Taranto 1940

The raid on the Italian port of Taranto in November 1940 was a groundbreaking event that heralded a new age in maritime warfare. Flying from an aircraft carrier 200 miles away, 21 unlikely looking Swordfish aircraft, carrying a mixture of flares, bombs and torpedoes, managed to disable three Italian battleships in addition to damage to other ships and shore establishments. This book covers the raid which both Winston Churchill and Admiral Cunningham declared that more damage to the enemy had been achieved on that night than at Jutland. They also realized that an aircraft carrier with torpedo aircraft was a more potent weapon than a battleship. The proof of the Taranto raid's success and the seal on the new order was to come in December 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had learned well the lesson of Taranto; the United States learned it the hard way.