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Mediterranean, had drawn up plans for an air attack on Taranto two years earlier when war loomed. When HMS
Illustrious
, Britain’s only modern aircraft carrier, sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar in August 1940, his plans were immediately taken out of the filing cabinet and dusted down.
    It has been well known to Britain’s enemies down the centuries that the Royal Navy ‘never refuses action’. Nor has it been in the habit of sitting back and waiting to react to its enemies’ moves. The Royal Navy has always played on the front foot. Or as Admiral Nelson put it: ‘Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.’ Cunningham was an aggressive commander in the mould of Nelson and, although at the start of the war he had no great enthusiasm for naval aviation, he was sharp enough to understand that the crews of the Fleet Air Arm represented his best, and probably his only, hope of delivering a decisive blow against the Italians. But when Cunningham, Lyster and Air Marshal Longmore, the RAF Air Officer Commanding Middle East, sat down in Alexandria Harbour to draw up a plan for an air attack on Taranto, even those bright military minds could not have foreseen that they were devising one of the great raids in the history of warfare, and one that would have a major impact on the nature of naval warfare for many years to come.
    When Rear Admiral Lyster submitted his plans for the raid they were met with an ‘approval’ by the Admiralty back in Whitehall that was so grudging it was almost a refusal. After giving ‘Operation Judgement’ a dim green light, Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, couldn’t resist a little dig. ‘Only sailors who live in ships should attack other ships,’ he wrote.
    The broad outline of the plan was for two carriers, HMS
Illustrious
and HMS
Eagle
, to get as close to Taranto as possible without arousing Italian suspicions and launch a night attack on the Italian Fleet. The element of surprise was essential. The last thing they needed was every gunner in the Italian Navy at action stations on their arrival. The attack was to take place at night when there was no chance of being intercepted by the Regia Aeronautica, which had no nightfighters in its otherwise impressive air fleet. Although the first wave of Swordfish was tasked with dropping parachute flares to guide in the rest, the attack still needed a good ‘moon period’ to help light up the ships in the harbour. For that reason, and no doubt with a salute to Admiral Nelson too, 21 October – Trafalgar Day – was chosen as the date, only for it to be scrapped soon after a major fire broke out in
Illustrious
’s hangar. The additional fuel tanks were being attached when one of the aircraft burst into flames. The fire quickly spread, reducing one other Swordfish to a blackened wreck and seriously damaging five others. Much of the damage was caused by the sea water pumped in to douse the inferno. The aircraft that escaped the blaze had to be taken apart, washed in fresh water and reassembled. The raid was postponed first to 31 October, and once more to the night of 11 November – Armistice Day – in order to exploit the light from a near-full moon.
    There was a further setback shortly before the two carriers and their escort were due to set out from Alexandria. HMS
Eagle
, an ancient vessel already in her death throes, had to be withdrawn at the last minute after developing problems with her aviation fuel supply. Rather than delay the operation again, it was decided to leave her at Alexandria. Five Swordfishes and eight aircrew were transferred to
Illustrious
.
    The Swordfish were to be launched in two flights of twelve aircraft with roughly one hour between each attack. Each flight was to comprise six aircraft carrying a mixture of 250-lb bombs and parachute flares, and six carrying torpedoes, which were expected to cause the greatest amount of damage. The orders