The Italians were severely criticised by the German naval attaché and pressured to accept liaison officers at Supermarina (headquarters of the Regia Marina) and on its ships.

The declaration of war by Italy on 10 June 1940 placed the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) astride the traditional British sea route to Indian Ocean ports through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal in Egypt.

[3] The normal wartime route for Italian supply deliveries to Libya went about 600 mi (970 km) westwards around Sicily and then hugged the coast from Tunisia eastwards to Tripoli, to evade British aircraft, ships and submarines from Malta.

Adolf Hitler responded to the Italian disaster in Egypt with Directive 22 (11 January 1941) ordering Unternehmen Sonnenblume (Operation Sunflower), the deployment of a new Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) to Libya, as a barrier detachment (Sperrverband).

[8] In October 1941 the British re-established Force K, a flotilla of surface ships at Malta for the first time since April, plus a detachment of Swordfish torpedo bombers.

Italian air reconnaissance discovered the ships on 21 October and cancelled sailings for Tripoli, leaving only the inferior facilities at Benghazi to receive convoys.

The convoy was routed to the east of Malta, since the airfields in Libya were under Axis occupation, rather than the usual west and along the Tunisian coast.

[11] Force K (Captain William Agnew) consisted of the light cruisers HMS Aurora and Penelope with six 6-inch guns in twin turrets each and two treble 21-inch torpedo tubes.

[9] Alerted by decrypts Axis of Enigma machine messages, a Maryland reconnaissance bomber of 69 Squadron found the Duisberg Convoy during the afternoon of 8 November.

Penelope engaged Maestrale, the leader of the close escort (scorta diretta) and was on target with the first salvoes and Lively began to shell the merchant ships three minutes afterwards.

[15] Fulmine attacked but was soon severely damaged by British gunfire, Milano losing an arm but remaining in command until the ship sank.

Maestrale had been signalling for Italian ships to rally on the port (far) side of the convoy, leading to Cigala countermanding an order to launch torpedoes.

At 1:13 a.m. Brivonesi signalled to Supermarina that torpedo bombers were attacking and then sailed for the point where the British ships had first been sighted, instead of their current position.

The close escort on the east side of the convoy moved off with Maestrale and Euro to rally and then attacked again, the Italian salvoes having no effect and the ships then being driven off.

Some shells had landed close to British ships as they finished off the convoy but caused only splinter damage to Lively's funnel; by 1:40 a.m. firing has ceased.

Soon afterwards, a flashing light was seen to the north, which was investigated in case it was more Italian ships but it turned out to be the submarine HMS Upholder, signalling a challenge.

[19] In 1948, Marc'Antonio Bragadin wrote that the battle was a serious Italian defeat, in which individuals had shown exemplary bravery but the escorts had lacked coordination.

[20] Writing in 1957, the British official historian of the Royal Navy, Stephen Roskill, wrote that morale in the Regia Marina suffered greatly after such a formidable escort had failed to prevent the disaster.

Italian ships had no night fighting equipment like low-light-level rangefinders and torpedo boats (escort destroyers in British parlance) could not engage targets further out than 10,000 yd (5.7 mi; 9.1 km).