November 11th, 1940, 2030 hours.
HMS Illustrious, 170 nautical miles southeast of Taranto Harbor.
Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Hooch Williamson stands on the flight deck, watching mechanics strap an 18-in torpedo beneath his fairy swordfish.
Temperature drops to 8° C.
Wind screams across the carrier deck at 35 knots.
Salt spray stings his face.
21 obsolete canvas biplanes.
Maximum speed 93 knots with torpedoes attached will fly into the teeth of 101 anti-aircraft guns, 193 machine guns, 27 barrage balloons, and six Italian battleships protected by the most heavily defended harbor in the Mediterranean.
In 11 minutes, they will half of Mussolini’s battle fleet.
Two men will die.
their names.
Lieutenant Gerald Bailey, Lieutenant Henry Slaughter.
But right now, Williamson doesn’t know his torpedo will hit its target before anti-aircraft fire rips his swordfish apart.
Williamson is 26 years old from New Townerts, Northern Ireland.
His wife Pamela waits at home.
They married 18 months ago in a small church ceremony, White Roses.
Her silk dress borrowed from her sister.
He carries her photograph in his jacket pocket, wrapped in waxed paper to protect it from sea spray.
He promised he’d return for Christmas.
His hand rests on the fabric fuselage of his aircraft.
Ice crystals form on the wing struts.
He’s calculating odds.
Six battleships, five heavy cruisers, 21 aircraft.
The math doesn’t favor survival.
his personal risk, leading the first wave directly into concentrated anti-aircraft fire that will turn the night sky into a storm of tracer rounds and exploding shells.
Bailey and Slaughter risk everything because failure means thousands die.
Malta is starving.
British convoys can’t reach the island while Italian battleships control the central Mediterranean.
Children on Malta receive halfrations.
Soldiers defend with dwindling ammunition.
Men like Williamson who fly knowing half won’t return deserve witnesses.
Their courage, their sacrifice, their names preserved beyond classified files.
Subscribe if you agree.
The Mediterranean Sea, November 1940.
The strategic situation is catastrophic for Britain.
France has fallen.
The French Mediterranean fleet gone.
Italy’s Reia Marina now outnumbers the Royal Navy 3 to1 in the central Mediterranean.
Six Italian battleships sit in Taranto Harbor.
Latorio Vtorio Venido, Ki Davore, Kaio Duilio, Andrea Doria, Julio Cheser.
Modern, heavily armored, fast, armed with 15in guns that can shred British cruisers at 25 mi range.
These battleships form a fleet in being a deadly threat that doesn’t need to fight to control the sea.
Their mere existence forces the Royal Navy to commit overwhelming force to every convoy.
British ships must sail in concentrated formations, making them easy targets for Italian bombers flying from Sicily and Sardinia.
Malta is the strategic pivot.
The island sits directly across Italy’s supply line to Libya.
If Malta survives, British submarines and aircraft can savage access convoys feeding Raml’s Africa corpse.
If Malta falls, the Mediterranean becomes an Italian lake.
Egypt falls.
The Suez Canal closes.
India becomes vulnerable.
But Malta is dying.
The siege has begun.
Convoys can’t reach the island while Italian battleships threaten from Taranto.
Food stocks plummet.
By November 1940, Maltese children receive reduced bread rations.
British garrison soldiers eat tinned bully beef and hard biscuits.
Fresh vegetables gone.
fresh meat, a memory, medical supplies run low.
Ammunition reserves drop to weeks, not months.
If this raid fails, Malta starves into surrender within 6 months.
If it succeeds, the balance of Mediterranean naval power shifts overnight.
British convoys reach Malta.
Children eat full meals.
Soldiers receive ammunition.
The siege breaks, but success will cost blood.
Two families will receive telegrams they’ll read with shaking hands.
Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Williamson, 26 years old.
Commanding officer, 815, Squadron from New Towns, County Down Pamela.
Married June 1939.
She’s pregnant.
Doesn’t know yet.
He wrote her a letter 3 days ago.
Sealed it.
