Excerpt from the book Taranto 1940, by A.J. Smithers
Taranto 1940, by A.J. Smithers, © A.J. Smithers, 1995, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland 1995.
p. 84
The only ones available to the Fleet in late 1940 were, in any event, a little behind the times.
The 18-inch Mk XIIs* were to be set to run at 27 knots with a depth of 33 feet - sufficient to
circumvent any net - and with 100 yards run off the safety range. All would be set to remain alive at the
end of their run and each contained a roll of cable which unwound and held the angle after dropping as well
as inhibiting 'porpoising' or diving too deeply. Only contact with the water was needed in order to set the
propellers turning and to speed the missile on its way. The Japanese 24-inch, oxygen-powered Long Lance was
a more powerful weapon in every way but its time had not yet come.
* Lieutenant-Commander Wellham, whose acquaintance any possible reader will soon be making, has been kind
enough to tell me that the reference in the Official Report to a Mk XIII is probably a misprint.
There never was a Mk XIII.
[Remark: the note concerns Taranto. Further Mks came later.]
The wires again! Only in 1995, but Lt. Cmdr. John N. Opie, USN, had them in plain sight in 1940 on 11/12 November and earlier, onboard HMS Illustrious, and, we repeat also here: his job was to report ‘everything’ to Washington. Maybe in separate reports, but anyhow everything he was able to see or hear. That is what an observer does.
Furthermore, no one would be foolish enough to go about an operation like Taranto without previously well-tested equipment, especially saddling torpedoes with restraining wires.
Bottom line: Since November 1940 or sometime earlier, no ship of any kind was safe from an air-launched torpedo attack in any harbor of the world.
From that date on, the Royal Navy, the US Navy, the Kriegsmarine, the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Regia Marina, and any naval officer worth his rank realized it.
The US Pacific Fleet, instead, was specifically told by Washington, with a three month delay, not to worry, that this happened to others but that they were safe at Pearl Harbor.
W H Y?
