First Battle of Sirte

First Battle of Sirte
Part of the Battle of the Mediterranean of World War II
Italian battleship Andrea Doria
Date 17 December 1941 Location Gulf of Sidra, Mediterranean Sea Result Inconclusive
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Australia  Netherlands	Italy
Commanders and leaders
Sir Andrew Cunningham	Angelo Iachino
Strength
5 light cruisers 14 destroyers	4 battleships 2 heavy cruisers 3 light cruisers 13 destroyers
Casualties and losses
2 destroyers lightly damaged 1 killed	None

The First Battle of Sirte was fought between the British Royal Navy and the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) during the Mediterranean campaign of the Second World War. The engagement, largely uneventful, took place on 17 December 1941, southeast of Malta, in the Gulf of Sirte.

In the following days, however, two Royal Navy's task forces based at Malta were decimated after running into an Italian minefield off Tripoli, and two British battleships were disabled by Italian manned torpedoes at Alexandria. By the end of December, the balance of naval power in the Mediterranean had shifted in favour of the Italian Fleet.

The British 8th Army and the Axis armies were engaged in battles resulting from Operation Crusader, which had been fought between 18 November and 4 December. Its aim was to defeat the Afrika Korps and relieve the siege of Tobruk. This had been achieved, and Axis forces were conducting a fighting retreat; by 13 December, they were holding a defensive line at Gazala, east of Benghazi.

The Axis were desperate to re-supply their forces, intending to transport stores to Tripoli, their main port in Libya, and Benghazi, the port closest to the front line.

Meanwhile, the island garrison of Malta was under siege, and the British were keen to run-in stores to resupply their forces there.

The Italians were preparing to send a major convoy of eight ships, designated M41, to Africa on 13 December 1941. That morning, their previous re-supply attempt, two fast cruisers carrying fuel to Tripoli, had failed when both ships were sunk at the Battle of Cape Bon by a force of destroyers en route to Alexandria.

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Wikipedia