WE LEFT THE MEDITERRANEAN in the autumn of 1939 with the near certainty that Italy would not enter the war on the side of Germany in the foreseeable future. The Mediterranean Fleet was dispersed and the only submarines left at Malta were the three O-class. In March 1940, Otway was withdrawn for training duties at home leaving only Oswald and Osiris on the station. On 10th March, von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, arrived in Rome and set up a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini at the Brenner Pass for 18th March. Here Germany revealed that she was about to begin a major offensive in the west. Mussolini, fearing he might be left with no say in a subsequent peace settlement, undertook to enter the war on Germany's side but did not say when, preferring to await events before fixing a date. By the end of March, however, various pieces of intelligence¹ such as the calling up of reservists, the reinforcement of the Italian army in Libya and an anti-British line pursued in the Italian press, caused alarm. Measures were taken during April to reconstitute the Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria. The provision of a submarine flotilla for the Mediterranean had also to be considered. Although the French had no less than 53 submarines in the Mediterranean, a British contingent of thirteen boats was visualised in all war plans against Italy. Clearly with the Norwegian campaign imminent, no submarines could be spared from the Home station. Inevitably, therefore, attention was focused on the fifteen submarines stationed east of Suez. The four boats of the Eighth Flotilla at Colombo could clearly be spared as no German warship raiders were at the time known to be at large. To remove the submarines from the China Station, where they had been for twenty years to resist the first onrush of a Japanese move to the south, was a major strategic decision. At the time, Japan showed no aggressive intentions and seemed more concerned with winning her war with China than extending the conflict. It was therefore decided that it was safe to send the depot ship Medway and ten submarines to Alexandria leaving five in the Far East. They could always be sent back if Italy did not enter the conflict or if Japan made a hostile move.

Medway and these submarines left Singapore for Alexandria at various times during April, two of the Eighth Flotilla proceeding direct to Aden from patrol and the other two joining Medway as she passed through Colombo. By mid-May, Medway with Parthian, Phoenix, Proteus, Pandora, Grampus, Rorqual, Odin, Orpheus, Olympus and Otus had joined Oswald and Osiris at Alexandria. On 23rd April the British government reiterated its instructions that Italy was not to be provoked in any way. With one exception, therefore, no submarines were sent on patrol before the outbreak of war². The exception was, because the C-in-C hoped to obtain political approval to use Suda Bay as an advanced fleet base which was, of course, in Greek territory, Osiris was despatched to patrol there and keep an eye on it pending authority to set up the base. Six submarines were sent on to Malta, the remaining six being based on Medway at Alexandria. The six sent to Malta included the minelayers Rorqual and Grampus because that was where the stock of mines for the station was kept. Of the other four submarines that went to Malta, two, Olympus and Otus, were in need of refit and the dockyard took both in hand. Odin and Orpheus, with the minelayers were ready for patrol and were maintained by the dockyard and supported by the Submarine War Depot on Manoel Island in Sliema Harbour.

The Italian Government declared war on Great Britain and France on 10th June. The strategic situation on the outbreak was that in the western basin the Allies held Gibraltar, practically the whole coast of North Africa, the south coast of France and the island of Corsica. The Axis held the Italian peninsula and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia while the Iberian Peninsula and the southern coast of the Straits of Gibraltar were neutral (Spanish). This meant that the Allies controlled the western exit from the Mediterranean while they could pass convoys to Malta from the west and convoys from North Africa to France without difficulty. The north shore of the Sicilian narrows was held by the Axis and the southern shore (Tunis) by the Allies with the islands in the middle (Malta and Pantellaria) divided between them. The Straits of Messina were wholly in Axis hands. Both sides of the entrance to the Adriatic were in Axis hands and inside, half the coastline was also theirs and the other half was neutral (Yugoslavia). In the eastern basin the Allies held Cyprus and the coasts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria and, of supreme importance, they held the Suez Canal. The Axis had the coasts of Libya and Cyrenaica and the Dodecanese Islands.

The Malta submarines, on the other hand, saw plenty of activity. On 12th June Orpheus sighted the Italian First Cruiser Division engaged on a sweep in the Ionian Sea in a position 45 miles south east of Syracuse and made an enemy report. Next day Grampus laid her mines off Augusta and reported doing so by wireless. On this same day Odin arrived off Taranto and was caught on the surface that night and sunk by the Italian destroyer Strale. She was lost with all hands including her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander KMcl Woods RN, four other officers and 50 men. Rorqual laid her mines off Brindisi on 14th June and that night fired three torpedoes at an Italian U-boat at a range of 3000 yards but missed. On 16th June Grampus on patrol off Syracuse was sunk by depth charge attack from the Italian torpedo boats Circe, Clio and Polluce of the local flotilla. She too was lost with all hands including her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander CA Rowe RN, four other officers and 53 men. Meanwhile air attacks on Malta began. The air defences were weak and VA(Malta) had decided by the 18th June that it was too risky for the submarines to return there after their patrols. The Malta submarines were therefore ordered to return to Alexandria when their patrols were completed. During these raids Olympus, refitting in the dockyard, was hit and damaged by a bomb while in dry dock.

