Philip: Night all hell broke loose as I trained spotlight on enemy cruisers
PRINCE Philip has spoken publicly for the first time of his part in a Second World War naval battle where ‘all hell broke loose’.
He described his vital role in the Battle of Cape Matapan where Royal Navy warships destroyed Italian cruisers off the Greek coast in 1941.
Aged just 19, he was in charge of picking out enemy ships in the darkness using the spotlight aboard HMS Valiant.
Details of the action, which saw him awarded a military honour, feature in a series of books on the Second World War’s great naval battles.
In the foreword to Dark Seas: The Battle of Cape Matapan, the Duke of Edinburgh describes the battle, in which three British battleships – Warspite, Barham and Valiant – used the cover of darkness to creep up upon the enemy.
Three Italian cruisers and two destroyers were sunk during the subsequent fighting at the cost of just one British aeroplane.
Prince Philip writes: ‘I seem to remember that I reported I had a target in sight, and was ordered to “open shutter”. The beam lit up a
‘Disappeared in an explosion’
stationary cruiser, but we were so close by then that the beam only lit up half the ship.
‘At this point all hell broke loose, as all our eight 15-inch guns, plus those of the flagship and Barham’s started firing at the stationary cruiser, which disappeared in an explosion and a cloud of smoke.
‘I was then ordered to “train left” and lit up another Italian cruiser, which was given the same treatment.
‘The next morning the battle fleet returned to the scene of the battle, while attempts were made to pick up survivors. This was rudely interrupted by an attack by German bombers.
‘The return to Alexandria was uneventful, and the peace and quiet was much appreciated.’
However, he added playfully: ‘All these events took place 70 years ago, and, as most elderly people have discovered, memories tend to fade’, and that witness accounts needed to be treated as ‘faction’ - a blend of fact and fiction.
The Duke was Mentioned in Despatches for his courage by the fleet’s Commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. He was later awarded the Greek War Cross of Valour.
The Duke, now 90, joined the Royal Navy as a 17-year-old cadet in the spring of 1939 as the pro-sexploitation pect of war with Germany loomed. Two years later he was a midshipman serving on HMS Valiant – a rank he described as the ‘lowest form of life in the Navy’.
At 21 he became one of the youngest officers to be made first lieutenant and second-in- command of a ship.
During the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, as second in command of HMS Wallace, he saved his ship from a night bomber attack by launching a raft with smoke floats. These distracted the bombers, allowing the ship to slip away unnoticed.
After the war Prince Philip was promoted to lieutenant- commander and was given command of frigate HMS Magpie, where he was nicknamed ‘Dukey’ by his men.
By then he had married the then Princess Elizabeth. His Navy career came to an end a few years later when George VI died in 1952 and his wife became Queen. The Britannia Naval Histories of World War II series, published by the University of Plymouth Press, has been compiled from wartime and post-war battle accounts in the archives at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth.
The first four books will be launched tomorrow at the London Book Fair and will go on sale later this month.