Conte Di Cavour - Blog Posts

The Italian battleships Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare at Napoli, 1938. On 9 July 1940 these two battleships and their escorts met with a small British fleet under the command of Admiral Cunningham. The ensuing engagement became known as the Battle of Calabria.

Initially the Italian heavy cruisers outgunned their lighter British opponents, who fell back. Cunningham in HMS Warspite, seeing his cruisers under pressure, opted to leave behind the flagging battleships Royal Sovereign and Malaya and move on the Italians alone. Though technically outnumbered, Warspite was the superior ship - and being Warspite she delivered. Opening up at long range, a 15″ shell smashed into Giulio Cesare after a near 15 mile flight (24 km). With one record setting shell fired from a range of 26,000 yards, the battle was over. The Italian fleet turned and made for Messina and under threat of land based air attack the British too went home.