Gave it to his squadron mate with instructions.
If I don’t come back.
Distinguished service cross recipient.
He’s flown 247 combat hours since war began.
survived the battle of Calabria when Italian bombers nearly sank.
HMS Eagle knows his swordfish inside out.
Can land on a carrier deck in complete darkness using only feel and instinct.
Tonight he’s thinking about his father, a Great War veteran who taught him to fly gliders in the Belfast Hills, wondering if his child will ever know him.
Lieutenant Gerald Bailey, 28 years old, pilot 819 Squadron from Cornwall.
Quiet, methodical.
His crew mates call him Steady because his hands never shake during torpedo runs.
He’s engaged to Sarah, a nurse at Portsouth Naval Hospital.
Wedding planned for March 1941.
She’s embroidered his initials on a handkerchief he carries.
His last letter to her, written yesterday.
We’re doing something important.
I’ll tell you about it when I return.
Keep the 17th free.
I’ll be on leave then.
He won’t.
Lieutenant Henry Hanks Slaughter, 25 years old, observer, Bayileleyy’s rear seat navigator from Devon.
His mother is a widow.
His father died at Jutland in 1916.
He’s her only child.
He writes to her every week without fail.
Last night’s letter.
The weather is cold, but spirits are high.
We have a job to do that might shorten the war.
I’ll make father proud.
He’s carrying his father’s pocket watch.
silver engraved to Henry Senior from Victoria Coronation Day 1902.
He winds it every evening at 2100 hours hours precisely.
This morning, Admiral Andrew Cunningham addressed his fleet.
The Italian Navy has avoided battle for 5 months.
They hide in Taranto behind guns and nets, a fleet that refuses to fight.
Tonight, we remind them that the Royal Navy does not ask permission to enter enemy harbors.
We take what we want.
The plan originated in 1935 when Admiral Dudley Pound first conceived attacking Taranto.
Captain Lumly Listister, then commanding HMS Glorious, refined the concept.
Night attack to maximize surprise, torpedoes modified for shallow water, flares for illumination, bombs as diversion.
Training began in 1938.
Three years of practice.
Night carrier landings.
Low-level torpedo runs in darkness.
Evasive maneuvers against search lights.
The expected casualty rate 50%.
If this raid fails, Admiral Cunningham loses his only carrier aircraft.
Malta’s garrison receives no relief.
Italian confidence source.
Mussolini’s propaganda machine declares victory.
The Mediterranean war tilts decisively toward the axis.
But there’s a secret weapon the Italians don’t expect.
Put yourself in Rear Admiral Listister’s boots.
You’re the carrier commander aboard HMS Illustrious.
21 obsolete biplanes.
Fabric covered open cockpit.
Maximum speed slower than a modern car versus six modern battleships protected by 101 anti-aircraft guns, 193 machine guns, 27 barrage balloons, and anti- torpedo nets.
Intelligence estimates 50% casualties minimum.
Success means crippling the Italian fleet and saving Malta.
Failure wastes lives and loses the initiative.
Half your pilots die if you say yes.
Thousands die slowly if you say no.
Do you send Williamson and his men or call it off? Tell me your choice and defend it.
1800 hours hours.
Operations room.
HMS Illustrious.
Final briefing.
Williamson and 20 other pilots crowd around an illuminated table displaying reconnaissance photographs of Taranto Harbor.
Every gun position marked, every barrage balloon plotted, every ship identified by class and position.
Captain Dennis Boy points to the torpedo net arrangement.
Nets only extend to 10 m depth.
Harbor average depth 15 m.
Your torpedoes are set to run at 10 m.
They’ll pass under the nets.
Duplex magnetic pistols will detonate beneath the target’s keel.
Maximum damage.
The secret weapon modified torpedo drop technique.
Standard doctrine says torpedoes need 75 ft of water depth.
They dive deep before leveling out.
Taranto’s anchorage averages only 39 ft.
The solution: copper wire attached from aircraft to torpedo nose.
As the torpedo drops, wire tension pulls the nose up, creating a belly flop entry instead of a dive.
