November 1941
General Events
| 8/9 | November | The Duisburg convoy was annihilated by Force K from Malta. |
| 10-13 | November | Operation PERPETUAL (air reinforcements to Malta). On the return trip, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed by U-81 and sank the next day. |
| 11-15 | November | Operation ASTROLOGER (attempt to supply Malta by two merchantmen) failed. |
| 15 | November | Operation CHIEFTAIN, Force H, and the Mediterranean Fleet carried diversions for Operation CRUSADER. |
| 18 | November | British forces launched Operation CRUSADER, an offensive in Libya to relieve the siege of Tobruk and chase the Axis forces from Libya. |
| 21-22 | November | Operation LANDMARK (convoy from Malta to simulate an invasion of Tripolitania). |
| 25 | November | The battleship HMS Barham was sunk by U-331 off Sollum. The Maritza convoy was intercepted by Force K and destroyed. |
Mediterranean
Italian submarine patrols in the Mediterranean during November 1941
| Uarsciek (…1 November) | Axum (…2 November) | Santarosa (…2 November) |
| Diaspro (…3 November) | Alagi (…3 November) | Dandolo (…12 November) |
| Corallo (1-10 November) | Beilul (3-8 November) | Settembrini (7-10 November) |
| Mameli (8-10 November) | Emo (8-10 November) | Delfino (8-11 November) |
| Narvalo (8-19 November) | Aradam (10-16 November) | Squalo (11-16 November) |
| H.8 (11-12 November) | H.2 (11-12 November) | Ascianghi (11-26 November) |
| Turchese (11-17 November) | Serpente (11-16 November) | Veniero (11-16 November) |
| Onice (11-24 November) | Bandiera (11-19 November) | Atropo (13-17 November) Pt.1 |
| H.8 (13-14 November) | Saint-Bon (16-19 November) Pt.1 | Squalo (16-20 November) |
| C.B.1 (17-18 November) | Cagni (18-22 November) Pt.1 | C.B.1 (18-19 November) |
| Atropo (19-20 November) Pt.2 | Saint-Bon (19-22 November) Pt.1 | Squalo (20-24 November) |
| Delfino (20-28 November) | Zaffiro (21 November)x | Dagabur (21 November…) |
| Settembrini (21 November…) | Millo (21-23 November) Pt.1 | Tricheco (21 November…) |
| C.B.2 (21-22 November) | Zaffiro (22 November…) | C.B.5 (22-23 November) |
| Cagni (22-25 November) Pt.2 | C.B.6 (23-24 November) | C.B.4 (23-25 November) |
| Millo (24-26 November) Pt.2 | C.B.2 (24-25 November) | C.B.3 (25-26 November) |
| Corallo (26 November…) | Ametista (26 November…) | Beilul (26 November…) |
| Aradam (26 November…) | Alagi (26 November…) | Saint-Bon (27-29 November) Pt.1 |
| C.B.5 (28-30 November) | C.B.2 (28-30 November) | Micca (28 November…) Pt.1 |
| C.B.4 (29-30 November) | Saint-Bon (29 November…) Pt.2 | Millo (30 November…) Pt.1 |
During the night of 1/2 November, eight Wellington bombers attempted once more to destroy the torpedo factory in Naples. They claimed one direct bomb hit with a ‘cookie’ (4,000-lb bomb). Italian sources recorded the damage as insignificant.
At 0200 hours on 2 November, Santorre di Santarosa (T.V. Pietro Abate) was returning to Trapani after a fruitless patrol east of La Galite Island when an unknown submarine was seen sixty miles west of Marettimo. This was possibly HMS Tetrarch (Lt Cdr G.H. Greenway, RN) on her way to Malta, who disappeared with all hands before reaching her destination. If so, she would have been about forty-eight hours late on her timetable. There is an outside possibility that it was the Polish Sokol (Kapitan marynarki Boris Karnicki). She was attacking the Italian steamer Balilla with torpedoes and gunfire at this time, and it is unlikely that Abate would not have noticed it, unless the patrol report’s entry was in error. About two hours later, a submarine, which was probably Santarosa, was seen by Sokol. This time the Polish submarine had only one defective torpedo and five rounds of ammunition left and refrained from attacking.
