The Abyssinia Crisis provides the first surviving open documentation of a Royal Navy plan for attacking Taranto. The speed and detail of the resulting reports suggest that carrier officers, senior non-commissioned personnel, and staffs were drawing on knowledge accumulated earlier. Formal documents therefore reveal when a plan became politically and institutionally visible, which may be later than the origin of its underlying concept. The date on surviving paperwork should not automatically be treated as the date an operational idea was invented.
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The Abyssinia Crisis reveals a mature Taranto plan
The first openly traceable Taranto papers appear during the Abyssinia Crisis, but their speed and detail imply substantial earlier preparation.