Tovey signaled Captain Bridge aboard the Eagle and told him to prepare to launch everything he had. When he finally heard the high mast call out enemy ship sighted, he was eager for action. All thoughts of time travel and altered history were gone for the moment. He would make some new history here in the anger from the nine 16-inch guns of Invincible.
He had been late to the party when Admiral Holland got himself into trouble up north, and he had been unable to find and chase down the Hindenburg when it fled south after that dastardly attack on the Faeroes. He did manage to sight the German task force, but wisdom had advised him to wait for King George V and Prince of Wales, but they were too slow to catch up to the action.
This time things would be different. He looked over his shoulder, almost expecting to see the young officer he had taken under his wing there with eager excitement in his eyes, Christopher Wells. But the man was long gone, now serving as the Captain of the carrier Glorious with Somerville’s Force H.
Never mind. Now it was time to fight. He opened the action at long range, more to announce his coming than anything else when he finally found the Italian Fleet. Iachino immediately answered with the guns from Veneto and Roma, his two best ships. Tovey got lucky with the first hit, adding insult to the injury Iachino’s fleet had already sustained. A 16-inch round struck the Andrea Doria forward, very near the main turret there, the blast canting one of the three 12-inch guns upward with the violence of that explosion. The shell penetrated deep, setting off the forward magazine, and Iachino’s fate was sealed.
He stared, wide eyed at the massive explosion on Andrea Doria, cursing under his breath. Damn the British! Damn them to the deepest hell, because that is where they are sending my ships, and the only place I am ever likely to get my revenge!
He stayed in the fight. His honor demanded it, though all the while he fretted that the enemy would unleash another barrage of those rocket weapons upon him. None came. Roma acquitted herself well, framing the British battleship with good, accurate fire, but getting no hits. Thinking his battleships finally had the range, and knowing he still outgunned the British with Veneto and Roma, Iachino took heart, until his lookouts reported a large formation coming up from the southeast. Cunningham’s fleet had arrived, and the distant flash from the dark shadows on the horizon told Iachino the enemy was firing.
Then the last straw came when flights of British torpedo planes came buzzing in off the Eagle and Hermes. The skies were soon filled with hot fire and smoke, even as he felt his ship roll heavily from a near miss of a heavy round. He gave his destroyers the order to make smoke, and reluctantly turned. Only his speed could save him now. Andrea Doria was lost. The British gunners would make short work of her, but his two fast battleships might yet escape.
The next minutes were a wild gauntlet of attacking Swordfish torpedo bombers trying to cut off his retreat, vectoring from every side and forcing him to make hard turns to avoid the torpedoes. The adrenaline of the moment chased the bile of defeat from his throat, but he knew he was as badly beaten as any Admiral at sea. Only one British battleship had the speed to stay with his retreating covering force, and Iachino was in a hot gun duel with Invincible for the next twenty minutes. The British ships unique gun turret placement allowed all three to fire if Tovey simply made ten point turns. His central turret, forward of the two vertical stacks, could then easily engage any target he was pursuing. So as Invincible approached, the ship seemed to be tacking this way and that, like an old sailing ship. even though he was outnumbered two battleships to one, he was able to use nine main guns against only six from the rear turrets of the fleeing enemy. He would score two more hits, neither enough to slow Iachino down. Then his radar operator picked up the main Italian fleet, and this was reinforced by a message from Kirov, giving him the position and size of the formation he was now approaching.
Good enough, thought Tovey. We’ve given them one hell of a beating, haven’t we? His destroyers were out dueling with the Italian destroyer screen, and his cruisers were following in his wake, but now he could see they were up against a large number of Italian ships, too many to wisely engage with his much smaller task force. So he decided to break off, turn about, and rejoin Admiral Cunningham. When he returned to the scene, he could see that Queen Elizabeth had taken at least one good hit, with a small fire amidships, but the British had beaten the Andrea Doria to a pulp. Cunningham had already given the order to cease fire, humanely, and he had ordered several of his escorting destroyers to rescue the Italian crew gone into the sea.
