Word: torpedoings
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Italian foot. He got no reaction. Such sweeps became the pattern for his fleet. Whenever his ships found Italians, they whipped them. On one occasion Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville on the Nelson knocked the Italians and escaped with nothing worse than a scare from an Italian torpedo, which missed. Flashed A.B.C.: "Flag to Nelson. Success of your operation should console you for nearly getting slap in belly with wet fish." When Admiral Somerville was given a second knighthood, A.B.C. signaled "Congratulations. Twice a knight. And at your...
Taranto (Nov. 11-12, 1940) was his first great triumph. There his torpedo bombers crippled the Italian battle fleet, in an action that was a model for Pearl Harbor. Just before sending off the carrier Illustrious, he flashed a message to its commander which was British in every monosyllable: "Good luck then to your lads...
...Germans gave tangible evidence that they expected an attack soon: according to London reports, a German force of between 80 and 100 heavy torpedo bombers had been shifted from Norway to Sicily. These bombers, commanded by Luftwaffe General Hans Jürgen Stumpff, caused great losses on the Allies' northern convoy route to Murmansk last year, and they could be dangerous to any invasion fleet in the western Mediterranean...
Aircraft also had the job of interdicting Axis withdrawals by sea. This was peculiarly an air job, because the Germans were using Siebel motor barges - too shallow in draft to be torpedoed, too well armed to be attacked efficiently by motor torpedo boats' machine guns, too small to be worth risking large naval units for, and fast enough (twelve knots) to cross the Sicilian Channel under cover of dark ness. Aircraft caught some by day, for the Germans were unquestionably trying to get away as much valuable personnel as possible. Late in the week the Axis was estimated...
Most of these submarines were in the 740-ton class or over, carried 4.1-inch guns, anti-aircraft guns and six 21-inch torpedo tubes. Fueled and armed, they could cruise up to 15,000 miles for six to eight weeks, had enough torpedoes to sink at least half a dozen ships, ammunition for their deck guns to take care of more if they found stragglers who could be sent to the bottom by shell fire...