Hit & Run

Searchlights and star shells stabbed suddenly through the pre-dawn darkness over the central Mediterranean one night last week. An Italian squadron of two cruisers, an E-boat (MAS) and a torpedo boat were caught off guard. From behind the lights came volleys of shells and torpedoes. One cruiser caught fire, exploded, dived to the bottom. The second blazed fiercely. The E-boat sank. The torpedo boat, badly crippled, may have escaped.

The British technique used in this night attack was to send destroyers dashing boldly within range, loose a blinding screen of lights and star shells, then let fly with everything at the enemy cruisers, which could have easily blown the destroyers out of the water in a full-dress engagement. In last week's action four Allied destroyers--Britain's Sikh, Legion and Maori, and The Netherlands' Isaaec Sweers--did the whole job, escaped without damage to either men or ships. Said the highly pleased Admiralty: "A brilliant night action."

For Benito Mussolini's punch-drunk Navy it was a bitter week. Not 24 hours earlier the Admiralty had announced the torpedoing of still another Italian cruiser by a British submarine. London estimated that the Italians have left only ten or eleven of the 43 cruisers built or building at the war's beginning. Cracked New York Timesman David Anderson from London: "Some persons here are wondering now if the Italians have anything afloat that is a match for a British destroyer."

For the Dutch Government-in-Exile, the Mediterranean victory had a double kick: the 1,628-ton Isaaec Sweers was launched, but incomplete, when Germany marched into The Netherlands. She was towed to a British shipyard, where she was completed.

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