OPERATION "GAUDO"
AND
THE BATTLE OF MATAPAN
PART II

 March 27 ~ 29, 1941
by Marc De Angelis

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The Background

Almost all authors who wrote about Matapan gave quite a bit of attention to the Merano conference.  The consensus is that, as a result of the discussions held during the conference, the Gaudo and Matapan operation was conceived to placate the Germans' pressing demands.  Doubtless there were pressures, not necessarily for an operation of such broad scope, but more in general to spur the Regia Marina to take on a more aggressive stance in the eastern Mediterranean basin.  It was in those waters, in fact, that the British convoys which supplied the British expeditionary force operating in Greece had to transit.  The Italians, indeed, had already hatched plans to disrupt that traffic long before, but such a vast operation, so far from home waters, was considered too hazardous because the enemy had local air superiority, thanks to the availability of airports in Greece and Crete.  Such plans were, however, dusted off as a result of the Merano conference.
 

A map of the area
(U.S.M.M.)

The famous machine ENIGMA

Bletchley Park

Another bone of contention among those who studied the battle was the importance of Ultra, the British information service that succeeded in breaking encrypted messages transmitted through the German "Enigma" apparatus.  Before discussing this subject, some clarification is called for.  First of all, the version that Enigma was used only by German commands, which thus were unwittingly responsible for the leaks, is false: Italians used it too.  Second, Ultra was not generally able to read messages in real time: using the rudimentary processors available to the Blechley Park specialists, "translating" the messages took quite some time, even days, and this was compounded by the frequent change in the codes used.  The cryptographers' skill, therefore, stemmed from their ability not only to read the text of the message, but also to decide which messages warranted top priority, because not all of them could be decrypted.  Essentially, although some of the information available to Cunningham came from Ultra, guessing the Axis' intentions would not have been an overwhelming task even without it.  The increase in the volume of radio traffic and the location of the Commands that produced most of it provided the initial indications and warnings: little more was needed to determine the objective of the operation.

When the ships left their homeports, the enemy was certainly not surprised.  However, there were many details that Cunningham still did not know, such as the composition of the Italian force, the area where it was to deploy, its course, etcetera.  But if the target  was the supply traffic headed for Greece, many of the unknowns could be inferred with fairly close approximation.  Hence, the Britons' first move was to stop that traffic.  Later, when a reconnaissance plane signaled that Trento-class heavy cruisers were at sea, the British saw their suspicions confirmed while the Italians saw their hopes of achieving complete surprise vanish hopelessly.
 

Adm. Riccardi (center) and Adm. Iachino (left)
(Photo U.S.M.M.)

It was roughly at this time that the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Riccardi, spoke with his Operations Officer, Admiral Campioni, to decide whether the operation should be continued.  Lately, there had been no indications of British traffic towards Greece, but perhaps not much importance was attached to this fact, or it was ascribed to deficient reconnaissance.  Still, although the main Italian force had not been discovered yet, the enemy must have known that at least a cruiser squadron was underway.  In hindsight, there was ample cause to cancel, or at least postpone, the operation.  Why was this not done?  According to the most widely accepted version, the factors that influenced the decision were multifold.  Canceling the operation would have had negative repercussions on crew morale, since the ships had gotten underway several times before only to return to port without accomplishing anything.  Surprise, while not total, could at least be partial, as the battleship had not yet been spotted.  Lastly, the operation had been conceived in part as a show of earnestness for the Germans, so its cancellation would have proven that the accusations of timidity and inefficiency implicitly moved against the Regia Marina by the German allies were well founded.  Assuming that the two Admirals really did exchange these views, one can say, again with hindsight, that none of these arguments justifies the decision they reached: the first two are invalid, the third one irrelevant.  Campioni and Riccardi were responsible for the effective use of the fleet as an instrument of war, and they would be held accountable first and foremost to the Italian nation.  Since both the target and surprise, considered an essential prerequisite, had been eliminated, the military value of the operation would - at best - be left to luck.  Hoping to make a good impression on the Germans without accomplishing anything was altogether inconceivable.  Yet the fact is that the order to return to base, which the Commanding Officer of the cruiser Bolzano, Captain Maugeri, expected any minute after the reconnaissance plane was sighted, was never issued, and the ships kept on steaming, undisturbed, on a south-easterly course.  The date: March 27^th, 1941.

Part III

Translation by Sebastian De Angelis