Library Reference Number: 067
Battle of Matapan - 230 Squadron Sunderlands
One of the most dramatic sea battles during WW2 took place when battleships Barham, Valiant and Warspite opened fire at only 3500 metres annihilating two Italian cruisers in five minutes. In the melee that followed, British destroyers sank two Italian destroyers and the heavy cruiser Pola. The battle commenced at 07.45 on 28th March 1941, when Italian warships were spotted heading for Crete.
However, it was not until shortly after 22.00 hrs that the above-mentioned heavy losses were inflicted on the Italian navy who were not equipped for night fighting.
Our job at this time, and leading up to the battle, was to patrol west of Malta looking for enemy shipping, and for this purpose two Sunderland aircraft of 230 Squadron had been detached to Suda Bay in Crete. One of those, was aircraft 'X' captained by S/Ldr Garside, and I was Wireless Operator/Air Gunner on the other, aircraft 'Y' captained by F/Lt Lywood
Towards the end of one patrol, aircraft 'X' spotted enemy warships heading towards Malta. The weather was deteriorating, and a storm was coming in from the west. The crew of 'X' estimated and recorded the speed and direction of the enemy ships, thought to be 10 in number. The amount of signal traffic between aircraft/Malta and Cairo during this period was quite considerable.
The following morning it was our turn, and we were airborne by 07.00 hrs with cloud base at 200 feet. It was jet black and heavy rain. We climbed above the clouds and flew in a westerly direction for about two hours. The captain came on the intercom to say he was going down and urged us all to keep our eyes open. He needn't have bothered - because if we had been flying a helicopter we could have landed on the deck of one of the enemy ships. Fortunately, the pilot knew his job. He went down to wave-top level and flew right through between the ships.
It was fine when the first of the enemy shells fell short - but it soon changed rather quickly when they found the range, and shells started exploding just short of our tail turret. We were soon back in the clouds however, and the general visibility started to improve as the storm moved away towards the mainland. From a comparatively safe altitude we counted eight waterspouts, and even more interesting was the clear sighting of the enemy ships we had almost pranged into earlier. Interesting also, that we clearly observed 15 ships, whereas our colleagues in 'X' had earlier reported only 10.
We kept the enemy in sight all day and the W/T was very busy, as the speed and direction kept changing so often, I suppose to confuse us of their real intent. By late afternoon there was a huge change in the weather, - not a cloud in the sky and we could see for many miles. Just as we were breaking and considering our return to base, we saw on the horizon smoke from the British Fleet, which had joined contact with the enemy ships that same night.
The following morning, our Squadron colleagues in aircraft 'X1 spotted 10 enemy ships making their way back to Italy. From this sighting, we deduced that 5 of their number had been sunk - and this was confirmed later. Details of the Italian losses appear in the opening paragraph of this account, and it was indeed a costly exercise for the Italian navy. We were informed later that the Germans had used the Italian shipping movements as a decoy while they reinforced Rommel's army in the North Africa Campaign. They had failed to take into account that Admiral Cunningham was an experienced night fighter in warfare at sea, and some of the British ships were fitted with radar. 2,400 Italians were killed, missing or captured, and three members of RAF aircrew were killed when their torpedo bomber was shot down. While all this was going on, the Germans had been attempting to bring further troop reinforcements & supplies from Sicily to back up their campaign in North Africa.