page_title: HMS Warspite (03)
section_title: Mediterranean (1940–41)
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Warspite (03) / Construction and career / Second World War / Mediterranean (1940–41)
context_page_description: HMS Warspite was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s. Completed during the First World War in 1915, she was assigned to the Grand Fleet and participated in the Battle of Jutland. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive Action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. During the interwar period the ship was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, often serving as flagship, and was thoroughly modernised during the mid-1930s.
  During the Second World War, Warspite was involved in the Norwegian Campaign in early 1940 and was transferred to the Mediterranean later that year where the ship participated in fleet actions against the Royal Italian Navy while also escorting convoys and bombarding Italian troops ashore. She was damaged by German aircraft during the Battle of Crete in mid-1941 and required six months of repairs in the United States. They were completed after the start of the Pacific War in December and the ship sailed across the Pacific to join the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942.
context_section_description: Calabria
  Warspite arrived safely in Alexandria before Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940. Admiral Cunningham took the fleet to sea on 7 July to meet two convoys travelling from Malta to Alexandria, knowing that part of the Italian fleet was escorting its own convoy to Tripoli. Cunningham hoped to draw the Regia Marina into battle by sailing towards the "toe" of Italy to cut them off from their base at Taranto. The two fleets eventually met 30 miles from Punta Stilo at the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940. Initially the Allied cruisers, armed with 6-inch guns, were outranged by the 8-inch guns of their heavier Italian counterparts and disengaged. Seeing that they were under pressure, Cunningham took Warspite ahead to assist his cruisers. The Italian cruisers turned away under a smoke screen while the battleships Giulio Cesare and Conte di Cavour closed on Warspite before Malaya and Royal Sovereign could catch up. During the battle Warspite achieved one of the longest range gunnery hits from a moving ship to a moving target in history, hitting Giulio Cesare at a range of approximately 24 km (26,000 yd), the other being a shot from Scharnhorst which hit Glorious at approximately the same distance in June 1940. The shell pierced Giulio Cesare's rear funnel and detonated inside it, blowing out a hole nearly 6.1 meters (20 ft) across, while fragments started several fires and their smoke was drawn into the boiler rooms, forcing four boilers off-line as their operators could not breathe which reduced the ship's speed to 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph). Uncertain how severe the damage was, Campioni ordered his battleships to turn away in the face of superior British numbers and they successfully disengaged behind a smoke screen laid by Italian destroyers. The destroyers and cruisers on both sides continued shooting for half an hour, but with Malaya and Royal Sovereign coming into range the Italian fleet disengaged. Over 125 aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica attacked the ships over the next three hours, but caused no damage. Warspite returned to Alexandria on 13 July.
  Taranto
  In mid-August she set out to bombard Bardia, and on 6 November she sailed from Alexandria to provide cover for the air strike on Taranto. As a result of this attack Warspite and Valiant were able to attack the Italian supply base in the Adriatic port of Vlorë in mid-December. On 10 January 1941 Warspite was lightly damaged by a single bomb while operating with Force A during Operation Excess.
  Matapan
  In March 1941, to support the planned German invasion of the Balkans, Vice Admiral Angelo Iachino's Italian fleet, led by the battleship Vittorio Veneto, sailed to intercept Allied convoys between Egypt and Greece. Warned of the Italian intentions by intelligence from the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Admiral Cunningham took his fleet to sea on 27 March 1941, flying his flag on Warspite. On 28 March the British cruisers encountered the Italian fleet and were forced to turn away by the heavy guns of Vittorio Veneto. To save his cruisers Cunningham ordered an air strike, prompting Iachino to retreat. Subsequent air attacks damaged the battleship and the cruiser Pola, slowing the former and crippling the latter. Vittorio Veneto escaped to the west as dusk fell, but the British pursued through the night, first detecting Pola on radar and then two of her sister ships. Warspite, Valiant, and Barham closed on the unsuspecting Italian ships and, aided by searchlights, destroyed the heavy cruisers Fiume and Zara, and two destroyers at point blank range. Pola was also sunk once her crew had been taken off. Having established by aerial reconnaissance that the rest of the Italian fleet had escaped Warspite returned to Alexandria on 29 March, surviving air attacks without suffering any casualties.
  The Battle of Cape Matapan had a paralysing effect on the Regia Marina, providing the Royal Navy with an opportunity to tighten its grip on the Mediterranean, as evidenced by the unequal battle near the Kerkennah Islands on 16 April. However, this was not enou
caption: Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham
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