Hood/Punta Stilo, wer kann da helfen?

[Peter K.]

Schon am 08.07.1940 um 10.00 Uhr starteten 72 Bomber und 58 Jäger von ägäischen und libyschen Basen gegen Cunningham´s Mittelmeerflotte. Sie warfen insgesamt 102 x 250 kg und 331 x 100 kg - Bomben auf die britischen Schiffe ab, trafen aber nur GLOUCESTER auf der Brücke.

Am 09.07.1940 um 14.15 Uhr ersuchte Campioni per Funk um Luftunterstützung. Superaereo gab den Befehl um 14.50 Uhr weiter und um 15.35 Uhr startete die erste Maschine von Gela. Der erste italienische Luftangriff erfolgte dann um 16.43 Uhr. Insgesamt waren 126 Bomber an den folgenden Angriffen beteiligt, die 8 x 500 kg, 236 x 250 kg und 270 x 100 kg - Bomben warfen, insgesamt genau 90 t. Allerdings griffen davon auch 50 Maschinen eigene Schiffe mangels genauer Feinderkennung an. Eine Maschine ging durch eigenes Flakfeuer verloren, 24 Flugzeuge wurden beschädigt.

Quelle:
Sadkovich

[t-geronimo]

Cunningham befürchtete auch, über einen U-Boot-Streifen gezogen zu werden. Zudem konnte von seinen Schlachtschiffen nur Warspite der Reichweite der italienischen schweren Geschütze paroli bieten.

Man darf nicht vergessen, daß beide Seiten im Prinzip noch am experimentieren waren, da der Krieg im Mittelmeer erst wenige Tage alt war.
Daher waren noch Aktionen möglich, die später, als die jeweiligen Teilstreitkräfte zumindest etwas besser aufeinander eingespielt waren, so kaum noch möglich gewesen wären.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Gentlemen,

Warspite maintop was hit by a 8" Grenade by Trento at h 15.58. You may read the whole story, based on the TNA (former PRO) docs on Storia Militare, Jan. and Feb. 2008.
About the (fake) version of that ship Swordfish floatplane destroyed by a Warspite blast, then, you can see my "Il mistero dell'idrovolante scomparso" published, both in Italian and in English, by AEROFAN, nr. 95 Oct.- Dec. 2005.

Greetings

    EC

PS Being my German little write me in Engliso or Italian about this subject, please.

[t-geronimo]

Can you give us some details about the damage caused by the hit?

I own none of your articles and my italian is even worse tham your german - it is zero... 


Edit:
And where do you have the information from? Is there something like a detailed damage/battle report in british archives where the hit is mentioned?

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello,

the documents are in file ADM 267/111.
The damages includes L-2. HA 4" mouting, the port side crane, the Crow's Nest, the .5" MG on X turret, whose crews were "blown over", n.3 Pom-Pom and the after funnel.
They were given as caused by a near miss bomb on 8 July 1940, but no such damage is recorded in the Bombing Survey or in the wireless messages sent by Warspite to the Admiralty on 9 July and repeated the next day about the air attacks; the Italian bombers, then, did not claim any such hit that day but only a fire on a cruiser (Gloucester).
They match, instead, with the granade "sweeping" the flying deck observed by the Italian ships at h 15.57.
According the same report the "bomb" had made a "Complete detonation. Largest fragment 6" x 4" of light metal 1/4" thick" which is too much thick for the 3-4 mm elektron tails of the Italian 50 and 100 Kilos bombs which were personally measured by the director of the Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle, but stands well with the 6,5 mm magnesium alloy ballistic cap of the Italian 203 mm grenades Trento was firing, according the handbook, just in that circumstance.

After this accident Warspite altered her course, as the ship Navigational Record confirms, putting her X and Y towers out of the A arc. After a following Cesare's 12.6 inch near miss falling less than 10 meters at 16.02 Warspite altered course again and silenced at 16.03 her guns causing Malaya to fire, first time, even if she was clearly ourranged, to cover the flagship.
At 16.03 Cesare altered course of 50° and at 16.05 she and cavour turned right on 310° course firing until 16.08. Malaya altered her course at 16.07 increasing her bearing from 300° to 335° and stopping her slow rate fire at 16.08. The Italian BBs did the same in the same minute as their targets were by now covered by the curtain laid since 16.05.
Warspite suffered again the effect of a near miss from the last Zara 8" salvo fired at h 16.17 whose splinters sprayed the Admiral's bridge, the signal deck and the starboard H.A. rangefinder. Warspite remained silent while Zara was shooting her and Malaya had to fire again much beyong her 15 " guns range to help the flagship to istricate from her position.   
This accident too was said to be an effect of an Italian bomb, but like before not only the Bombing survey did not mention the episode.
Malaya too lamented the effects of a supposed near miss bomb on 8 July 1940, but no mention is made in the Bombing Survey and the damages to her forward H.A. Director coincides with the Cavour claims and the Eugenio's Ro. 43 floatplane spotter report.

Greetings

   EC   
                     

[t-geronimo]

Thank you very much for these detailed informations!

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Two further details: ther's no trace in the Britsh record of the Italian wireless messages intercepted that day (they were all plain lenguage) about the famous "We are approaching the submarine line or trap, itself not existent. Short of fantasy Adm. Cunningham used for his fabrication the same old Jellicoe's excuse at Jutland (pardon, Skagerrak). 

HMS Hood was slightly damaged on 9 July 1940, while enduring an air raid in Western mediterranean, by the explosion of a rocket projectors of her (Bruce Taylor, The battlecruiser HMS HOOD, an illustrated biography 1916-1941, ed. Chatam, London, 2005).

  Greetings

     EC