, p.128
  8. ^ a b Mollo, p. 94
  9. ^ Blitzer, p. 151
  10. ^ Sadkovich, pp. 286–287
  11. ^ a b Walker, p. 58
  12. ^ Mollo, p.55
  13. ^ "The Supply of Malta 1940-1942 by Arnold Hague". www.naval-history.net. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  14. ^ Sadkovich, p. 77
  15. ^ Bragadin, Italian Navy in World War II, p. 356.
  16. ^ Caravaggio, 'THE ATTACK AT TARANTO: Tactical Success, Operational Failure', p.122
  17. ^ Greene & Massignani, p. 204
  18. ^ Roskill, White Ensign, p 410
  19. ^ Warren, Daniel; Church, Robert; Davey, Rick (September 2004). "Discovering H.M.S. Ark Royal" (PDF). Hydro International. Retrieved 10 August 2016.
  20. ^ HMS Barham Explodes & Sinks: World War II (1941) - archive footage captured by British Pathé News cameraman, John Turner
  21. ^ "RHS Vasilissa Olga (D 15) of the Royal Hellenic Navy - Greek Destroyer of the Vasilefs Georgios class – Allied Warships of WWII – uboat.net". uboat.net. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
  22. .
  23. .
  1. armed neutrality and conducted military actions against armed incursions from both Axis and Allied belligerents. The cease fire and pledging of allegiance of the Vichy troops in French North Africa to the Allies during Torch convinced the Axis that Vichy could not be trusted to continue this policy, so they invaded and occupied
    the French rump state.

Bibliography