Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
November 2, 1940.
13
HOW THE ROYAL NAVY FOUGHT DUCE'S FLEET
and
But
Sullora crammed the decks for a
Arst view of the graceful, clcunly built lines of an aircraft carrier as
Here is the
full
The British Navy has routed the Italian flect. Before bombarding Rhodes other Italian naval bases the British got the news that Mussolini's navy was out. once more the Italians turned away and were chased back to port. story-one of the most vivid sea stories of the war-told by-
Daily Express Staff Reporter ALAN MOOREHEAD. Aboard Flagship with British Battle Squadron in
Mediterranean
she moved forward. Behind came a
battleship and her escort.
This arm of the feet had just
of pounds worth of warships have destroyed two Italian shadowing air- Bailed thousands of failes through craft, which had tracked her down
the this Italian lake, driving all restato British ships had passed un-
Mediterranean. ance before them.
All these events set down here I scathed through a line of mines.
Mussollal lins Jak from BY THE FIRST LIGHT OF A PERFECT DAY A have either seen for myself or have which
checked up from reports
to Stelly, to the com- Africa
From this inspiring early morning BRITISH BATTLE SQUADRON STEAMED ON TO mander-in-chief, Sir Andrew Cun-
I date the beginning of a necting THE DODECANESE ISLANDS THIS MORNING AND ningan, aboard this ship.
Not one sallor out of a thousand new phase in the Mediterranean war. RAKED THE ITALIAN PIRATES' NEST BY SEA knew what toy ahead when the fleet, This joining of the dects under the AND AIR IN THE MOST BRILLIANT ACTION OF carrying a group of senior admirals, very eye of the enemy means incon- first slid out into the open sea last lestably that the tide in the sea war
has set against Mussolini, THE MEDITERRANEAN WAR.
now.
While the Fleet Air Arm of hille Five hundred pound bombs struck Rhodes, the main for. thudded straight through the two tress, the Australian cruiser in hungars. Workshops and bar- racks took fire and another petrol Sydney, her sister ship Orlon tank went up with a roar. and the destroyer Ilex stole in Ar the planes left there was + on the third day." And I was Ind- like those had not been seen by
Two of the torpedo bonts were blown out of the water. A third whs crippled. The remaining two retired at full speed.
its only building.
Further up coast Orion lobbied her
tered
fisher
Mussolint turned it
and
into
destroyer.
sen.
and
marines.
told
crews in this
in
of smoke blossomed
We watch-
on the
the
first
He still outnumbers us. But we have held him off and met him during the last three months, when we were less strong than we are week. But on the bridge they Planes roared up from the carrier me, "You will be seeing something as we steamed towards her. Planes like grey shadows among the cannonade ninor explosions, ed this radio message from London: saitom before,
Sardonically a mechanic of this neighbouring Islands and hurled Then a terrifle blast and a ribbon of "First Lord of the Admiralty wishes black smoke reached far across the
flagship strolled across to the hangar their broadsides on the sleeping
sea within sight of the alps eighty you nit good luck in your enterprise.
By morning the destroyers had where older types of flying boats are Italian garrison.
miles away.
flung out 11 wide protective "y" housed and chalked on a black board flex and Sydney, who has already
Italian airnen, recovering from across the sea, and capital ships and there, "Time marches on. This way sunk one Italian cruiser, were the first shock, run from the blazing cruisera ploughed forward in the to the museum."
We were still laughing when a gaged by a flotilla from Mussolini's hangars and frantiently took off. centre. famous 50 m.p.h. torpedo bonts off Before our bombers could return Aircraft on dawn patrol skimmed thin plume Makri Yulo, war base on Scarpunto irce were brought down and one out ahead searching for those long suddenly on the horizon. Island,
more had to make a forced landing purple shadows flant inca sub ed it in astonishment as it was realised that an Italian bomber was There was one brief moment at 6 down.
sky
The British planes came racing am, when the
was a flaming pink, the sea jet binck and the whole back. They had been on the job THLS,
the first encounter with
of this immense grey steel arrowhead exactly ten minutes.
six-hour Then an intermittent Italy's most prized ten, weapon,
was pointed down along one path of brought her nothing but loss. Every
battle began. On the Italian side and floating one of the enemy's torpedoes shot by Our only other loss occurred when the rising sun towards Italy.
of our machines heeldentally
Aloft a lone Italian reconnaissance bombers, submarines Its hurmlessly into the open sea and our
pilot must have jumped at his con- mines; on ours fighters and guns of warships calmly went on plastering Upped off the aircraft carrier. the near-by airfield and demolished crew of three were rescued by a trols at the sight, for he sent off the Fleet.