This enables drops in water as shallow as 22 ft.
The Italians don’t know the British have solved this problem.
They believe their shallow harbor makes them invulnerable to airrop torpedoes.
2000 hours flight deck mechanics complete.
Final checks.
Each swordfish carries either one 18in Mark 12 torpedo weighing 1,650 lbs or six 250lb bombs or 16 flares.
Auxiliary fuel tanks cramped into the observer’s cockpit push range to 320 mi.
The fabric and wood biplanes strain under the weight.
Engineers calculate maximum takeoff weight at 10,200 lb.
These aircraft loaded to 10,400 lb.
Pilots will need every inch of deck to get airborne.
Wind gusts to 40 knots across the deck.
Waves crash against the carrier’s bow.
Temperature drops to 6°.
Williamson pulls on leather flying helmet, adjusts goggles, climbs into his cockpit, smells aviation fuel, salt spray, oil, canvas dope.
Behind him, Lieutenant Norman Blondie Scarlet settles into the observer’s seat, squeezed against the auxiliary fuel tank.
60 gallons of high octane gasoline strapped inches from his head.
If they take a direct hit, the tank explodes.
20 40 hours.
Williamson receives the signal.
Thumbs up to the deck crew.
Engine roars.
Propeller becomes a blur.
The Swordfish lurches forward, accelerates, lifts off.
11 more aircraft follow.
Six carrying torpedoes, four with bombs, two with flares.
Formation assembles above the carrier.
Williamson takes the lead.
Course 325°.
Distance 170 nautical miles.
Flight time 90 minutes.
Expected opposition overwhelming.
Behind him, Lieutenant Commander John Hail will lead the second wave.
9 aircraft launching 90 minutes later.
2100 hours.
Flying over Blackwater.
No moon yet.
That comes later.
Stars scattered across the sky.
Pilots navigate by compass and dead reckoning.
Radio silence.
Italian listening stations must not detect them.
The formation stays tight following Williamson’s navigation lights.
Temperature at 8,000 ft minus 5 degrees.
Wind screams through wing struts.
Ice forms on goggles.
Pilots taste metal from adrenaline.
Scarlet crouched behind Williamson plots their course on a board balanced on his knees.
Every few minutes he taps Williamson’s shoulder, points left or right for course corrections.
They’re flying toward the most heavily defended harbor in the Mediterranean.
If spotted early, Italian fighters scramble.
If caught in search lights, anti-aircraft guns bracket them in seconds.
225 hours.
Navigator inlet aircraft spots coastline.
Italy.
Taranto Harbor lies 15 mi ahead.
Formation descends to 8,000 ft.
Flare droppers peel off, circle wide to approach from the east.
Their job, illuminate targets while drawing anti-aircraft fire away from torpedo bombers.
But what the air crew doesn’t know, a gale three days ago ripped 60 of Taranto’s 90 barrage balloons from their moorings.
Only 27 remain.
The Italians haven’t replaced them.
This accident creates gaps in the balloon defense that Williamson’s aircraft will fly through blindly.
Pure luck saving them from collision with invisible cables.
2230 hours formation splits.
Three aircraft including Williamson’s veer left to attack from the northwest.
Others approach from different angles.
Coordination is critical, but communication is impossible.
Radio silence maintained.
Each pilot knows his role.
Create chaos.
Overwhelmed defenses strike fast.
And this is where it gets insane.
22 58 hours.
Flares ignite.
16 magnesium flares burst over Taranto Harbor, bathing the anchorage in harsh white light.
Ships cast long black shadows.
Barrage balloon cables gleam.
The harbor erupts.
Italian search lights snap on.
22 beams sweep the sky.
Anti-aircraft guns open fire.
101 guns.
4in shells explode in black puffs.
Tracer rounds arc upward.
Red, white, greens of bullets.
The noise is overwhelming.
A continuous roar of explosions, gunfire, screaming engines.
Williamson pushes his swordfish into a dive.
7,000 ft.
6,000.
5,000.
