Thursday, 21 February 2019
The Battle of Cape Matapan
Bletchley Park is probably most famous for the work of Alan Turing and his efforts to break the German code ciphers, important to the outcome of WW ll All personnel and the work carried out there was undertaken in the utmost secrecy. And so little information about the people and their work is actually available in the public domain.
Someone who is known was Mavis Lever, one of several thousand women whom worked at Bletchley, she was assigned to a section run by Dilly Knox and played a key role in deciphering an Italian Naval Operational code. Which in turn led to the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy victory in 1941 at the battle of Cape Matapan and the destruction of several Italian warships and the virtual end of the Italian Navy as an effective force.
Cape Matapan can hardly be said to be another Midway, far from it, but could have perhaps benefited from a Hollywood perspective, at least it brought to an end Mussolini's dreams of a new Roman Empire.
The actual Naval battle followed a more or less fruitless action off Gavdos, in which there were various attempted engagements and later a night time action, which after some confusion resulted in the loss of three Italian heavy cruisers, which equated to the loss of a cruiser division. Although at the same time the Allied force failed to engage and destroy the battleship Vittorio Veneto.
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