Dear Francesco,

I am well aware of your book: “La partecipazione tedesca alla guerra aeronavale nel Mediterraneo (1940-1945)” and to the readers of this forum: if you can manage to read some Italian I would recommend it warmly. It is one of the most interesting book of the war at sea in the Mediterranean and it is a pity it was not translated into English.
But how come you did not mention your version of the sinking of HMS URGE in this book?

The theory that HMS URGE went secretly to Ras Hilal to intercept a schooner which had so vital cargo that the submarine would risk travelling on the surface at top speed continuously. In fact at an average speed she never managed before in her career (and to my knowledge any other "U" class submarine). This at a time when Malta was being saturated with bombs. [By comparison: theoretically most Italian submarines were capable of a top speed of 16-17 knots on the surface. Please tell me if one ever managed this for 48 hours? In reality they usually travelled at 8-10 knots]. URGE was then sunk by an old fighter aircraft.

This makes good fiction but not History.

What are the basis of your facts? The claim by a single fighter pilot.
Nothing else.

You claims the absolute truth of the War Diaries of Comando Supremo, Supermarina and Superaeo. I do not doubt that these war diaries reflected the claims of the period but their accuracy can be questioned.
I do have a copy of the war diaries of Supermarina. Please tell me where they mentioned the supposed sinking of HMS URGE by this aircraft? Or the attack on SAN GIORGIO? They simply did not bother to record these claims. Yet these war diaries record many claims of sinking of British submarines which just never happened, So much for their accuracy...

To accept the claim by this fighter pilot as indisputable truth then one would have to accept many other claims that never materialized. The pilot even stated that he missed the submarine. So the bombs that missed so frightened the submariners that it brought the loss of their boat? I have a list of 255 attacks on submarines in the Mediterranean where I can prove there were no submarines in the area and the list is far from complete...

The so-called attack on SAN GIUSTO: this story appears to have originated by a telephone call from Comandante Dadone at Superareo to Tenente di vascello Barich at Supermarina. Dadone just stated that a submarine shelling an Axis convoy at Ras El Hilal was sighted and attacked by CR.52 (sic) fighters [this was actually a single CR 42 fighter]. Upon checking for the identity of the convoy Supermarina assumed that it was the Italian schooner SAN GIUSTO on passage from Navarino to Derna as she could have been in the area. However, there was no confirmation from this vessel that she had been attacked and she was not in convoy. The story was later re-adjusted that in fact it was the German MFP convoy that was attacked whereas the Germans did not confirm it [see my previous posting]. We can keep on spinning the story and at the end it appears as absolute truth!

You then state that HMS PROTEUS was not ordered to intercept SAN GIUSTO because URGE was closer to Ras Hilal. But this means that she was informed by the so-called invisible ULTRA message when she was already at least a day at sea and does not explain why she had been at full speed the day before. According to her orders HMS URGE was to pass through 34°55'N, 20°05'E at 0700B/30 April. This is 23 hours after the supposed "attack". Look at the map, she would have still been some 150 miles short of Ras Hilal. Nothing in the exchange of signals between Alexandria and Malta (or postwar analysis) mentions an order or a possibility that she went to Ras Hilal.

We then come to the claim that the wreck of HMS URGE was identified by sonar photographs. I have seen the photographs and I cannot tell if it a sailing boat or a submarine let alone HMS URGE. If so-called experts have identified with certainty that this is the wreck of HMS URGE then sonar photographs have capabilities that I am not aware of. It is easy to make claims when no one can refute them because the wreck lies in an area not likely to be examined by divers. The political situation in Libya does not seem to make this possible for some years to come. I think to make wild claims is disrespectful to the families of the victims.

Unfortunately I have little time to devote to more exchanges like these as I prepare for my trip. I look forward to continue this conversation when we meet in Rome.

Best wishes,

Platon