On 22 March 1942 Philip Vian's British cruisers and destroyers used smoke and the threat of torpedoes to keep an Italian squadron led by the battleship Littorio away from a convoy for Malta until dusk. The delay exposed the convoy to bombers, and only about a fifth of its cargo was landed. In 1945 Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine.
A convoy for Malta
In March 1942 Malta, under constant air attack, badly needed supplies, and a four-ship convoy was sent to it from Alexandria. The naval supply ship Breconshire and the merchant ships Clan Campbell, Pampas and the Norwegian Talabot sailed on 20 March with the cruiser Carlisle and six destroyers. Rear Admiral Philip Vian followed with the cruisers Cleopatra, Dido and Euryalus and four destroyers, Hunt-class destroyers joined from Tobruk, and on the morning of the 22nd the cruiser Penelope and the destroyer Legion came out from Malta.1
Vian had nothing heavier than light cruisers: the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant had been put out of action at Alexandria by Italian assault craft in December 1941.2
Iachino puts to sea
Early on 22 March the submarine P.36 reported heavy ships leaving Taranto at about 1.30 a.m.. Admiral Angelo Iachino flew his flag in the battleship Littorio. From Messina came the 8-inch cruisers Gorizia and Trento, the 6-inch cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere and four destroyers. Accounts of the destroyers from Taranto differ; Playfair and Mattesini put seven Italian destroyers in the action.3
Vian had his plan ready: to lay smoke between the enemy and the convoy and to attack with torpedoes under its cover, and his ships had rehearsed it. A strong south-easterly wind of about 25 knots carried the smoke toward the enemy.4
Smoke and torpedoes
Euryalus sighted the Italian cruisers at 2.27 p.m.; the British at first took them for battleships. They drew off, and at 3.35 Vian reported the enemy driven off.5
At about 4.40 they returned with Littorio. A shell hit Cleopatra's bridge. The Italians would not enter the smoke and kept trying to work round its western, leeward end. Searching to the east for enemy ships he could not account for, Vian went too far, and Captain St. J. A. Micklethwait's destroyers Sikh, Havock, Lively and Hero were left to hold off the enemy in what Micklethwait called a "somewhat unequal contest". Havock was hit, according to Harwood and Roskill, or damaged by a near miss, according to Playfair and Mattesini.6
Torpedoes at dusk
Shortly before six Cleopatra fired torpedoes at the battleship, which turned away. Then Captain A. L. Poland's destroyers Jervis, Kipling, Kelvin and Kingston closed the Littorio and fired some twenty-five torpedoes at about three miles. Kingston was hit as she turned: by a 15-inch shell according to Roskill and the British report, by an 8-inch shell from Trento according to the Italian account and Mattesini.7
Admiral Harwood's despatch called a torpedo hit on the battleship almost certain. The official histories and Mattesini, working from Italian records, agree that no torpedo struck; the battleship was hit only by a shell that did little harm. As darkness came on, Iachino broke off and turned for home without reaching the convoy.8
Victory at sea, loss in harbor
The battle had pushed the convoy south and delayed it, so daylight on 23 March found the scattered ships still at sea under air attack. Talabot and Pampas reached Grand Harbour. Breconshire was hit and disabled within eight miles of harbor and later towed into Marsaxlokk, and Clan Campbell was bombed and sunk short of Malta.9
On 26 March Talabot and Pampas were hit in harbor and sunk. Only about a fifth of the roughly 26,000 tons of cargo was landed. The gale struck the Italians too: on the 23rd the destroyers Lanciere and Scirocco foundered on the way home.10
A classic example
Roskill called the action "a classic example of the ability of a weaker force, handled with skill and determination, to parry the intentions of a far stronger enemy", Playfair "a classic example of successful action by an inferior fleet". Playfair adds that "the Italian tactics did delay the convoy", exposing it to air attack, and "To this extent" succeeded. More sea fights are gathered in our guide to the greatest naval battles, and Vian's earlier clash in the same waters in our page on 17 December.11
Also on 22 March
1945: on the night of 22 to 23 March the 5th Infantry Division of Patton's Third Army crossed the Rhine near Nierstein and Oppenheim, south of Mainz. See Patton vs Montgomery for the race to the Rhine.12
