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The Naval Situation, March 1941

In the nine months that had passed since Italy entered the war the Italian fleet had made very few major sorties, of which two led to running fights with out Fleet, viz.: the action off Calabria on 9 July, 1940 (Battle Summary No. 8) and the action off Cape Spartivento on 27 November, 1940 (Battle Summary No. 9). Both of these encounters had ended in dismal retreat. On another occasion, 30 September 1940, their retreat took place before action was possible, although their preponderance of force, i.e., battleships 5 to 2, cruisers 11 to 5, destroyers more than 2 to 1 might have tempted them to an encounter (Naval Staff History (Med.), Vol. I, Sec. 861). Furthermore, they had submitted tamely to the attack on Taranto (11 November, 1940), the bombardment of Valona (18 December, 1940), the bombardment of Bardia (3 January, 1941), the passage of a through convoy from Gibraltar to Greece on 7–10 January, 1941, and the bombardment of Genoa (9 February, 1941). What finally stirred them into action were the prospects of a great Spring offensive in the Balkans and the urgency of German protests.2 Signs of increasing activity became apparent about 25 March. There was increasing aerial reconnaissance to the south and west of Greece and Crete, accompanied by daily attempts to reconnoitre Alexandria harbour, and other indications all pointing to some prospective action by the Italian fleet.

In the opinion of the C.-in-C. this action might take one of three forms: (1) attack on the British convoy routes in the Aegean with the despatch of an Italian convoy to the Dodecanese; (2) a diversion to cover a landing in Cyrenaica or Greece; (3) an attack on Malta. The most vulnerable target, in his opinion, was to be found in the British convoys to Greece, whose passage had to be safeguarded at all costs.