Battle of Cape Spartivento, 1940: the inconclusive clash off Sardinia

In November 1940 the British were fighting to keep Malta supplied. John Rickard of HistoryOfWar.org describes the next effort, Operation Collar, as a joint move by Force H from Gibraltar under Vice Admiral James Somerville and ships of the Mediterranean Fleet from Alexandria, to see a few merchant ships through to Malta. At the same time the old battleship Ramillies and two cruisers were to leave the Mediterranean for the Atlantic, and the cruisers Manchester and Southampton were to carry about 700 soldiers and airmen east to Alexandria.²

The Italian navy had reason for confidence. On 11 November British carrier aircraft had struck the fleet at Taranto, but, as the Marina Militare recalls, on 17 November the Italian squadron led by the battleships Vittorio Veneto and Giulio Cesare had already broken up an earlier British operation to Malta. It describes Capo Teulada as one of the first Italian answers to the night of Taranto.³

Two fleets at sea

Somerville was worried. Force H had the carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Renown and two cruisers, and he was to be joined by the Ramillies. In Rickard's account, the Ramillies was too slow to keep up with the fast Italian battleships, the carrier's Swordfish crews were still inexperienced, and two of his cruisers were weighed down with troops.⁴

The Italians did come out. The Marina Militare lists the battleships Vittorio Veneto and Giulio Cesare, the heavy cruisers Bolzano, Fiume, Gorizia, Pola, Trento and Trieste and 14 destroyers, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. Rickard notes that the two Italian battleships outgunned Somerville's single battlecruiser and slow battleship; the only material advantage the British had was the Ark Royal.⁵

On the morning of 27 November a Sunderland flying boat from Malta found the Italian fleet south of Cape Spartivento, the southern tip of Sardinia; the Italians, in turn, sighted the British force at 9:45 with a floatplane from the cruiser Bolzano. Somerville's first concern was to join the Ramillies, and with her close at hand he turned north toward the enemy at 11:30, his cruisers under Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland leading.⁶

Under an hour of gunfire

The cruisers met at about 12:20; the Marina Militare puts the first shots at 12:22. Rickard writes that Campioni, believing he faced a superior British force, had just ordered his cruisers not to get drawn into battle, and that they turned away northeast, hoping to lure the British onto the Italian battleships. The Italian account describes the same action as a pursuit in which its faster, more heavily armed heavy cruisers engaged from 23,500 meters and fired 692 heavy shells.⁷

Two 8-inch shells hit HMS Berwick, knocking out a turret and starting a fire that took over an hour to put out, and HMS Manchester was damaged less badly. On the Italian side, the destroyer Lanciere was struck by three 6-inch shells but lost no one aboard. At 12:40, eleven Swordfish from the Ark Royal attacked the Vittorio Veneto; they claimed a hit but scored none.⁸

When the British cruisers came within range of the Italian battleships, the Vittorio Veneto opened fire from 27,000 meters. The Marina Militare says that by her fourth salvo the British cruisers were bracketed, made smoke and broke contact. At 1:12 Somerville gave up the chase. His convoy was about to enter the most dangerous stretch to Malta, and he had little chance of catching battleships faster than the Ramillies and stronger than the Renown.⁹

Two verdicts

The merchant ships reached Malta safely. Back at Gibraltar, however, Somerville was met by a board of inquiry into why he had not pressed the pursuit. Rickard thinks it reflected Churchill's frustration at that stage of the war rather than real doubts; the board upheld every decision Somerville had made.¹⁰

The Italian navy draws the opposite lesson. In its account the battle, though it ended without a clear advantage to either side, showed that Taranto had not shaken the Regia Marina's ability to control the central Mediterranean and that the British fleet had refused combat on equal terms. Italian cameramen filmed the action, and their footage was used in the film La nave bianca, on which a young Roberto Rossellini worked as assistant director.¹¹