After the fall of French North Africa, our Carrier Fleet was sent out on another exercise to take a look around
Italian North Africa, using the powerful radars on our Sevastopol-Class Destroyers, and our Carrier-based aeroplanes to gather as much information as possible along the way. The following map was produced:
The main goal of the exercise was to spot
Italian troops moving East along the Mediterranean Coast, and quite a few units were spotted doing just that, while others were spotted running away from the
British.
As you can see, our ships encountered several Allied Fleets in the Mediterranean, but no
Italian ships were encountered at sea. On the 2nd of November, South of the Baleares, as I. Avianosets Flote was turning around, it encountered a Carrier Fleet not unlike our own. The lead ship was HMS Courageous, and the Carrier was escorted by 4 Flotilla's of 6 Destroyers, most of them of the very modern Daring Class. This Fleet, lead by Rear-Admiral
Backhouse, was moving to the east, following a couple of Miles behind our Fleet.
Later on, another
Britsh Carrier Fleet was encountered, this one was more powerful than ours, with HMS Furious, HMS Hermes, and the brand new HMS Ark Royal, it was escorted by 2 Light Cruisers, HMS Neptune, and HMS Despatch, as well as some more Daring-Class Destroyers. This Fleet, lead by Vice-Admiral
Hope-Carlill was moving west, towards the Atlantic. One of our Aeroplanes also spotted a couple of Triton-Class submarines that were hiding and resupplying amongst the larger ships.
Left, top to bottom: HMS Ark Royal, HMS Furious, HMS Hermes, a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Torpedo Bomber in the Mediterranean, literally.
Right, top to bottom: HMS Neptune, HMS Despatch, HMS Daring, HMS Triton.
Then in the evening, as our sailors could see Sardinia on the horizon, our fleet found itself in the thick of the action, as Rear-Admiral
Backhouse's Fleet was spotted behind them,
Italian Naval Bombers were spotted coming from Sardinia ahead of them. In no time, all of our Aeroplanes were grounded as
British Sea Hurricanes and Sea Gladiators engaged SM-79 three-engined Torpedo-Bombers overhead. Large Soviet Flags were rolled out on the decks of our Carriers to make sure the
Italians didn't fire a torpedo at the wrong target. In the end, it seems only a single
British Destroyer was sunk, and many
Italian aeroplanes were shot down. One of them crashed dangerously close to one of our Destroyers.
On the 3rd of November, another interesting encounter happened, our ships made contact with what was essentially a ghost fleet. At least 50 Yugoslav troop transport ships, in various states of disrepair lay at anchor in the East Ionian Sea, off the Western Coast of
Greece. Only a skeleton crew was present, and a short conversation with a certain Rear Admiral
Simovic, gave us more details. It seems that the fleet had been underway when
Yugoslavia lost it's last port,
Dubrovnik. Without enough Fuel to reach a friendly port, the crews abandoned ship and were picked up by the
Royal Navy a bit later. Only the Rear Admiral and his second in command remained on board with food and water rations that could last them several years. The last bit of sovereign
Yugoslavia is a bunch of empty and rusting transport ships... still proudly flying the
Yugoslav flag.
The Yugoslav Navy, in all of it's abandoned glory....
After this interesting find, it was discovered that 2
Italian Battleships lay at anchor in
Kalamai, in Southern
Greece.
That concludes the information that was gained from the most recent naval exercise in the Mediterranean,
Greetings,
'Odin'