THE CONVOY REACHED PORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 14, 17 January 1941, Page 6

THE CONVOY REACHED PORT

Until much further information is available it will be impossible to pass judgment on the issue of the memorable battle between British warships escorting a convoy through the Mediterranean and enemy aircraft which attacked them for several hours in the Sicilian Strait. The question at issue—which has been discussed for years inconclusively— is whether the air weapon is effective against warships at sea. In some respects, but not in all, the battle may fairly be regarded as a historic test. In the first place, the attack was carried out by a considerable number of enemy aircraft—mainly dive-bombers of the Junkers type — estimated variously as forty or fifty. The German pi'ldts, sent down specially to Italy for the job of challenging JBritish naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, and therefore no doubt picked men, carried out the attack with the utmost skill, courage, and determination. Their principal targets were the new aircraft : carrier, H.M.S. Illustrious, and the 9400-ton cruiser, H.M.S. Southampton. Both were damaged, the Southampton so severely that after being towed for some distance afire she had to be abandoned as a total loss and was sunk by the British. The majority of the crew were saved. The Illustrious made port under her own steam, and the convoy arrived safely at its destination, Greece.

The casualties suffered by the enemy are believed to have been at least a dozen bombers, or about a quarter of the number engaged. The British loss may, on the surface, appear to have been greater, but it must be remembered that divebomber pilots are specialists in an air force and difficult both to train and to replace. Thus, on a fair estimate of the facts as far as they are known, the result might be described as "honours easy." The question whether the air weapon has proved its superiority over the warship remains unsettled. It is not known how many British warships were escorting the convoy. It may be that the Illustrious, the Southampton, and a few destroyers, one of which is mentioned as having been damaged by a torpedo or mine, comprised the whole escort. The British Navy in this war has had to work all through on a very narrow margin of strength for the task allotted to it. There is no mention of any battleships or heavy cruisers in the escort. So far no such ship has been sunk by aircraft, though H.M.S. Rodney was once hit by a bomb of large calibre in the North Sea and was able to carry on quite satisfactorily. The escorting warships, moreover, in this sea-air battle were at a disadvantage, hampered as they inevitably were in manoeuvre by their first duty of protecting their slower, cumbersome convoy. The conduct of officers and men was worthy of the highest traditions of the Navy, and their steadiness and devotion to duty under the severest bombardment ever carried out from the air, itself a most trying form of attack, will undoubtedly, as the news declares, find a place in naval history. Above all, the Navy* succeeded in its particular mission on this occasion of seeing its convoy safe home to port. In the passage of narrow waters, past enemy territory from which dive-bombers of comparatively short range may operate, risks are increased. The Navy faced those risks, as it has always done, took a convoy through the bottle-neck of the sea that Mussolini says is his, and brought that convoy safely to port.