Battle of Grand Harbour

Battle of Grand Harbour
	Part of the Battle of the Mediterranean of the Second World War
	; Site of the battle - Fort St Elmo with the new bridge at the forefront, replaced in 2012
Date	26 July 1941
Location	Grand Harbour, Crown Colony of Malta35°54′07″N 14°31′08″E
Result	British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Italy
Commanders and leaders
Henry Ferro	Vittorio Moccagatta †; Teseo Tesei †
Strength
Coastal fortifications; 30 fighters	1 aviso; 2 torpedo boats; 9 explosive boats; 2 manned torpedoes; 2 support boats; 10 fighter planes
Casualties and losses
1 fighter destroyed	10 boats destroyed; 2 boats captured; 1 manned torpedo lost; 1 manned torpedo captured; 3 fighters destroyed; 17 killed; 18 captured

The Battle of Grand Harbour, also known as Operazione MALTA-2, was an Italian raid against Allied shipping in the harbour of Valletta, Malta on the night of 25/26 July 1941 during the Second World War. Italian Regia Marina (RM) commando frogmen from the Decima Flottiglia MAS (X-MAS) attempted to penetrate the harbour to attack British shipping. The attackers destroyed the St Elmo Bridge trying to enter the harbour before being driven off by fire from coastal defences. The Italians suffered many casualties; the X-MAS group was killed or captured.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.