On the night of March 28, 1941, British and Italian ships fought at Cape Matapan (now Cape Tainaron), in the Mediterranean, off southern Greece. The battle was the fruit of British intelligence, which, as early as September 1940, had broken the Italian naval code. Ultra intelligence, derived from this decryption, enabled Allied code breakers to decipher a message on March 25, 1941, revealing that Italian warships were planning to attack British convoys transporting troops and supplies from Egypt to Greece. Informed of this intelligence, Royal Navy Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander in chief of the Mediterranean, diverted a pair of decoys from the danger zone and laid an ambush for the Italian fleet using four cruisers and nine destroyers, which were positioned southwest of Gavdo Island. Then, on the night of March 27, Cunningham sailed with a battle squadron built around the aircraft carrier Formidable. Air reconnaissance from the carrier spotted three Italian groups, including one led by the Vittorio Veneto, the battleship that was the pride of the Italian fleet. Cunningham targeted Vittorio Veneto and its escorts, coordinating an assault by the cruisers and by Formidable's aircraft. The planes scored several torpedo hits and also succeeded in stopping the Italian cruiser Pola. However, neither ship was sunk, and the outcome of the first engagement remained inconclusive.

On the next night, calculating that the Italians' fastest ships had been damaged or disabled, Cunningham decided to press a night attack with his own slower vessels. Radar returns indicated that Pola was severely damaged, so Cunningham concentrated on finding it. As he searched, his squadron encountered the Italian cruisers Zara and Fiume, escorted by two destroyers. These four vessels had been sent back to aid the stricken Pola, Italian Adm. Angelo Iachino having assumed that the principal British force had yet to leave Alexandria, Egypt. It was a fatal error, which Cunningham was quick to exploit. At Cape Matapan, he fell upon the two cruisers and their escorts, sinking them all, along with Pola. The only major ship to escape was Vittorio Veneto and her escort vessels.

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