All Sunk

At one o'clock on Sunday morning two British cruisers and two destroyers, steaming in darkness off the sole of Italy's boot, met what they were looking for. That afternoon a Maryland (Glenn Martin) reconnaissance plane had spotted an Italian convoy of eight ships with an escort of destroyers leaving Taranto bound for Libya.

But Captain William Gladstone Agnew, in command of the British squadron, met more than he had bargained for. The original convoy was just being joined by two more merchantmen, and two heavy Italian cruisers, twice the size of his own, were on hand. He did not hesitate.

Apparently the British released torpedoes at point-blank range and followed up with gunfire. Somehow in the darkness, with radio locators or searchlights, they spotted every ship in the convoy. They sank nine and left the tenth, a tanker, blazing fiercely. For good measure they sent down (by Italian admission) two enemy destroyers. Presumably the Italian cruisers, fearful that a British battleship was near by, turned tail and fled. The entire British squadron got back to Malta unscathed.

Winston Churchill cabled Captain Agnew congratulations. King George VI named him a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for his deed, unprecedented in World War II: finding and destroying an entire convoy.

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