First Edition, pp. 144 illusts maps (NO dustjacket) #1219

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, south-east of Malta, in the Gulf of Sirte.

The Second Battle of Sirte was a naval engagement on 22 March 1942 in which the escorting warships of a British convoy to Malta frustrated a much more powerful Regia Marina (Italian Navy) squadron. The British convoy was composed of four merchant ships escorted by four light cruisers, one anti-aircraft cruiser, and 17 destroyers. The Italian force comprised a battleship, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and ten destroyers. Despite the initial British success at warding off the Italian squadron, the battle delayed the convoy’s planned arrival before dawn, which exposed it to intense air attacks that sank all four merchant ships and one of the escorting destroyers in the following days. The battle occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Gulf of Sidra and southeast of Malta, during the Second World War.