Operation Collar (convoy)
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Operation Collar (12–29 November 1940) was a small, fast three-ship convoy during the Second World War. The convoy left Britain on 12 November 1940 and passed Gibraltar on 24 November, escorted by two cruisers, two ships for Malta and one bound for Alexandria. Numerous other operations took place partly as diversions and the Italian Fleet sailed to attack British ships, leading to the inconclusive Battle of Cape Spartivento (Battle of Cape Teluada to the Italians) on 27 November. The two merchant ships reached Malta on 26 November.
Background
British plans
Operation Collar was devised to get the slow battleship HMS Ramillies, the cruiser HMS Berwick which had turbine problems and Newcastle which had boiler trouble from Alexandria to Gibraltar. The merchant ships Memnon, Clan Macaulay, Clan Ferguson and HMS Breconshire were also at Alexandria, ready to be convoyed to Malta, where the escorts would meet the merchant ship Cornwall which had been repaired and the four unloaded ships of Convoy MW 3. The eastern manoeuvres were called Operation MB 9, part of the operation was for aircraft carriers of the Mediterranean Fleet to attack airfields in the Dodecanese Islands and Tripoli in Italian Libya. At the west end of the Mediterranean three freighters, two for Malta and one for Alexandria were en route from Britain to Gibraltar, where two light cruisers, destroyers and corvettes were gathering to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet, which was busy protecting convoys from Port Said and Haifa to Cyprus and Piraeus, while the cruisers were transporting troops to the Aegean, under frequent attack by the Regia Aeronautica.[1]
Force F
On 25 November, Force F (Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland) HMS Manchester and Southampton carrying 1,370 Royal Air Force technicians, escorted the merchant ships SS New Zealand Star, SS Clan Forbes and SS Clan Fraser. Force F was reinforced by the destroyer HMS Hotspur and later by the corvettes HMS Peony, Salvia, Gloxinia and Hyacinth, but the corvettes were found to be too slow to keep up with the convoy.[2] The convoy was met off Gibraltar by Force B, the battlecruiser Renown, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the cruisers Despatch and Sheffield and the destroyers Faulknor, Firedrake, Forester, Fury, Encounter, Duncan, Wishart, Kelvin and Jaguar.[3]
Mediterranean Fleet
Force D, the battleship Ramillies and the cruisers Berwick and Newcastle sailed from Alexandria. The cruiser Coventry with the destroyers Defender, Gallant, Greyhound, Griffin and Hereward sailed to rendezvous with the Collar convoy south of Sardinia. Force C covered the cruiser and destroyers with the battleships Barham and Malaya and the aircraft carrier Eagle which was to attack Tripoli on 26 November. The Mediterranean Fleet left Alexandria with the battleships Valiant, Warspite and the aircraft carrier Illustrious, the 7th Cruiser Squadron comprising Ajax, Orion and Sydney with destroyers to cover a raid on Suda Bay in Crete. Illustrious attacked Rhodes on 26 November. A Malta convoy sailed with Force E, the 3rd Cruiser Squadron, with Glasgow, Gloucester and York.[3]
Prelude
Force H
The convoy was covered at a distance to the north by Force H (Admiral James Somerville) comprising the battlecruiser HMS Renown, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, the cruisers HMS Sheffield and Despatch and nine destroyers.[2]
Italian fleet
When the departure of Force B from Gibraltar was reported and Force D was seen by an Italian aircraft on 25 November, the submarines Alagi, Aradam, Axum and Diasporo were sent to the south of Sardinia, Dessiè and Tembien to stations off Malta. On 25 November, Admiral Inigo Campioni sailed with the battleships Giulio Cesare and Vittorio Veneto, the 13th Destroyer Flotilla with Granatiere, Fuciliere, Bersagliere and Alpino, the 7th Destroyer Flotilla with Freccia, Saetta and Dardo, the 1st Cruiser Division with Pola, Fiume, Gorizia and the 9th Destroyer Flotilla of Alfieri, Carducci, Gioberti and Oriani sailed from Naples, the 3rd Cruiser Division with Trieste, Trento, Bolzano and the 12th Destroyer Flotilla with Lanciere, Ascari and Carabiniere departed Messina. The 10th Torpedo Boat Flotilla with Alcione, Vega, Saggitario and Sirio sailed from Trapani for the Sicilian Narrows.[3]
Battle of Cape Spartivento/Cape Teulada
Campioni had orders to avoid a decisive encounter. The Italian destroyer Lanciere and the British cruiser HMS Berwick (65) were seriously damaged during the exchange of fire.[4]
Convoy
After the battle, Force H continued towards Malta until late afternoon on 27 November when, just before Cape Bon, they returned to Gibraltar. At midnight on 28 November, the convoy passed Cape Bon and set course to rendezvous with the Mediterranean Fleet (Admiral Andrew Cunningham) from Alexandria. Clan Fraser and Clan Forbes arrived at Malta on 29 November and New Zealand Star, escorted by the destroyers HMS Defender and Hereward, continued to Alexandria. This small convoy was also covered by Manchester and Southampton.[3]
Footnotes
- ^ Woodman 2003, pp. 95–96.
