WOperation Abstention was a code name given to a British invasion of the Italian island of Kastelorizo (Castellorizo) off the Turkish Aegean coast, during the Second World War, in late February 1941. The goal was to establish a torpedo-boat base to challenge Italian naval and air supremacy on the Greek Dodecanese islands. The British landings were challenged by Italian land, air and naval forces, which forced the British troops to re-embark amidst some confusion and led to recriminations between the British commanders for underestimating the Italians.
WOperation Agreement was a ground and amphibious operation carried out by British, Rhodesian and New Zealand forces on Axis-held Tobruk from 13 to 14 September 1942, during the Second World War. A Special Interrogation Group party, fluent in German, took part in missions behind enemy lines. Diversionary actions extended to Benghazi, Jalo oasis and Barce. The Tobruk raid was an Allied disaster; the British lost several hundred men killed and captured, one cruiser, two destroyers, six motor torpedo boats and dozens of small amphibious craft.
WThe Raid on Alexandria was carried out on 19 December 1941 by Italian Navy divers of the Decima Flottiglia MAS, who attacked and disabled two Royal Navy battleships in the harbour of Alexandria, Egypt, using manned torpedoes.
WThe Raid on Algiers took place on 11 December 1942, in the Algiers harbour. Italian manned torpedoes and commando frogmen from the Decima Flottiglia MAS were brought to Algiers aboard the Perla-class submarine Ambra. The participating commandos were captured after setting limpet mines which sank two Allied ships and damaged two more.
WThe Attack on Convoy AN 14 was a naval engagement during the Second World War between a British naval force defending a convoy of merchant ships, which had departed from Port Said and Alexandria to Piraeus and two Italian torpedo boats who intercepted them north of Crete on 31 January 1941. The Italian vessels, Lupo and Libra, launched two torpedoes each. The torpedoes fired by Libra missed their target but one from Lupo hit the 8,120 long tons (8,250 t) British tanker Desmoulea which had to be towed to Suda Bay in Crete and beached; the ship was disabled for the rest of the war. One other merchant ship turned back; the other eight vessels reached Piraeus.
WThe action off Bastia was a naval battle fought on 9 September 1943 off Corsica principal port Bastia in Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean Sea. It was one of the few successful Italian reactions to Operation Achse, and one of the first acts of resistance by the Italian armed forces against Nazi Germany after the armistice of Cassibile.
WThe Battle of the Cigno Convoy was a naval engagement between two British destroyers of the Royal Navy and two Italian torpedo boats of the Regia Marina south-east of Marettimo island to the west of Sicily, in the early hours of 16 April 1943. The Italian ships were escorting the transport ship Belluno, of 4,200 long tons (4,300 t) and one of the close escorts, the torpedo boat Tifone carried aviation fuel to Tunisia. The British force was fought off by the Italian units, at the cost of one torpedo boat. One of the British destroyers, disabled by Italian gunfire, had to be scuttled after the action when it was clear that it could not make port before dawn.
WOperation Harpoon or Battle of Pantelleria was one of two simultaneous Allied convoys sent to supply Malta in the Axis-dominated central Mediterranean Sea in mid-June 1942, during the Second World War. Operation Vigorous was a westward convoy from Alexandria run at the same time Operation Harpoon was an eastbound convoy operation from Gibraltar. Two of the six ships in the Harpoon convoy completed the journey, at the cost of several Allied warships. The Vigorous convoy was driven back by the Italian fleet and attacks by Axis aircraft.
WThe auxiliary ship Olterra was a 5,000 ton Italian tanker scuttled by her own crew at Algeciras in the Bay of Gibraltar on 10 June 1940, after the entry of Italy in World War II. She was recovered in 1942 by a special unit of the Decima Flottiglia MAS to be used as an undercover base for manned torpedoes in order to attack Allied shipping at Gibraltar.
WOperation Pedestal, known in Malta as Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija, was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. Malta was a base from which British ships, submarines and aircraft attacked Axis convoys to Libya, during the North African Campaign (1940–1943). From 1940 to 1942, the Axis conducted the Siege of Malta, with air and naval forces. Despite many losses, enough supplies were delivered by the British for the population and military forces on Malta to resist, although it ceased to be an offensive base for much of 1942. The most crucial supply item in Operation Pedestal was fuel, carried by SS Ohio, an American tanker with a British crew. The convoy sailed from Britain on 3 August 1942 and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on the night of 9/10 August.
WOperation Scylla on the night of 17/18 July 1943, during the Second World War was the transit of the Regia Marina Capitani Romani-class light cruiser Scipione Africano. The cruiser sailed from La Spezia in the Tyrrhenian Sea to Taranto in the Ionian Sea during the Allied invasion of Sicily.
WThe Raid on Souda Bay was an assault by Italian Royal Navy explosive boats on Souda Bay, Crete, during the first hours of 26 March 1941. The motor boats were launched by the destroyers Francesco Crispi and Quintino Sella on the approaches to the bay. After negotiating the boom defences, the small craft attacked the Royal Navy heavy cruiser HMS York and the Norwegian tanker Pericles. The Allied vessels were both sunk in shallow waters by the explosive charges and eventually lost.
WOperation Vigorous was a British operation during the Second World War, to escort supply convoy MW11 from the eastern Mediterranean to Malta, which took place from 11–16 June 1942. Vigorous was part of Operation Julius, a simultaneous operation with Operation Harpoon from Gibraltar and supporting operations. Sub-convoy MW11c sailed from Port Said on 11 June, to tempt the Italian battlefleet to sail early, use up fuel and be exposed to submarine and air attack. MW11a and MW11b sailed next day from Haifa, Port Said and Alexandria, one ship being sent back because of defects. Italian and German (Axis) aircraft attacked MW11c on 12 June and a damaged ship was diverted to Tobruk, just east of Gazala. The merchant ships and escorts rendezvoused on 13 June. The British plans were revealed unwittingly to the Axis by the US Military Attaché in Egypt, Colonel Bonner Fellers, who reported to Washington, D.C. in coded wireless messages. The Black Code was later revealed by Ultra to have been broken by the Servizio Informazioni Militare.