Air speed increases to 120 knots.
Fabric wings strain.
Struts creek.
Wind roars.
He tastes cordite smoke.
Smells burning propellant.
Sees tracer rounds slashing past his wing tips.
For,000 ft.
3,000.
Search light catches him.
Brilliant white light blinds him.
He jinks left.
Anti-aircraft shells explode.
Crack, crack, crack.
Black smoke bursts 50 feet away.
Shrapnel punches holes in his fabric wings.
He feels impacts through the control stick.
2,000 ft.
Target acquired.
Connie D.
Kavore.
Massive battleship.
29,000 tons.
10 12-in guns.
200 m long.
He’s diving at 45° directly at her starboard side.
1,000 ft.
Guns from Ki D.
Kavour open fire directly at him for.7 in secondary batteries.
Pom pom guns.
Machine guns.
The battleship disappears behind muzzle flashes.
Tracer fire so dense it looks solid.
He’s flying through a wall of steel.
500 ft.
200 ft.
100 ft.
He levels off just above the water.
Releases torpedo.
Wire snaps.
Torpedo belly flops into the harbor.
Run straight.
True.
His swordfish climbs.
Turning hard then.
Wham! Direct hit.
Anti-aircraft shell from Connie D.
Kavor’s 90 mm battery.
Starboard lower wing explodes.
Fabric shreds.
Wing strut breaks.
The biplane snaps into a spin.
Williamson fights the controls.
No response.
Scarlet braces.
They’re going in.
The swordfish hits water at 80 mph.
Impact blackness.
When Williamson regains consciousness, he’s underwater.
Cold, disoriented, can’t see, can’t breathe, lungs burning.
He thrashes upward, breaks surface, gasps, fuel burns on the water, flames spread.
He swims away from the fire.
Sees Scarlet 20 ft away, also swimming.
Both men alive for now.
Italian sailors hauled them from the harbor 11 minutes later.
PS bruised, half drowned, but alive.
They don’t know yet that Williamson’s torpedo struck home.
23 ft hole blown in Connie D.
Cavor’s hull below the water line.
The battleship is sinking.
While Williamson and Scarlet are pulled from the water, the remaining torpedo bombers press their attacks.
Lieutenant Michael Torrren Spence lines up on Loro, dives through anti-aircraft fire so thick it seems impossible to survive.
Drops from 30 ft.
Torpedo hits.
Explodes beneath Lorio’s port quarter.
Massive geyser of water and oil.
He banks hard right.
Tracer fire chases him.
Climbs.
Escapes into darkness.
Lieutenant John Wellm targets Andrea Doria.
Search lights find him.
Seven beams converge.
He’s flying in daylight brightness while surrounded by night.
Anti-aircraft guns track him perfectly.
Shells explode 10 ft below his wheels above his canopy beside his wing tips.
He drops to wavetop height.
Releases torpedo at 50 ft.
Turns so hard his wing tips almost touch water.
The torpedo runs hot but misses.
Andrea Dorya’s captain has flooded her port ballast tanks, healing the ship over, narrowing her profile.
First wave, six torpedoes dropped, two hits confirmed.
Williamson’s aircraft down, zero other losses.
23 45 hours.
Second wave arrives.
Nine aircraft led by Lieutenant Commander John Hail.
819 squadron.
They’ve flown through the same search lights, same anti-aircraft fire, same chaos.
But now the Italians are fully alert.
Every gun is manned.
Ammunition expenditure is unrestricted.
The harbor defense has transformed into a steel curtain.
Hail targets Latorio, already hit once, but still afloat.
He dives through a cone of anti-aircraft fire.
Explosions bracket his swordfish.
Port wing shredded by shrapnel.
Hydraulic lines severed.
Fluid sprays across his goggles, but he’s committed.
Can’t pull out.
Levels at 40 ft.
Drops torpedo.
Hits.
Second explosion tears into Lorio’s starboard quarter.
Lieutenant Gerald Bailey approaches from the north.
His target again, third torpedo.