- ^ a b Brown 2015, p. 24.
- ^ a b c d Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 50.
- ^ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 49–50.
References
- Brown, David, ed. (2015) [1956]. The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean: November 1940 – December 1941. Naval Staff Histories. Vol. II. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-98555-1. Written anonymously by G. A. Titterton and first published confidentially in 1956
- Rohwer, Jürgen; Hümmelchen, Gerhard (2005) [1972]. Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (3rd rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-257-3.
- Woodman, R. (2003). Malta Convoys 1940–1943 (pbk. ed.). London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6408-6.
Further reading
- Bragadin, M. (1957) [1948]. Fioravanzo, G. (ed.). The Italian Navy in World War II. Translated by Hoffman, G. (Eng. trans. ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. OCLC 602717421.
- Dannreuther, Raymond (2005). Somerville's Force H: The Royal Navy's Gibraltar-based Fleet, June 1940 to March 1942. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 1-84513-020-0.
- Greene, Jack; Massignani, Alessandro (2002) [1998]. The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943. Rochester: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-057-9.
- Jordan, Roger W. (2006) [1999]. The World's Merchant Fleets 1939: The Particulars and Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships (2nd ed.). London: Chatham/Lionel Leventhal. ISBN 978-1-86176-293-1.
- Llewellyn-Jones, Malcolm, ed. (2007). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean Convoys: A Naval Staff History. Naval Staff Histories. Abingdon: Whitehall History Publishing with Routledge. ISBN 978--0-415-86459-6.
- Mitchell, William Harry; Sawyer, Leonard Arthur (1990) [1965]. The Empire Ships: A Record of British-built Ships and acquired Merchant Ships during the Second World War (2nd ed.). London: Lloyd's of London Press. ISBN 1-85044-275-4.
- O'Hara, Vincent (2009). Struggle for the Middle Sea: The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940–1945. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-408-6.
- Playfair, I. S. O.; et al. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO:1960]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (September 1941 to September 1942). History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. III. Uckfield, UK: Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84574-067-2.
- Roskill, S. W. (1957) [1954]. Butler, J. R. M. (ed.). The Defensive. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series: The War at Sea 1939–1945. Vol. I (4th impr. ed.). London: HMSO. OCLC 881709135.
- Smith, Peter; Walker, Edwin (1974). The Battles of the Malta Striking Forces. Sea Battles in Close-up (No. 11). Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0528-1.
- Stegemann, B.; Schreiber, G.; Vogel, D. (2015) [1995]. Falla, P. S. (ed.). The Mediterranean, South-East Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941: From Italy's Declaration of non-Belligerence to the Entry of the United States into the War. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. III. Translated by McMurry, D. S.; Osers, E.; Willmot, L. (2nd, pbk. trans. Oxford University Press, Oxford ed.). Freiburg im Breisgau: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt. ISBN 978-0-19-873832-9.