The large force of fifty-three submarines, which formed part of the Force Maritime du Sud, remained mainly in the western basin although they were free to operate in the Ionian Sea as far as 20 E. The French submarines were concentrated in four groups stationed at Toulon, Oran, Bizerta and Beirut in the Lebanon. The Toulon group sent four submarines to operate in the Tyrrhenian Sea paying special attention to the Italian cruiser force in Naples. The submarines from Bizerta deployed twelve boats at various times as a defensive screen off the east coast of Tunisia. Four submarines from Oran patrolled east of Gibraltar and five from Beirut patrolled in the Dodacanese. Four submarines laid mines off Cagliari, Tripoli, Trapani and Bastia. In the short period before the French armistice little happened except that Morse struck a mine off Sfax on 15th June and was sunk.

On the North African coast, our submarines also saw action. Parthian off Tobruk made an approach to attack a destroyer of the Turbine-class on 17th June but the enemy altered course and she was unable to reach a firing position. She was able, however, to fire two torpedoes into Tobruk at the old cruiser San Giorgio, which was the depot ship there, but they exploded in the nets short of the target. Success came on 20th June when Parthian fired four torpedoes at a range of 400 yards at the Italian submarine Diamante, which was on the surface by day 30 miles north of Tobruk, and sank her. Orpheus, on her way to Alexandria, was almost certainly mined off Benghazi on 19th June. She was the third boat to be sunk in the early days of the war from Malta, and was also lost with all hands including her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander JAS Wise RN, four other officers and 49 men.

The French collapse came on 20th June and on 25th an armistice was signed with Italy and hostilities ceased between the two countries. The French Flotte de Haute Mer was at Oran and Algiers and the Admiralty were determined that these ships should not fall into the hands of the Axis powers. On 26th June, Proteus on patrol in the Kithera channels and Pandora from the Doro Channel were ordered to Oran and Algiers respectively calling at Malta to fuel. These two submarines were the first ships of the Royal Navy to pass the Italian mine barrier in the Sicilian narrows. The barrier had been laid centred on the island of Pantellaria and extended to the northeast-wards towards the Sicilian coast and westwards towards Tunisia. In most places there were four lines of mines set to a depth of twelve feet to catch ships. There was one line north east of Pantellaria set to thirty feet to catch submarines at periscope depth. There were substantial passages each side of Pantellaria free of mines and the fields left gaps of up to ten miles off Sicily and about six miles off Cape Bon. We did not know about these gaps but a route close to Cape Bon was thought to be safe as the depth of water was well over 100 fathoms and it was difficult to lay mines there because of the unevenness of the bottom¹⁰. Our submarines therefore used this route as did subsequent Malta convoys.

Pandora (Lieutenant Commander JW Linton RN) on arrival off Algiers sighted six French cruisers and on the night of 3rd/4th July, the Flag Officer Force H¹¹ ordered the two submarines to sink any French ships sighted. This order was countermanded by the Admiralty, who said that the first shot was not to be fired at the French. Pandora, however, did not receive the Admiralty's signal. Proteus (Lieutenant Commander RT Gordon-Duff RN) then sighted the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste off Oran and Pandora three destroyers off Algiers but fortunately all passed out of torpedo range. Then Pandora sighted the French sloop Rigault De Genouille and, thinking she was a cruiser, fired four torpedoes at 3500 yards, two of which hit and sank her. The government at once sent apologies to the French, which meant little after Force H opened fire on the French ships in Oran on 3rd July. On 7th July both submarines were recalled to Gibraltar.