If it hits the brand new battleship, only commissioned in May 1940.
Mussolini’s pride will be crippled.
He descends through streams of tracer fire.
Redline/pasted.
He smells burnt gunpowder.
Hears shrapnel pinging off his engine cowing.
Bailey is calm, hands steady.
The man they call steady is living up to his name.
Behind him, Lieutenant Henry Slaughter calls corrections.
Left two degrees.
Steady.
Target bearing 355.
Range 800 yd.
Bailey levels off.
30 ft above water.
Releases torpedo at 600 yd.
The Mark 12 drops.
Wire breaks.
Torpedo belly flops.
Runs true.
Bubbles stream behind it.
Then the heavy cruiser Goritia’s 3.9 in battery opens fire.
Direct hit.
Bayleyy’s swordfish disintegrates.
Right-wing tears off.
Fuselage breaks apart.
The aircraft cartwheels into the harbor.
Bailey dies instantly.
Impact at 100 mph.
Metal and wood and fabric smashed together.
No pain.
No time to think.
His last conscious moment.
Seeing his torpedo running toward Lato.
That thought is his last.
Slaughter is thrown from the wreckage.
Hits water.
Broken ribs.
Punctured lung.
Cold water floods his flight suit.
He can’t breathe, can’t swim, too damaged.
His father’s watch still ticking in his pocket.
He sinks beneath the black water, but his torpedo hits.
Third strike on Loro.
Massive hole in the battleship’s starboard side, 39 ft by 30 ft.
Footing accelerates.
Latorio settles deeper into the harbor mud.
Bow submerged.
Only her superructure and guns visible above water.
Lieutenant Clifford Swain targets Kyio Dilio.
Search lights catch him.
Anti-aircraft fire explodes around his swordfish.
Shell fragments punch through his elevator controls.
Aircraft won’t respond to stick inputs.
He’s flying wounded, but he’s committed.
Levels at 20 ft so low his wheels almost touch water.
Drops torpedo.
Pulls up hard.
The torpedo runs perfect.
Hits Coyote Dilio amid ships.
Explosion rips an 11 m by 7 m hole in her hull.
Both forward magazines flood.
The battleship settles onto the harbor bottom, listing heavily.
150 hours last Swordfish lands on HMS Illustrious.
18 of 21 aircraft return.
Pilots collapse in the wardrobe, shaking, sweating despite the cold.
Adrenaline crash.
Some vomit from stress.
Others sit silent, staring.
Maintenance crews swarm the returned aircraft.
Counting holes, every swordfish is damaged.
Fabric wings shredded.
Tail surfaces riddled.
One aircraft has 47 bullet holes.
Another’s propeller blade bent from shrapnel impact.
It’s a miracle any returned.
Captain Dennis Boyd addresses the air cruise.
You’ve just changed the course of the war.
Well done.
November 12th, 1940.
Dawn Italian reconnaissance aircraft photograph the harbor.
The damage is catastrophic.
Kanti D.
Cavore sunk in shallow water.
23 foot by 26 ft hole in her side.
Entire lower hole flooded.
Only superructure visible.
27 crew killed.
100 wounded.
She’s grounded so deep her ke is stuck in harbor mod.
The ship will be raised eventually, but she’ll never return to service.
Italy surrenders in 1943 before repairs are complete.
Latorio three torpedo hits.
Holes 23 feet x 5 ft.
Port 49 ftx 33 ft.
Starboard 39 ftx 30 ft.
Starboard bow completely submerged.
32 crew killed, 200 wounded.
Despite the damage, Italian engineers will refloat and repair her in 4 months.
A testament to Italian ship building skill.
She’ll fight again at Cape Mapan.
Kaio Dilio, one torpedo hit.
36 ftx 23 ft hole.
Both forward magazines flooded.
Beach to prevent total loss.
16 crew killed.
90 wounded.
Repairs take 7 months.
Returns to service.
August 1941.
Two cruisers damaged by bombs.
Trento and Leetio.
Two destroyers damaged by near misses.
British casualties.
Two aircraft shot down.
