Thread by @StarjammerSkies, With the commemoration recently of the Royal Navy's attack on the Italian [...]

With the commemoration recently of the Royal Navy's attack on the Italian harbour of Taranto in November 1940, I thought a thread drawing your attention to Adrian Warburton might be in order. Because he was, in the best possible sense, a lunatic. /1

He was the kind of genial lunatic that the British Empire threw up from time to time, usually when at war. He was, by all initial accounts, a sub-standard RAF pilot. Eventually, having exasperated the brass, he was transferred out to Malta where he couldn't get in the way. /2

In Malta he flew a Martin Maryland. It's a bomber. Each wing is bigger than a Spitfire. And when taking off and landing, Warburton proved himself a positive menace: the plane, apparently not fully under control, would stagger drunkenly down the runway. /3

But once in the air, something remarkable happened. Warburton could fly a Maryland with the same kind of aerobatic grace normally found in wandering seabirds.

Almost by accident, Warburton became an ace. Flying his bomber like a fighter, he kept shooting down Italian aircraft /4

That wasn't the point, though. Warburton was neither a bomber nor a fighter but a reconnaissance pilot. And flying from Malta, his targets were the Axis ships that threatened control of the Mediterranean. Put simply, unless they could be stopped, North Africa would fall. /5

The Royal Navy hatched a plan to sink the Italian fleet at anchor in Taranto Harbour using antiquated Swordfish torpedo bombers. But doing so required that the pilots knew *exactly* where each ship was moored.

Enter Warburton. /6

The problem was, the weather was awful. According to Warburton's navigator, Johnny Spires, the murk was so thick that a) the birds were walking, and b) the Maryland's cameras were no good.

At this point, Warburton had an idea. /7

Taking the aircraft into the harbour at 0 feet, they could write down the names of the ships as they flew past them, and mark off on the map where they found them.

Yes, you read that correctly. They would go in so low they would have to look *up* to see the names. /8

In they went. And, after the Italians had recovered from their surprise, the guns opened up on them.

This made things quite exciting. Not least because their Maryland had already been shot up on the airfield and had so many holes in it they nicknamed it "Whistler's Mother." /9

It made things *so* exciting that it proved very distracting. When they got clear, Warbuton's crew compared notes. Two of them had seen 5 battleships. The third had seen 6. This seemed, to Warburton, to be very unlikely, but accurate info was essential for the raid. /10

So he turned the plane around. /11

Re-entering Taranto, the Italians shot at them from the moment they appeared. Warburton had a solution to that too: they went even lower. Spires remembered the wingtips leaving furrows in the water when they turned. /12

But they solved the mystery of the 6th battleship: it was a cruiser they had misidentified. Job done, they turned for home - *nearly* unscathed... /13

Certainly the gunners never touched them. Their plane had no new holes in it. But Warburton had picked up a souvenir - in a low pass over an Italian warship, their Maryland had torn off the ship's radio aerial with its tailwheel, and had carried it back to Malta with them. /14

A few nights later, HMS Illustrious launched her Swordfish at Taranto. They disabled three battleships and damaged a heavy cruiser and a pair of destroyers. /15

Adrian Warburton was an extraordinary pilot. And he remains a figure who teaches a vital lesson: some people just need to find their niche. No matter how unprepossessing they seem, in the right place, at the right time, they may yet dazzle and startle the world. /end

Latest Threads Unrolled: