Battle of the Duisburg Convoy 1941
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Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 9 November 1941 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1941 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War II era (1939–1945) | derived from year |
| Nearest landmass | At sea (nearest continent: Europe) | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Battle of the Mediterranean | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 37.1333, 18.1500 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of the Duisburg Convoy (Battle of the BETA Convoy) was fought on the night of 8/9 November 1941 between an Italian convoy, its escorts and four British ships. The convoy was named BETA (Duisburg refers to the largest ship) by the Italian naval authorities and carried supplies for the Italian Army (Regio Esercito) civilian colonists and the Afrika Korps in Italian Libya.
Force K of the Royal Navy, based at Malta, was sent to attack the convoy based on information gleaned from decrypts of Axis signals coded on the Enigma machine, covered by the fortuitous flight of a reconnaissance aircraft. The convoy was annihilated and the destroyer Fulmine was sunk, with no loss and almost no damage to Force K. The Maestrale-class destroyer Libeccio was sunk next day by the British submarine HMS Upholder, while picking up survivors.
The Italians were severely criticised by the German naval attaché and pressured to accept liaison officers at Supermarina (headquarters of the Regia Marina) and on its ships. Italian attempts to reduce the risk of interception by British forces, by sending individual ships, pairs and smaller convoys from several ports at once was futile, because the British were reading Italian naval codes; the next convoy was forced to return to port.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Duisburg Convoy (revision 1370599293), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Battle of the Mediterranean
- Action in the Strait of Otranto 1940
- Action off Cape Passero 1940
- Battle of Cape Spada 1940
- Battle of the Espero Convoy 1940
- Battle of Cape Bon (1941) 1941
- Battle of Cape Matapan 1941
- Battle of the Tarigo Convoy 1941
- First Battle of Sirte 1941
- Battle of Skerki Bank 1942
- Operation Harpoon (1942) 1942
All 19 battles of the Battle of the Mediterranean →
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