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The Battle of Cape Matapan ((ギリシア語:Ναυμαχία του Ταίναρου)) was a Second World War naval engagement fought from 27–29 March 1941. The cape is on the southwest coast of Greece's Peloponnesian peninsula. Acting on intercepted signals broken by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, a force of British Royal Navy ships accompanied by several Royal Australian Navy vessels, under the command of British Admiral Andrew Cunningham, intercepted and sank or severely damaged several ships of the Italian ''Regia Marina'' under Squadron-Vice-Admiral Angelo Iachino. The opening actions of the battle are also known in Italy as the Battle of Gaudo. ==Background== In late March 1941, as British ships of the Mediterranean Fleet covered troop movements to Greece, Mavis Batey, a cryptographer at Bletchley Park, made a breakthrough, reading the Italian naval Enigma for the first time. The first message, the cryptic "Today’s the day minus three," was followed three days later by a second message reporting the sailing of an Italian battle fleet comprising one battleship, six heavy and two light cruisers, plus destroyers to attack the convoys. As always with Enigma, the intelligence breakthrough was concealed from the Italians by ensuring there was a plausible reason for the Allies to have detected and intercepted their fleet. In this case, it was a carefully directed reconnaissance plane.〔See the report in the official Admiralty publication of 1943, ''East of Malta, West of Suez:'' The Admiralty Account of the Naval War in the Mediterranean (London, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1943), where the detection of the Italian force is credited to "one of ''Formidable's'' aircraft on reconnaissance." (P. 56)〕 As a further deception, Admiral Cunningham made a surreptitious exit after dark from a golf club in Alexandria to avoid being seen going on board his flagship, the battleship . He had made a point of arriving at the club the same afternoon, with his suitcase prominently paraded as if for an overnight stay and spent time on the golf course within sight of the Japanese consul.〔 An evening party on his flagship was advertised for that night but was never meant to take place. At the same time, there was a failure of intelligence on the Axis side. The Italians had been wrongly informed that the Mediterranean Fleet had only one operational battleship and no aircraft carrier but there were three battleships and a damaged British aircraft carrier (HMS ''Illustrious'') had been replaced by HMS ''Formidable''.〔Admiralty: ''East of Malta, West of Suez'' (London, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1943) P. 55〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Cape Matapan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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