On 18th July, the British Government at last approved a 'Sink at Sight' zone for the Mediterranean. All Italian ships could now be sunk without warning within 30 miles of the coasts of Italy and Italian North Africa. This meant that submarines could now deal with traffic to Libya, but the Dardanelles route could only be attacked without restriction in the Otranto area, and was still subject to Prize Manual rules in the Aegean. Osiris off the Dardanelles was therefore recalled to Alexandria searching the Kithera Channels on the way. On 16th July, Parthian (Lieutenant Commander RD Cayley RN) sailed from Alexandria and landed an agent in Gromino Bay in Crete four days later. She then searched the Kithera Channel area again and then crossed the Ionian Sea to patrol the south east coast of Sicily. Rorqual left Malta on 18th July for the coast of Cyrenaica. She fired two torpedoes at a large merchant ship off Tolmeita. The range was 8000 yards and understandably she missed although she fired a third torpedo at the same ship as she went on her way. Rorqual then laid fifty mines on the same day in the same area. This field sank the troopship Cello of 3865 tons on 24th July. On 27th July Parthian off Sicily fired three torpedoes at two merchant ships at a range of 3000 yards but missed. On 30th July Oswald (Lieutenant Commander DA Fraser RN) patrolling south of Messina and who had left Alexandria on 19th July, sighted a cruiser northbound for the straits. She was unable to get in a shot and was also unable to surface and report what she had seen. A few hours later she sighted four cruisers escorted by destroyers also northbound and finally sighted a convoy in the straits. She was too far off to attack any of these targets but in the afternoon she surfaced in daylight and made a wireless report. Next day after dark she was surprised on the surface by the Italian destroyer UgoliniVivaldi and sunk, her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander DA Fraser RN and her crew, except for three men who were drowned, being taken prisoner of war. There is little doubt that the Italians, who had a very efficient network of direction finding stations, pinpointed the position of Oswald by this means. Five Italian destroyers in line abreast four miles apart made this anti-submarine sweep from the Augusta area north-eastwards past Cape Spartivento. Vivaldi sighted Oswald ahead on a similar course. Oswald made no attempt to dive or attack with torpedoes. The order to abandon ship was given before she was rammed. Vivaldi then tried to avoid collision and struck her a glancing blow that caused little damage^17. The Italian direction finding stations were probably responsible for the loss of Grampus as well.

The Italian Navy now had to face up to the fact that convoys would be required to Libya regularly in future and they had to re-organise the fleet to provide escorts. At the end of July they had to send a large convoy of eleven ships with troop reinforcements and supplies for the army and air force. This convoy arrived safely but no less than eleven cruisers, twenty-three destroyers and fourteen escorts were needed to ensure success. A regular convoy service was also demanded by the army along the North African coast between Tripoli and Benghazi to help, among other things, to transfer troops to Cyrenaica from the Tunisian frontier.

The British made strenuous efforts to strengthen the defences of Malta, especially the air defences. As well as the damage to Olympus, seventy people had been killed in air raids in June alone. Six Hurricane fighters had arrived in June before the French collapse flying across France and refuelling in Tunisia. On 21st June twelve Fleet Air Arm Swordfish torpedo bombers also arrived from Hyeres in France to help attack the enemy traffic to Libya. However with the collapse of France this air reinforcement route could no longer be used. At the end of July, twelve Hurricane fighters were flown off the aircraft carrier Argus in the western Mediterranean and arrived safely. Pandora and Proteus arrived at Malta from Gibraltar at the same time, carrying Royal Air Force maintenance personnel for the Hurricanes, and eleven tons of stores and mail.

The loss of Oswald marked the nadir of the fortunes of the British submarines in the Mediterranean. Five boats had now been lost and, as two more were refitting in Malta Dockyard, the number available for operations had dropped to five. Against these losses, two out of seven torpedo attacks had succeeded sinking the Italian submarine Diamante and the French sloop Rigault De Genouille. One of Rorqual's mines had also sunk a ship of 3865 tons. They had done better with reconnaissance and Phoenix can claim that without her sighting and reporting of the Italian battle fleet, there would have been no Battle of Calabria. Italian cruisers were sighted and reported on three other occasions but these contacts did not lead to anything¹⁸. With such results, few medals were earned. Lieutenant Commander Rimington of Parthian was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for sinking the Italian submarine Diamante and a few of his ship's company were decorated or Mentioned in Despatches but that was all.

It was thought at the time that most of our submarine casualties were due to mines and C-in-C ordered that our submarines should keep outside the 100-fathom line unless they had good reason for not so doing. In fact Italian destroyers or torpedo boats sank all five submarines, and they achieved this remarkable result without any modern detecting apparatus such as asdic. There is little doubt that the Italian direction finding network was of great value to them to indicate where to search but the actual first contact was, if not the result of the submarine compromising her position by attacking with torpedoes, was the result of losing the contest between the night lookouts. The lookouts in a light grey destroyer undoubtedly had an advantage over those in a dark blue submarine with a large silhouette. Reinforcements were, however, to hand. On the outbreak of war with Italy on 10th June, the remaining five submarines in the Far East¹⁹ had been ordered to the Mediterranean, and had already reached Alexandria or were in the Red Sea. In mid July the He also took the opportunity to suggest that submarine Admiralty offered C-in-C four T-class submarines from operations should be extended to the western basin of Home waters, which he gratefully accepted but added that the Mediterranean, where traffic leaving Naples and other what he really wanted were some smaller submarines. western ports for Libya could be attacked.