Taranto: The Italian Fleet at Anchor Under the Aerial Threat

Admiral Domenico Cavagnari is the strongman of the Regia Marina: Under-Secretary of State for the Navy and Chief of Staff, he has shaped Italian naval strategy. An advocate of a powerful battleship fleet but of a cautious employment, he long dreaded direct confrontation with the Royal Navy and pleaded to postpone entry into the war.

His doctrine of the "fleet in being" makes the port of Taranto, in Apulia, the pivot of Italian power in the central Mediterranean. It is there, in the roadstead of the Mar Grande, that the bulk of the squadron lies at anchor — six battleships concentrated, including the new Littorio and Vittorio Veneto. A massed fleet, ready to pounce on any convoy, but motionless.

Cavagnari has done without the aircraft carrier and has fitted Taranto with no radar. The anchorage is supposed to be protected by 101 anti-aircraft guns, barrage balloons and anti-torpedo nets. But a storm on 6 November carried away sixty balloons, and a gunnery exercise has caused most of the nets to be withdrawn.

On 11 November 1940, a British reconnaissance aircraft flies over the roadstead. The Italians know that an air-sea threat is prowling, but without radar, they can only wait.