Attack on Taranto (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811726610)

On November 11, 1940, 21 slow, canvas-covered British warplanes, launched from the carrier Illustrious, attacked the harbor at the Italian port of Taranto and put most of the Italian navy out of commission. This all-but-forgotten operation, the authors argue, deserves historical recognition as an inspirational precedent for the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor 13 months later. Taranto demonstrated that battleships in a shallow, heavily defended harbor could be sunk by a handful of torpedo-bombers. That lesson Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese fleet, learned well-while the American military virtually ignored it.

"By this single stroke the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean was decisively altered." -Winston S. Churchill

Author: Thomas P. Lowry, John Wellham
ISBN-10: 0811726614
ISBN-13: 9780811726610
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Language: English
Published: 09/15/2017
Pages: 174
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 9.05h x 6.02w x 0.59d