32. Before Pearl Harbor, There Was Taranto
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was not the first time in history – nor even the first time in WWII – that a fleet at anchor was devastated by a surprise attack from carrier-launched airplanes. A year earlier, on the night of November 11-12, 1940, the British Royal Navy launched 21 obsolescent Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious against the Italian fleet anchored at Taranto. It was history’s first naval engagement that relied upon carrier aircraft to attack heavily defended warships and was a defining moment of the Royal Navy’s Fleet air arm.
Plans for attacking the Italian fleet in Taranto, which was well-positioned to sortie out and interdict British lines across the Mediterranean, had been mulled by the Royal Navy for years before the outbreak of WWII. The most promising plan, codenamed Operation Judgment, called for an attack by torpedo bombers launched from an aircraft carrier.