Talk:Battle of the Espero Convoy

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Frank Joseph

Joseph is a pen name of Frank Collin, a neo-Nazi author of pseudoscience. For more information, see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Are_books_by_an_ex-Nazi_writer_of_fringe_books_on_Atlantis.2C_etc_RS_for_military_history.3F. Parsecboy (talk) 17:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Re recent removals

@DagosNavy: I think your cuts were rather harsh, particularly because the British naval movements were coincidental and their context is necessary to explain why they were where they were. Since the Zeffiro was in subsequent operations, it's hardly irrelevant to the header. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:09, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

What I had in mind was for Subsequent operations to become part of the Background section of the next convoy article to combine the discrete aspects of each article with the context, especially these opening moves. I was hoping that people with Italian sources could add more to the destroyers' voyages than was already there and what I'd gleaned but I can see that if the title is assumed to be about the destroyer convoy, rather than the battle, the context might seem a bit overpowering. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 16:35, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

@Keith-264: Hi Keith-264, hope you're doing well now and my apologies for my long overdue reply. The subject of the article is clearly the battle between the Italian destroyer flotilla and the five allied cruisers on 28 June; no cited source (English or Italian) mentions a three-day battle, as the current page revision seems to suggest. Thus I think we should remove the British destroyers' actions at least from the battle timeline; off-topic pics also take a lot of valuable space. Keep in mind that neither the British destroyers nor the Italian submarines played any role in the convoy operations. Darius (talk) 22:21, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello again, I don't agree, the context makes the other things important since both sides were still adapting to wartime conditions. What would really improve the article is more detail on the Italian operations. I have hopes that O'Hara might help since he goes into Italian minutiae but I don't have a copy yet. This [1] might help but it's in Italian and I can't copy sections to use an online translator. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

A copy of O'Hara's Middle Sea just dropped into my lap so I'm hoping it will help me fill out the Italian side of the story.Keith-264 (talk) 20:36, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Adding equivalent narrative of Italian naval operations from Bragadin to balance the British contextual passages. Does anyone have a definitive account of what the Espero convoy carried, O'Hara has anti-aircraft guns and other sources anti-tank guns. Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 10:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Added more material for background.Keith-264 (talk) 18:59, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Busy as usual both in day-after-day life and here. Thanks for your research. I have some reservations on both authors (Mattesini and O'Hara) as they use to overread primary sources. This makes them useful for specific issues (such as the sinking of HMS Upholder in the case of Mattesini or some little known facts from Operation Harpoon), but pretty inaccurate when the subject of interest is the big picture. The best example is O´Hara's mention of AAA artillery; too much focus on previously unknown documents put them on collision course with mainstream authors. An established author like Marc´Antonio Bragadin, himself a naval officer within Supermarina, is another matter, since he was analysing the situation in the Mediterranean since the very days of WWII.

Going back to our main point, both O´Hara and Matessini clearly circumscribe the Espero action to the surface engagement of three Italian destroyers with five Allied cruisers on 28 June 1940; the mentions to the British convoys and the sinking of Italian submarines are part of the convoy background, not of the battle itself, as this article wrongly suggests in its current revision. Therefore I insist that we should move some text (specially sections "27 June" and "29 June") to other parts of the page to get a "clean" description of the naval battle in order to not mislead the reader with miscellaneous info.--Darius (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Insist bigod, I challenge you to a duel, conkers at dawn. I don't necessarily want to keep all the circumstantial material in this article since the background and prelude are about the beginning of hostilities but then the convoy was a consequence of them. If you take a dim view of O'Hara and Mattesini it seems odd to base an opinion on them. Where would you put the errant days? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:43, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Apropos Mattesini and O'Hara, their descriptions of events are what matter given that they delve deeper into the detail than many other writers. I'm not much troubled by their explanations since it's a simple matter to describe them in the context of the other authors. regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:33, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree to the duel, Sir, but you should wait till I find a conkers' instructor! ;). In spite of my reservations on Mattesini and O´Hara (who are perceived by some people as revisionists), I think they are valuable sources not just for the subject of this page, but also for any other period of the battle of the Mediterranean. I was glancing through Matessini's work last Sunday and it is definively the most thorough description of this battle I ever read. It is however too much detailed for a Wikipedia's article, though some specific points may be worthy to be included.--Darius (talk) 02:32, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that O'Hara has been received a bit like Terence Zuber, a welcome addition of detail but not necessarily sound on explanation. Mattesini's work needs translating so I'd take some detail, if I could to, balance the plenteous information about the British; I'll see how it goes. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 04:24, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Recent change

Does moving the days before and after out of the battle section help? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:36, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely, the article looks much more better now, since it concurs with the majority of sources that the surface battle of 28 June had nothing to do with any antisubmarine sweep carried out by British destroyers on those days. Thank you mate, and Best Regards.--Darius (talk) 02:38, 17 July 2018 (UTC)