It was fought in brilliant. sunlight frantic signals to his base. While this was happening the rest Casually, a flight of fighters slip- over a huge stretch of sea not twenty
flight the deck of the British minutes
from the Italian shells into Pegadia Buy, but being of the bombers came learing back ped from unwilling to
to endanger villages cius- triumphantly over the fleet and made aircraft carrier. The leader of the coast,
was standing high up around
the barracks her com- their landings easily despite a rising fight was thirty-eight-year-old Com-
One after another they dis- mander Keighley-Peach, ace of the searchlight platforms when the spat mander ceased fire,
Simultaneously a large force of appeared by hydraulle lifts into the Fleet Air Arm in the Mediterranean, tering salvo of bombs cracked down,
with five planes to his credit.
Towering mast-high, a curtain of British sea bombers assailed two of carrier,
He found an Italian ying boat grey smoke and salt spray blotted Ihodes' air bases at Maritza and By now it was daylight and the
this Calato, from which the Italians have naval gunners were ready for any with a crew of four and drove him out the ship astern. Then another
When he brought his line of bombs, smaller ones been constantly making air raids on Italian reply. It came shortly after into the sex.
the carrier time, were alongside us ten o'clock as wo
steaming lighter safely back 10 were Alexandela and Haifa,
they
told him: "We have just bad a Then again single fountains came Rhodes had never been raided be- away from the islands,
The first salvo of bombs seemed message about you from London, spurting up among the ships to the fore. It used to be a dreaming sum- mer island of roses and wing of to come clear out of the sun and it You've been recommended for the left.
With one synchronised roar folk and
thrust up a green wall of water away D.5.0. holiday-makers,
to the right of the flagship.
The D.S.O. was for Keighley- cruisers hit back. You saw The feet's guns opened with an Peach's part in an action off Sicily
crush. aching, shuddering
Shells last month when the Fleet was at seemed to be bursting everywhere tacked by five hundred aircraft,
of these ships and Many right across to the horizon.
I was caught typing behind one of have already made history peaceful monasteries and pine forests. the four-inch guns and the type- war in the North Sea and Atlantic,
their muzzles, then a secret writer flew from any hands among a and there was a long list of other smoke from hide-out from which his submarines, pile of books that tumbled on to the awards passed around the ships. So flames, then seconds later you felt men were coger for another an explosion that lifted you off the bombers
torpedo-boats have floor. I abandoned all hope of get the been way-laying neutral and bel- ting back my favourite perch behind scrap when the Italians launched deck.
thelf first high-bombing aitack on a Right out on the horizon ships the bridge. Ilgerent ships alike as they traded up Bits of shrapnel spattered the section of the fleet steaming over the were racing to new positions, making to Greece and the 'Dardanelies. Now
deck.
sudden turns and dashes. The de- I ducked and ran for the 15- horizon to the south, it was caught unawares.
turrets. From there I Splinters
ters touched the steering, gear stroyers heard enemy submarines and We got what we had hoped for Inch gun when last night anilors, airmen and watched bomb bursts on the waves of one vessel. She sailed on with clawed up the sea like wild cats as with my eye the rest of the fleet, steering with they sped between the capital ships gunners received their final orders and twice followed
enemy bombers skimming past at her engines.
pursuit. from this flagship.
Then suddenly one of our scouting Each depth charge-they were ex- An hour before sunrise the fleet 7,000 feet.
Patiently, on the outskirts of the planes flashed back the dramatic ploding very deep sent slow trembl- was in position, lapped by a long
pursuit planes news that the Italian fleet with two ing blasts across the sea. Floating -easy-swell-One after another, over night, the British
miles of ocean, silhouettes of walled. Then when the Italians battleships-and-seven-cruisers and mines were discovered perhaps. cast the battleships and cruisers, de- passed beyond gun range they leaped screened by destroyers, was steaming off by submarines, and everywhere
dead towards us at fifteen knots. they got a ent
chance our ships turned In de-
It seemed that a major action was their guns upon them.
and that we should meet them The fleet warplanes meanwhile had certain in the darkness at one am.
brought down three more raiders Omeers in the wardroom, men and chased two astonished Italian round the galley bolted their dinner bombers back across the sea to Italy, and hurried on deck, wrapping great- their fuselages riddled with bullets. coats over their white tropical shorts But the enemy's job was dimcult und shirts.
since an Italian spotting plane
had Searchlights were spun round been brought down early in the fight as they fled. That makes fourteen certainly destroyed ready to push their beams across the and numbers of enemy bombers that sen. A stream of signals finshed went up had lost their way in the Away on the horizon the Sydney and eight more 'probables,"
failed to reach the Spouting was already in action.