For T.V. Walter Auconi, commanding officer of Dandolo, this was a month marred by two mishaps:
On 4 November, he mistakenly attacked, with gunfire and four torpedoes, the Vichy tanker Le Tarn (4,220 GRT, built 1939) on passage from Casablanca to Algiers. The vessel was damaged and had two killed, but it managed to reach Algiers. Auconi claimed that he mistook her for a British vessel disguised as French.
Four days later, in the Bay of Melilla, with a single torpedo, Dandolo sank the Spanish Castillo Oropesa (6,600 GRT, built 1939) in ballast and about to enter harbour to pick up a cargo of iron ore for Gijon. The incident was embarrassing for the Italian government, as Fascist Spain was friendly. The incident was hushed up in the hope that a British submarine would be blamed. The Spaniards recovered fragments of the torpedo, clearly identifying it as Italian. Attempts were made to refute the accusation by stating that Italian torpedoes were sold to Yugoslavia and the Netherlands.
This did not affect Anconi’s career. He would later command Cappellini during her mission to the Far East. His executive officer, T.V. Sergio Puccini, would later command Alagi, earning distinction during the Pedestal convoy battle.
Before dawn on 8 November, Settembrini (C.C. Mario Resio) was patrolling the eastern approaches of Malta and surfaced between hydrophone watches. She was observed by HMS Upholder, but the Italian submarine was in luck as Lieutenant Commander M.D. Wanklyn, DSO, RN, was asleep, and his officer of the watch, Lt J.H. Norman, RNVR, did not have the ‘eye’ of his commanding officer. Norman ordered four torpedoes fired from 1,500 yards. Although he claimed a hit, they must have missed widely, for the Italian lookouts did not see them.
During the night of 10/11 November, Force H[1] sailed from Gibraltar to fly off Hurricanes for Malta (Operation PERPETUAL ). Italian submarines were ordered once more to take defensive positions and again were too far east to interfere. Some thirty-seven fighters took off, and thirty-four, led by seven Blenheims from Gibraltar, reached their destination. At dawn on 13 November, as the British squadron was returning to Gibraltar, HMS Ark Royal was missed by three torpedoes fired from long range by U-205 (KL Franz-Georg Reschke). The same afternoon, the aircraft carrier was only thirty miles from her destination when she was spotted by U-81 (KL Friedrich Guggenberger). The U-boat emptied its forward tubes. Only one torpedo hit and HMS Ark Royal was sunk. This was one of the biggest successes of Axis submarines in the Mediterranean.
Empire Pelican and Empire Defender were two British freighters disguised as neutral ships in an effort to supply Malta (Operation ASTROLOGER). They sailed from the United Kingdom and entered the Mediterranean on 11 November. They were located off the Tunisian coast by aircraft from the Regia Aeronautica. Aradam (T.V. Oscar Gran) was ordered to intercept Empire Pelican on the evening of the 14th. This transport had already been sunk by Italian SM.79 torpedo-bombers 20 miles west of La Galite Island. The submarine was ordered to locate her survivors the following day and proceeded to the vicinity of Tabarka (Tunisia). The rainy weather made it a difficult task, and she found none. The following afternoon, Empire Defender, who was in her company, was also dispatched by torpedo bombers. The submarine was then ordered to search for survivors but again saw nothing (14-15 November). Bandiera, Narvalo, Onice, Serpente, Squalo, Turchese, and Veniero were also deployed with no success.
Italian submarines still assumed their transport role. Atropo (T.V. Libero Sauro) was carrying sixty tons of gasoline and stores to Bardia when, on 16 November, she suffered a battery explosion off the coast of Morea. Two ratings were killed and several wounded. She was forced to abort her mission and proceed to Navarino for temporary repairs. She was escorted by the destroyer Da Verazzano. She then went to Taranto to complete repairs.
Maintaining Axis lines of communication with Libya had become more complex. After the disaster of the Duisburg convoy earlier in the month, the Regia Marina attempted to provide a strong cover force for two convoys of two ships each from Naples to Tripoli. On 21 November, Operation LANDMARK was launched.[2] This was to simulate an invasion of Tripolitania and hopefully cause the cancellation of some Axis convoys. This was not successful, as, on the same day, three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and eleven destroyers sailed from Naples, Reggio, and Messina. But the sortie was costly; the heavy cruiser Trieste was torpedoed by the submarine HMS Utmost, while the light cruiser Duca degli Abruzzi was torpedoed by an aircraft.