Two men killed.
Two captured.
Lieutenant Gerald Bailey, 28 years old, from Cornwall.
His body is never recovered from Taranto Harbor.
His fianceé Sarah receives a telegram on November 14th.
She reads it three times before the words register.
She keeps his handkerchief with the embroidered initials in her bedside drawer for the rest of her life.
Never marries.
Dies in 1998, aged 86.
The handkerchief is found among her possessions, still carefully preserved.
Lieutenant Henry Slaughter, 25 years old, from Devon.
His body washes ashore 3 days later.
Italian sailors bury him in a military cemetery outside Taranto.
His mother receives notification on November 17th.
She lights a candle in her window every evening for the next four years until the war ends.
She keeps his father’s pocket watch on her mantle.
dies in 1952.
The watch is donated to the Royal Navy Museum.
Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Williamson and Lieutenant Norman Scarlet captured held as PWs in Campo 21.
Katy liberated September 1943 when Italy surrenders.
Both survive the war.
Williamson returns to New Townerts.
Meets his daughter born 3 months after Taranto names her Victoria after the watch Henry Slaughter carried.
Williamson will say later, “We flew knowing some wouldn’t return.” Bailey and Slaughter drew the short straws.
They’re the heroes.
I just got lucky.
Italian casualties, 59 killed, 600 wounded.
They weren’t evil, just young men following orders.
Among them, Seaman Pro Mancini, 19 years old, from Naples, stationed aboard Ki Davore, killed instantly when Williamson’s torpedo detonated beneath the magazine.
His mother, Maria, receives notification two weeks later.
She keeps his photograph on her kitchen wall until her death in 1967.
The strategic impact cascaded across three levels.
Tier one, three battleships crippled.
Italy’s battle fleet reduced from six operational capital ships to three overnight.
Naval balance in the Mediterranean shifts decisively toward Britain.
Tier 2.
British convoys reach Malta November 26th.
Convoy MW5 delivers 55,000 tons of supplies.
Children on Malta receive full rations again.
Starvation averted.
The garrison receives ammunition.
British submarines operating from Malta sink 60% of Axis convoys to Libya over the next 6 months.
Raml’s Africa corpse stars for fuel and supplies.
The North African campaign tilts toward Britain.
Tier three.
The raid proves carrierbased aircraft can a fleet in harbor despite heavy defenses.
This changes naval doctrine permanently.
The battleship era ends.
The carrier era begins.
13 months later, Japanese commander Mitsuo Fuca studies British afteraction reports from Taranto.
Copies the tactics.
December 7th, 1941, attacks Pearl Harbor using techniques learned from studying this raid.
The Pacific War begins with a Taranto style carrier strike.
The mission proves aviation has permanently eclipsed the big gun battleship as the orbiter of naval power.
Two men died, Bailey and Slaughter.
They saved Malta.
Their sacrifice enabled British submarines to savage Raml’s supply lines.
Their courage proved carrier aviation could defeat battleship fleets.
Their names, Lieutenant Gerald William Lake, Angus Bailey, Lieutenant Henry John Slaughter.
remember them.
Sarah kept Bailey’s handkerchief for 57 years.
Slaughter’s mother lit candles for four years.
Williamson named his daughter after Slaughter’s watch.
Their sacrifice deserves witnesses beyond classified files.
Subscribe if you believe courage like this deserves to be remembered.
The next mission was even more impossible.
Malta convoy operation pedestal where one tanker saved an island.
21 fairy swordfish biplanes fabric covered.
Maximum speed 93 knots.
Armed with World War I technology torpedoes achieved a strategic victory that modern stealth bombers with precisiong guided munitions rarely match.
Were these obsolete aircraft more effective pound-for-pound than contemporary strike fighters? Some say yes because the Swordfish pilots operated at wavetop heights in defended harbors at night with zero margin for error, delivering weapons with surgical precision.
Others say no because modern aircraft carry vastly more ordinance with greater accuracy from safe standoff ranges.
Drop your side in the comments and defend it with evidence.
