User:Hollowww/Action off Premuda
The Action off Premuda was a naval action carried out by 2 MAS (15 and 21) under the command of section leader Luigi Rizzo and respectively commanded by Armando Gori and Giuseppe Aonzo who, at dawn on June 10, 1918, in the midst of World War I, leaving from the port of Ancona, secretly penetrated among the units of an enemy naval formation headed for the Strait of Otranto, managing to torpedo and sink the battleship SMS Szent István (Santo Stefano). In the action, the twin battleship SMS Tegetthoff (named after admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, who defeated the Italian fleet in the Battle of Lissa in 1866) was also hit by a torpedo, but in this case the failure of the explosion device prevented the sinking.
Prelude
Premises
From March 1, 1918, Admiral Miklós Horthy assumed command of the Imperial–Royal Austro–Hungarian Navy, replacing Admiral Maximilian Njegovan.[1] With Horthy's appointment, Paolo Thaon di Revel also perceived the possibility that the new Austrian commander would implement a fleet action outside the consolidated schemes.
Up to that point, the barrage of the Strait of Otranto had been attacked nineteen times and, in four of these, Admiral Horthy was present as commander of the SMS Novara. It was therefore very probable that the new commander intended to give a signal of change in the conduct of the war and that the Strait of Otranto, well known to him, was part of his plans.[2]
Signs of a new imminent attack came with an air raid on June 9 by 14 aircraft, supported by the SMS Dukla and SMS Uzsok, for which Admiral Revel ordered that four French submarines be positioned in ambush north of Durazzo, while the Italian F10 and F14 were placed in front of Pola and the Faresina channel respectively.[2]
The Austro–Hungarian mission
The suspicions were not unfounded: the Austro-Hungarian supreme command had in fact prepared a powerful offensive, which envisaged the use of a large part of the fleet.
The "attack group" would have been composed of:[3]
- Section 1: SMS Novara, SMS Helgoland, SMS Tátra, SMS Csepel and SMS Triglav, which would have had the task of attacking the forces assigned to the embarking service of the Strait of Otranto;
- Section 2: SMS Admiral Spaun, SMS Saida, torpedo boats 84, 92, 98 and 99, which was supposed to bomb the Otranto installations.[4][5][6]
The "support group" instead envisaged the use of the larger units, each escorted by 4 or 5 torpedo boats, divided as follows:
- SMS Viribus Unitis (Captain Janko Vuković) as flagship of the fleet, SMS Balaton, SMS Orjen, torpedo boats 86, 90, 96 and 97;
- SMS Prinz Eugen (Captain Adolf Schmidt), SMS Dukla, SMS Uzsok, torpedo boats 82, 89, 91, 95;
- SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, SMS Turul, torpedo boats 61, 66, 52, 56, 50;
- SMS Erzherzog Karl, SMS Huszár, SMS Pandúr, torpedo boats 75, 94, 57;
- SMS Erzherzog Friedrich, SMS Csikós, SMS Uskoke, torpedo boats 53, 58, and a Kaiman;
- SMS Tegetthoff (Captain Heinrich Pergler von Perglas), SMS Velebit, torpedo boat 81 and three Kaimans;
- SMS Szent István (Captain Heinrich Seitz), torpedo boats 76, 77, 78, 80.
Their task was to remain in their assigned positions until 7:30 AM on June 11, the time at which they were to return in the event of a lack of contact with the Italian ships. It was thought, in fact, that the action of the "attack group" would have induced the Italian command to send its armoured cruisers out of Brindisi and Valona to pursue the Austrian ships, cruisers which would then have found themselves surrounded by the larger Austrian units, supported by a large use of submarines and aircraft.[7]
Rear admiral Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya embarked on June 8[8] with the SMS Viribus Unitis and the SMS Prinz Eugen to reach their position halfway between Brindisi and Valona, only reaching it on time at dawn on June 11, while the two other groups SMS Szent István and SMS Tegetthoff, despite small problems with Szent István, which delayed their progress, also set off for their assigned positions.[9]
Horthy's plan called for SMS Novara and SMS Helgoland to engage the Barrage with the support of the SMS Tátra. Meanwhile, SMS Admiral Spaun and SMS Saida would be escorted by the fleet's four torpedo boats to Otranto to bombard Italian air and naval stations. The German and Austro-Hungarian submarines would be sent to Valona and Brindisi to ambush Italian, French, British, and American warships that sailed out to engage the Austro-Hungarian fleet, while seaplanes from Cattaro would provide air support and screen the ships' advance. The battleships, and in particular the SMS Szent István and the SMS Tegetthoff, would use their firepower to destroy the Barrage and engage any Allied warships they ran across. Horthy hoped that the inclusion of these ships would prove to be critical in securing a decisive victory.[5]
Sources
References
- ^ Bell, Christopher; Elleman, Bruce (2 August 2004). Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective. Routledge. p. 58–. ISBN 978-1-135-75553-9.
- ^ a b Favre 2008, p. 242.
- ^ Favre 2008, p. 243.
- ^ Sokol 1968, p. 134.
- ^ a b Sondhaus, Lawrence (1994). The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918: Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. p. 335. ISBN 1-55753-034-3.
- ^ Halpern, Paul G. (1987). The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1914–1918. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. p. 501. ISBN 978-0870214486.
- ^ Favre 2008, pp. 242–244.
- ^ Koburger, Charles W. (2001). The Central Powers in the Adriatic, 1914–1918: War in a Narrow Sea. Westport, CT: Praeger. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-275-97071-0.
- ^ Favre 2008, p. 244.
Literature
- Favre, Franco (2008). La Marina nella Grande Guerra: le operazioni navali, aeree, subacquee e terrestri in Adriatico (in Italian). Udine: Gaspari. ISBN 978-88-7541-135-0.
- Sokol, Anthony (1968). The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. OCLC 462208412.