Before dawn on 24 November, Settembrini (C.C. Mario Resio) was patrolling about 100 miles southwest of Malta when hydrophone effects were detected. These were fast-moving ships, and Resio correctly assessed them as an enemy force and immediately signaled it to Messina. This was Force K[3] which had sailed from Malta to intercept a Libya-bound convoy from Piraeus. The alarm was given, and the convoy recalled, but the message failed to get through. During the same afternoon, the German tankers Maritza and Procida were intercepted and sunk, but their two escorts, the torpedo boats Lupo and Cassiopea, managed to escape.
On 25 November, Zaffiro (C.C. Giovanni Lombardi), patrolling between Crete and the Libyan coast, was informed of an enemy force of two (later corrected to three) cruisers and eight destroyers on a westerly course. She was then informed of a convoy of five steamers escorted by two cruisers and four destroyers. The submarine was experiencing defects in her diesel engines and could not reach them in time. Dagabur (C.C. Alberto Torri) also raced to intercept but could only hear fleeting noises with her hydrophones. The forces detected were most likely Force ‘B’ of five light cruisers and four destroyers, which had been sailed from Alexandria to intercept Italian convoys making for Benghazi (operation M.E.5) with the Mediterranean Fleet following in support.[4] The British sortie met with disaster when the Fleet was intercepted by U-331 (Oberleutnant zur See Freiherr Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen). The German submarine was in the correct position at the right time and managed to fire a salvo of four torpedoes, blowing up the battleship HMS Barham with heavy loss of life. Asdic did not detect the penetration of the destroyer screen and this caused some concern at the British Admiralty.
On the evening of 29 November, Bragadino (C.C. Mario Vannutelli), while on passage from Pola to Brindisi, was accidentally rammed by the torpedo boat Solferino and suffered some damage. The submarine had made repeated signals to the destroyer, which ignored them. The shock propelled Vannutelli against the machine gun mount, and he was slightly injured. The destroyer was escorting the tanker Arca. Mistaking the submarine for an enemy, she opened fire with her light weapons and hit the conning tower, fortunately causing only minor damage. The submarine could sail for a transport mission less than three weeks later.
At noon on 30 November, Tricheco (T.V. Alberto Campanella) fired three torpedoes at a cruiser of the Frobisher class described as one of four cruisers and two destroyers, course 085°, 18 knots; they missed. The target was an unidentified ship from Force B (light cruisers Ajax and Neptune of the 7th Cruiser Squadron with the destroyers Kimberley and Kingston) and Force K (light cruisers Aurora and Penelope with the destroyer Lively). Perhaps distracted by a shadowing Cant floatplane, the British force did not observe the torpedo attack.
Shortly after, off Cape S. Maria di Leuca, Micca (C.C. Guido D’Alterio) was on a transport mission to Benghazi but was delayed by bad weather when she was depth-charged in error by Italian destroyers. These were probably from the Italian 7th Cruiser squadron, which had made a sortie in the Central Ionian Sea (light cruisers Duca d’Aosta, Montecuccoli, and Attendolo escorted by destroyers Aviere, Geniere, and Granatiere).
Atlantic
Italian submarine patrols in the Atlantic during November 1941
| Archimede (…5 November) | Barbarigo (…11 November) | Cappellini (17 November…) |
| Morosini (18 November…) | Da Vinci (19 November…) |
No notable events.
Barbarigo, Cappellini, and Morosini were directed to intercept convoys but only sighted isolated escort vessels.
[1] Force H: aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Argus, the battleship Malaya, the light cruiser Hermione, and seven destroyers.
[2] Transports Breconshire, Sydney Star, Clan Ferguson, Ajax, screened by Force K and the corvette HMS Gloxinia. The force sailed at 2100 hours and returned at dawn the following day, perhaps overestimating Axis reconnaissance capabilities.
[3] Force K: light cruisers Penelope, Aurora, and the destroyers Lively and Lance.
[4] Force B: light cruisers HMS Ajax (C.7), Neptune, Galatea, Naiad, and Euryalus, escorted by the destroyers HMS Kandahar, Kingston, Kimberley and Hotspur.
Mediterranean Fleet: Battleship Queen Elizabeth (C. in C.), Barham (V.A.1), Valiant escorted by the destroyers Jervis (D.14), Griffin, Decoy, Napier (D.7), Nizam, Kipling, Jackal and Hasty.