References
- The Italian Navy in World War II There is considerable literature on the Battle of Cape Matapan. The interested reader is referred to the following volumes and notes and bibliographies therein of some. The place of publication is London unless otherwise stated: M. A. Bragadin, (1957); C. Barnett, Engage The Enemy More Closely (2001 edn); G. Bennett, Naval Battles of World War Two (Barnsley, 2003 edn), A. Cunningham, A Sailor's Odyssey (1957); J. Greene and A. Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940–1943 (2002 edn); R. Ollard, Fisher and Cunningham (1991); S. W. C. Pack, The Battle of Matapan (1961); S. W. C. Pack, Night Action Off Matapan (1972); I. S. O. Fairplay, The Mediterranean and the Middle East, vol. I (1956); J. J. Sadkovich (ed.), Reevaluating Major Naval Combatants of World War II (1996); R. Seth, Two Fleets Surprised: The Story of the Battle of Cape Matapan (1960); M. Simpson (ed.), The Cunningham Papers, vol.1 (1999); M. Stephen in E. J. Grove (ed.), Sea Battles in Close Up: World War II (1988). Also, R. Woodman, Malta Convoys (2000) and J. Holland, Fortress Malta (2003)
- 1990 . Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs 1939 – 45 . (HMSO
- Ibid Unsigned Memorandum to the Naval Staff, 154
- Ibid 1940 – 1941 . 155. Raeder's scorn stemmed in large part from two utterly inconclusive actions where superior Italian forces had attempted to draw the British into well-set traps: off Calabria on 9 July 1940 and off Cape Spartivento on 27 November 1940. The equivocal nature of Signals Intelligence was, however, revealed in both actions. Calabria, for example, saw the British well provided with intelligence material, which allowed them to realize what was developing. Other than Matapan, however, the British would not enjoy the luxury of Italian material. By mid- July the Italians had changed their codes at all levels, and with the British ‘blind’ the Italians, with a combination of its own signals intelligence and aerial reconnaissance, gained an advantage. As Cunningham was to tell Pound (his predecessor), ‘we cannot move without our movements being known’ (see Barnett, Engage the Enemy, 219–21 and 236–43). For Raeder these actions, or lack of them, only served to increase the developing view that the Italian fleet was ineffective and that it should engage in more direct action against the British. For the background to much of this see the National Archive, Public Record Office (hereafter NA PRO) Adm. 186/800, Naval Staff History, Mediterranean, September 1939 to October 1940 and Adm. 186/801, Naval Staff History, Mediterranean, November 1940 to December 1941. Also, Adm. 199/1048, Naval Operations in the Mediterranean
- 27 December 1940 . Fuehrer Conferences, Raeder to Hitler 27 December , NA PRO, 160
- Cunningham Papers 55 – 227 . For the course of the Anglo-Italian War in the Mediterranean in general see Simpson
- Fuehrer Conferences 169 – 73 . Hitler Directive, 10 December 1940 and Report on Conferences with the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces at the Berghof (Obersalzberg) on 8 and 9 January 1941
- 18 March 1941 . Ibid 18 March , Report by the C-in-C Navy to the Fuehrer on 182–8, and NA PRO, Adm. 186/795, Naval Staff History; Battle Summaries (BS), ‘The Battle of Cape Matapan, 28 March 1941’, 2
- Barnett . Engage the Enemy 174 – 90 . See 244–9; Greene and Massignani, Naval War, 101–14, S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea (HMSO, 1954), 300–1 and Simpson, Cunningham Papers
- Naval War 131 – 2 . See Greene and Massignani
- 18 March 1941 . Fuehrer Conferences 18 March , Report by C-in- C Navy to the Fuehrer on 186
- Naval Cited in Greene and Massignani, War, 141. Quoted in Pack, Night Action, 15–16. NA PRO, Adm. 186/795, 63
- British Intelligence in the Second World War 11 – 12 . Some, but not all, of the intelligence material follows F. H. Hinsley, vol.1, ch
- Barnett . Engage the Enemy 253 – 307 . 321; Simpson, Cunningham Papers, for the general situation before Matapan
- Greene and Massignani . Naval War 147
- NA PRO, Adm. 223/88, Admiralty Use of Special Intelligence in Naval Operations, 1941–1944. A full listing of Ultra material is given in Appendices A and B.
- Cunningham Papers 297 – 308 . For Cunningham's views on Lustre, see Simpson
- 1941 – 1944 . NA PRO, Adm. 223/88, Admiralty Use of Special Intelligence in Naval Operations
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid Adm. 186/795, 4, and Greene and Massignani, Naval War, 168
- Naval War 333 – 5 . NA PRO, Adm. 186/795, 4–5, Greene and Massignani, 148–9 and Barnett, Engage the Enemy
- As the Italian Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Campioni, put it to the liaison officer in Berlin, Admiral Marghini, there were reasons for the operation: ‘the volume of shipping between Egypt and Greece, the requirement for the Italian Navy to go into action, and the pressure from Germany’.
- 4 – 7 . NA PRO, Ad. 186/795
- Ibid 8 – 10 .
- Ibid 11 – 15 .
- Greene and Massignani . Naval War 156
- 32 – 3 . NA PRO, Adm. 186/795, 16–18 and
- Naval War. Quoted in Greene and Massignani
- 1780 . Two Fleets Admiral Sir William James quoted in Seth, xvii. The so-termed ‘last night action’ referred to is Rodney's taking of five ships off Cape St Vincent in
- Pack . Night Action 7
- Hinsley . British Intelligence 403 – 5 .
- Two Fleets Iachino, quoted in Seth, xiii-xv
- 30 – 1 . NA PRO, Adm. 186/795
- Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra 157 – 8 . Ultimately, Ultra or Sigint could provide vital information but it could hardly win any battle. Matapan broadly conforms to the distinction first established by Blackett and further enunciated by W. J. R. Gardner, (1999). Albeit in a different context the system of what became known as ORCA can be applied to Matapan. Essentially, ‘outer’ would refer to received intelligence and action based upon this, ‘reconnaissance’ to searches by aircraft or radar equipped ships, ‘closure’ to coming up with the enemy on a combined basis of air reconnaissance and ship sighting/radar, and ‘attack’ to the final phase which involved engagement. The theory and the process as applied to the Battle of Atlantic is analysed by Gardner, 72, 83, 88 and
- Woodman . Malta Convoys See and P. C. Smith, Pedestal (1999)