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On the evening of November 11, 1940, 21 obsolete Fairey Swordfish biplanes, took off from the HMS Illustrious, steaming in the Mediterranean Sea. They proceeded at slow speed to Taranto, Italy, the home port for the Regia Marina. The fleet only had a small percentage of their anti-torpedo netting deployed, the harbour was deemed too […]

Taranto, an ancient town of something like 150,000 inhabitants, had so far been troubled less by war than by foul weather. During the first days of November heavy storms had damaged or destroyed many of its protective ring of balloons and it had not been possible to repair or replace them to anything near the […]