A harbour-strike doctrine built before Taranto

Royal Navy planning for an air attack on Wilhelmshaven preceded the end of the First World War. In the next war, however, the RAF claimed responsibility for bombing the harbour and the German fleet had largely moved to safer bases before those attacks arrived. The older naval logic was that even limited torpedo damage could force a fleet through the Kiel Canal or provoke it into a battle the Royal Navy wanted. Either result would ease pressure on the Belgian coast and weaken Wilhelmshaven as a sanctuary. Taranto therefore belongs to a long institutional effort to use naval aircraft against fleets protected by their own harbours.