Even in the late afternoon we are from the flagship's bridge bringing open sea and
destroyers into new fleet. smoke columns showed where her getting occasional warnings, but the cruisers and
before their silhouettes All this action was scattered and 0-inch shells were hitting. Then fleet is steaming steadily into cover positions
spread out over a long period. The Calato awoke to find ità petrol dump of the darkness. The padre has vanished in the darkness, and soon commander of my ship had been exploding and half a dozen altcraft posted up as his text for the day, cascades of black waves were see broadcasting reports on the battle's blazing on the ground and the bar- "We came into Rhodes." racks in Games.
This action comes as a climax to thing over bows, past snouts of the progress as they came from outlying At Maritza the green' airfield of the feet's most brilliant week in the 15-inch guns where the gun crews ships. None was touched.
There had not even been near
in one Tunt lles under a monastery in a cup Mediterranean yet. Many millions stood waiting.
though Stumbling round our black decks misses I passed hundreds of men. They shrapnel had come aboard. were
laughing, whistling and yarning The commander finished each broadcast with the words, "This is exeltedly.
Ten hours later in the first light the end." You could judge the spirit of a new day, they were there still, in which the sailors fought from the But the Italians were not. Some- shouts of laughter when the com- where in the night the enemy had inander ended one of his reports with changed course and disappeared.
numbers of Italian aircraft "Lorge Even our air down patrol found are expected in five minutes' time. no trace, and hours later news came This through that the enemy ships were Then in the late afternoon there well on the way home to
Italy
was an incident that brought the But a British submarine struck fight to a
close. Orst. Roaming well ahead of the There had been another moun- British Fleet оп on Independent tainous bomb salvo alongside the course she reached the Italian battle flagship when the gunners squadron in the falling light and same instant got a perfect glimpse of rose to identify the ships through the silver wings of Avo enemy lhor peristope.
machines lying in the clear sky Within a matter of seconds two tor- 13,000 feet up, pedoes had split the sea with terrifie I was deafened by fire around me explosions and the submarine dived and the sky was thick with ahell to safely. One Italian cruiser at bursts. One silver plane slowly do- least had been hit.
turned tached itself from the rest, It was one of the most Important from allver to black,
thea floring successes of the British submarines yellow, crashed headlong into the in the Mediterranean sluce Italy do sen. As it hit the water a dense clared wa
pillar of billowing black smoke Ilad the Italian fleet wanted action apurted into the sky. after that on terms greatly favour- Again from a ring of shellbursts ing itself there was nothing to atop far above I saw another machine The Italian coast wha near spin down like a burning moth bo- enough to have brought up with fore the flame of the afternoon sun.
timo
ashos ample
capital ships, After it, falling like while Tow
three cruisers and especially destroyers. through black smoke, came
Overwhelmingly superior numbers parachutists.
Atty
stroyers and aircraft carriers
tached themselves from the sea mist.
They had two down in ten minutes down light I and three more as good as finished,
By a sickly yellow dawn could just see our bombers sweeping off the deck from the nearest air- craft carrier, each one heavily laden with ochre-coloured bombs.
The leaders clre
clrcled our flag ship
until the last machines were clear.
Then
hen they wheeled upward together casting bits oft in formation.
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lot
The wind rose sharply
WAT.
end."
or two cases
at the
aircraft could have reached the Thousands of British sailors watch British Fleet In
ຕ few hours. As Red fascinated those whilo dote
"O
was our warships steamed on to the hovered delicately for a few minutes, danger zone in the Central Mediter then gently lowered their burdens canean to keep rendezvous with an into the sea to drown. No shly other section of the Fleet,
could stop for them in that sub- We walled tensely for i in the marine-ridden sea. carly morning light. Then, dend on Two British fighters cruised over time, other units churned through the dying. Italian pilots, and with the blue, hazala, get our delighted wide graceful swoops alighted on
tho carrier. The fight was finished.
welcome..
HR
ere's
THE
"We agree-blast all wing forwards who always leave the real work to chaps like you, BUT --you've pinched our mug!".
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