Attack on Taranto

As the authors quite rightly put, this was the prelude to Pearl Harbor. The Italian Navy was stationed at this harbor and posed a threat to British sea routes to Egypt, India, Singapore, and Australia. A daring attack by 21 aircraft from a British aircraft carrier damaged three Italian battleships and put them out of action for six to nine months. Since they were in a heavily protected shallow harbor, it was indeed a daring attack, which the Japanese copied to place the American Pacific fleet out of action. The Japanese attack was on a much larger scale.One of the authors was a member of the attack group, and he gives his own account in the battle.This is a nice little read. The book is short and has plenty of photos. A determined reader could finish this book in two to three hours. Taranto was indeed the prelude the Pearl Harbor, but now few people realize this. With Lowry's perspective, this is good book about the Second World War.

This is the story of how a small force of obsolete British Swordfish torpedo planes flew into Taranto harbor, surprised the Italian fleet, and sank three battleships. The attack force consisted of about twenty torpedo bombers which flew from a single British carrier in the Mediterranian sea. Although this book is short, the author does a good job of explaining the events leading up to the attack, and how this small force managed to take the Italians complelely by surprise. Furthermore, the Japanese used this attack as a model for their Pearl Harbor operation. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Pearl Harbor. The similarities between the two attacks are uncanny.

On November 11, 1940, a British aircraft carrier launched its torpedo bombers on a sneak attack on the Italian fleet anchored in the heavily defended port of Taranto. The Italian fleet was heavily damaged, and its morale was shaken. Among those examining the attack was Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who had similar plans of his own...This short book examines the attack on Taranto, all the while showing how that attack influenced the later attack on Pearl Harbor. Along the way, the author treats the reader to a history of aircraft carriers, torpedoes, the Italian and Japanese navies, and just about everything pertinent to a full understanding of the two attacks. After the Taranto chapters, there is another examining the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. The eight(!) appendices cover such topics as British naval aviation, the raid on Bomba, Libya, the names of the British flight crews at Taranto, and much more.This book is very well done indeed! The author takes a World War 2 episode that is largely overlooked in many history books, examines it in depth, and makes the whole thing fascinating to read. My one complaint against the book is that it contains only one map, a map of the port of Taranto. However, the book does include a number of great black-and-white pictures that really add to the text. Overall, I would call this a great book, one worth your time to read!

This short history of the birth of one of the truly significant innovations in modern military tactics and technology is nicely written, very well researched (the co-author was a leading participant), and offers up just the kind of occassional riveting statements that military history buffs love, such as: -the names of two African American pilots who flew biplane fighters for Haile Salasse against Mussolini (now there's college paper topic for you). -that Adm. Yamamoto was once banned from casinos in Monaco because he won too much. -that a German named Schwartzkoff (sp?) stole the plans of the first practical torpedo from a British engineer in the 19th century. The story itself is short and economically written, but the book is beefed up with divergent historical lines of inquiry, from the overall strategic position of the British Mediteraneanfleet to the British use of of American Martin B-20's, a plane type apparently unknown to other WW-II history writers. Although the narrative goes a little far afield once or twice, and makes some brisk statements begging for better source notes, it is an overall good read, about the right length, and should be in every 20th century naval historian's collection.

In the Autumn of 1940, France, Poland and Norway lay under Nazi occupation. Britain's cities were aflame from The Blitz and the RAF was stretched to the breaking point. In the Mediterranean the Suez Canal and Near East oil was endangered by Italy's advance into Egypt and by her modern and numerically superior fleet of battleships and cruisers. Russia was allied with Germany and the USA stood aloof. In this moment of utmost peril, 21 canvas-covered biplanes of the Royal Navy sank half the Italian battleship fleet as it lay in harbor. This success was immediately studied by the Japanese, who, only 13 months later, used its lessons at Pearl Harbor. The co-author of this book, Lt. Cmdr. JWG Wellham, RN, flew one of planes which attacked those Italian battleships.