Excerpts from the book The Attack on Taranto, by Thomas P. Lowry and John W.G. Wellham, © 1995, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA 1995:
Lt. Cdr. John W.G. Wellham, DSC RN, flew both the Bomba and Taranto missions, carrying torpedoes.
The other two planes flew on. They saw three ships, lying side by side: a sub-tender, a destroyer, and a second submarine. Alerted by Patch's torpedo, they were already firing pom-poms at the two Swordfish. Wellham launched his torpedo at the starboard beam of the sub-tender.
Cheesman's observer saw that the water was too shallow for launching, and he was forced to fly within 250 yards of the warships before launching. The two torpedoes struck within three seconds of each other. The submarine exploded, setting fire to the destroyer. Wellham's torpedo must have hit the tender's magazine as it blew up, engulfing the damaged destroyer. In a minute they were all gone. By 3:00 P.M., all three planes were back at Sidi Barrâni, having struck four ships with three torpedoes. The British damage consisted of two bullet holes in Wellham's plane. Italian radio reported that an overwhelming force had attacked their fleet.
One of the submarines was the Iride, carrying three manned torpedoes, destined for the British battleships at Alexandria... Wellham received the Distinguished Service Cross.
On the photo pages: Picture of Japanese admiral with Italian officers at Taranto aboard the battleship Littorio in May 1941.
Many Pearl Harbor books and articles discuss shallow-water torpedoes in learned turns of words, but not a single
solitary author, besides Wellham who operated it, ever mentioned the wire without which Taranto
could not have happened, while citing Taranto vs. Pearl Harbor. They all mentioned fins, either
supposing the British future-copied the Japanese at the corner fortune-teller, or that anybody could
make them. They should explain why the US Navy bungled with them well into 1942 and then
probably never had to use them. Dozens of progress reports prove it.
The Navy managed a first valid war-simulated shot only in the first days of December 1941. Torpedoes
of any kind were certainly not their forte, Adm. Charles Lockwood, commander of Submarines Pacific
complained enough about one dud after another still in 1943. The Germans, the Japanese and the
British had excellent torpedoes. Ironically, many parts of British torpedoes were manufactured at Brooklyn Yard. Go
figure the world of ordinance, with torpedoes at $18,000 a copy! P-51 fighters were at $40,000.
Bruce Lee, the editor for Admiral Layton [And I Was There], John Costello [The Pacific War, Days of Infamy], Gordon Prange [At Dawn We Slept], and Henry Clausen, after having proclaimed as loud as possible the absence to anything remotely close to a “smoking gun”, has the nerve to write, in 1995, on the back flap of Wellham's book:The Attack on Taranto is far more than a “prelude”. If this exciting, convincing book had been published in 1940, it could well have prevented the disaster of Pearl Harbor. As it is, Dr. Lowry and Cdr. Wellham show how America must always be alert to the activities of our enemies and those of our Allies, too, so as to avoid “future military surprises”.
Didn't Mr. Lee figure there was a report about Taranto somewhere in the world, and that those who could do something about it had read it in 1940 anyhow?
Are these platitudes really necessary? They seem kind of silly coming from Lee, the co-author of Pearl Harbor the Final Judgment, written with Colonel Henry C. Clausen, the Special Investigator [for Pearl Harbor] for the Secretary of War Stimson. This book, supposedly the last word of authority about Pearl Harbor, absolves FDR, General Marshall, and Admiral Stark et al. of any wrongdoing of any kind. Not surprisingly, everything rides on Admiral Kimmel's and General Short's shoulders, while also practically treating Adm. Edwyn T. Layton [Kimmel's and then Nimitz's Naval Intelligence Chief] as a liar. Layton's book was co-written with the British historian John Costello and Captain Roger Pineau, USNR (ret.). The irony can't be contained - it was edited by the same Bruce Lee! What's going on here?
Considerations about the raid on Bomba, of 22 August, 1940, and more on Taranto.