Swordfish

Drawing from British and Italian sources, David Wragg recounts the story of the Second World War's first great carrier raid-before Midway and Pearl Harbour, Facing Germany and Italy alone in 1940; Britain's Royal Navy launched a bold and brilliant plan to retake the initiative in the Mediterranean. On 11 November 1940 twenty-one obsolete 'stringbag' Swordfish biplanes launched from the Royal Navy carrier HMS illustrious. In just one night, one raid, they sank three Italian battleships at their port in Taranto. Besides expertly sketching the events of the raid that night (which incredibly cost the Royal Navy just two of its planes in the face of heavy anti-aircraft fire and searchlights), Wragg also fleshes out the development of naval aviation technology and its role in naval strategy before and during the war. He shows us how Taranto, great victory though it was, was all the more surprising given the Royal Navy's lack of advanced carrier aircraft and heavy carriers in large numbers such as the Japanese possessed at Pearl Harbour, had they done so victory could have been more complete. Later tragic losses at Petsamo and Kirkenses were to remind the navy that such victories require not just careful and bold planning and trained crews- but aircraft more advanced than the old but trusty Swordfish. He also debunks a few myths- it was not Taranto that decisively moved the Japanese to plan their audacious raid on Pearl Harbour the next year (that plan had already been war-gamed). The plan was risky but succeeded due to the willingness of the crew to press home their attacks, coupled with bold and brilliant planning and a willingness to take risks in attacking a defended port close to enemy home territory. The Italian failure to prevent the raid showed graphically both the power of air forces in a surprise attack and the dire need for effective fighter and radar defences and navy-air cooperation to prevent them- both of which the Italians lacked at the time. The raid drove the Italian fleet out of Taranto and helped ease the balance of forces against Britain in that theatre. From a wider perspective though the raid showed how it was the Allies, and not the Axis, that were to be the side that would more fully come to appreciate the power of the aircraft carrier. This small but rich book is a timely reminder of the way in which naval warfare was changed forever. The era of the great showdowns between big-gun battleships was being replaced by wars of air flotillas fighting each other and the enemy fleets over hundreds of miles of ocean, with opposing ships often never meeting. (Kirkus UK)