By May 13, 1943, 35 months of war had caused the deaths, by killing or drowning, of 35,000 officers and men and the loss of the following ships: one battleship, five heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, 74 destroyers, and 85 submarines.
It had, of course, proved impossible to build enough new ships to make up for all these losses. Admiral Riccardi, Chief-of-Staff at Supermarina, still had, it is true, six battleships, a dozen cruisers, some 60 destroyers and torpedo-boats and the same number of submarines. The smaller surface vessels, however, were worn out after three years’ hard escort service. The day after the Battle of Matapan the Duce had decided that until the converted liners Roma and Augustus came into service as aircraft-carriers, the fleet would not venture outside the radius of action of land-based fighters. No-one had foreseen that the day would come when there was to be no fighter support at all.
Moorings at Taranto, Messina, and Naples. On April 12 the cruiser Trieste was sunk by air attack as she lay at anchor in the roads at La Maddalena off the north coast of Sardinia. On June 5 a raid by Flying Fortresses on La Spezia caused varying degrees of damage to the big battleships Roma, Littorio, and Vittorio Veneto. The fuel crisis had now become critical, and to economise on supplies the cruisers Diiilio, Dorio, and Cesare were laid up, the first two at Taranto and the third at Pola.
World History
