A Fleet Is Born

In the late afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 8, a message reached Admiral Bagliria, commander of the Italian battle fleet berthed at La Spezia. The Italian surrender had been announced. Admiral Bagliria knew what to do; his decision had been made for him. Aboard his flagship, the 35,000-ton battleship Roma, he gave an order. At 6:30 p.m. the fleet moved out of La Spezia, turned southward.

The event was, in its way, as impressive as the very different spectacles provided by other navies in similar circumstances. In 1919, rebellious German sailors scuttled the German fleet interned at Scapa Flow. Last year the French, caught by the Germans in port, scuttled their fleet at Toulon. Last week the Italian Navy, in good order and with unheroic dignity, delivered its ships to the victors.

Through the twilit Ligurian Sea, into that sea which Italians lately called Mare Nostrum, the Roma sailed with the companion battleships Italia and Vittorio Veneto, six cruisers and several destroyers. From Taranto, the Italian base in the south, the older, smaller battleships Caio Duilio and Andrea Doria, two cruisers and a destroyer were sailing through the same darkness to the same destination: Malta.

By the next afternoon the fleet from La Spezia had made its way to a point near the Strait of Bonifacio, which separates Corsica from Sardinia. Overhead hovered an R.A.F. reconnaissance plane; the ships were still outside Allied fighter range. At about 3:30 p.m. the tailgunner saw planes approaching. They were German Junkers 88s.

A bomb struck the Roma. The crew of the helpless R.A.F. plane saw the Roma quiver, rise slightly in the water, belch smoke from her 'midships superstructure. By good aiming and luck, the bomb had touched off a powder magazine. The forward turrets with their six 15-in. guns nodded and crumpled. The hull broke, made a great V. Twenty-one minutes after the bomb hit the Roma, she sank. She was the first battleship ever sunk at sea by bombing alone.*

For four-and-a-half hours, intermittently, the other ships were bombed. The Italia was hit. She settled low in the sea but continued with the fleet. A few destroyers lagged to pick up survivors from the Roma. Admiral Bagliria was not among them. The main body of the fleet sailed on. At 8:35 a.m. next day, off Cap Bon, the Italia, the Vittorio Veneto and their lesser flock sighted H.M.S. Warspite, waiting with a British squadron.

Cameras for Guns. The Warspite had fought the Italians at Matapan; she had put a broadside into the Italia (then the Littorio) at Taranto. She had been bombed off Crete. Of late she had seen nothing of the Italian Navy. Now, as the Italians approached, the Warspite's crew manned the guns. But they were not in combat dress. Many of them aimed cameras.

At a signal from the British Rear Admiral in command, the Italians fell in behind the British squadron. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's naval aide and representative aboard the Warspite, Commander Harold Butcher, heard a British officer say: "Pretty sight, that."

Two British officers, unarmed, went aboard the cruiser Eugenio de Savoia. They were courteously received by Admiral Bagliria's successor in command, Admiral Romulo Olivia, and fed the best dinner they had eaten in months. Accustomed to the sparse quarters on British ships, they admired the Admiral's sumptuous mess and the tiled bathrooms of the Italian officers' quarters. The British officers heard an Italian officer say: "The Germans make big mistakes. The Italians make little ones, but lots of them. We are not very good at anything."

After dinner, on that historic night, the Italian Admiral, his Chief of Staff and the Captain of the Eugenio de Savoia went to bed early, leaving juniors in command of the ship and the fleet. The British officers, by turns, stayed on the bridge all night.

Great Day. A black pennant, the designated symbol of surrender, flew from the highest mast of each ship when the Italia, Vittorio Veneto, five of the cruisers and four of the destroyers passed the British destroyer Hambledon off Malta. Aboard the Hambledon were two interested observers: General Eisenhower and Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, naval victor of the Mediterranean. A.P. Correspondent Clark Lee, who was also aboard the Hambledon, got the impression that Admiral Cunningham would have admired the Italians more if they had been at battle stations, fighting it out. But, said the Admiral:

"This is a great day for us. This cleans up the Mediterranean. The Italian ships are in good order, absolutely first class, especially the battleships and new cruisers."

"Can you use them?" Correspondent Lee asked.

"You bet we can," General Eisenhower interposed. Admiral Cunningham said: "The armistice provides we can do what we like with them."

Great Victory. By this week, at Malta and other ports, five of Italy's six remaining battleships, at least seven cruisers and 26 other warships had put in under the black pennant. One of them was Italy's only seaplane carrier. (The Italians have no regular carriers.) Italian submarines were popping up every day.

A British submarine surfaced in an Italian port, signaled eight Italian merchantmen: "Follow me." The Italians followed.

In naval terms--warships gained by the Allies, British and U.S. warships freed from the Mediterranean for work elsewhere--it was the second greatest naval victory of the war. (The greatest: the Japs' at Pearl Harbor.)

For three years the Italians had discreetly left most of the Mediterranean Sea fighting to the Luftwaffe. But, by their presence in Italian ports, they had pinned down and exposed to German air attack a big portion of British sea power. Now many of the British ships may be used for 1) invasion duty off other European coasts; 2) support for a Burma-China campaign in the Bay of Bengal.

In a message to Italian merchant and naval seamen, Admiral Cunningham said: "Your ships are urgently needed to assist in the work of carrying supplies to Italy, and your warships to protect them from the Germans."

Admiral Cunningham is tough and British. Said he, looking back to the years when the British all but lost the Mediterranean, and the route to Malta was a Royal Navy grave: "It wasn't so tough. Not tough at all."

* Aerial torpedoes and bombs sank the Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse. Torpedoes and bombs did the work at Pearl Harbor. Torpedoes damaged the Bismarck, readied her for the kill by naval shells. The Haruna, supposedly sunk by Captain Colin Kelly, cannot be listed as a certain victim of bombing until postwar investigation clears up the U.S. Navy's doubts.

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