大象传媒

This was a night when (ELEVEN)enemy ships were
sunk by two British destroyer's in action the
night before the fall of Tripoli,the ships
H.M.S.Javelin and H.M.S.Kelvin'we had sailed
out of Malta harbour on our usual nightly patrol
and headed for the coast in search of enemy shipping and just after 10pm the first ship was
sighted and both destroyers open'ed fire and the
enemy was hit with Kelvins second and Javelins
first salvo she was badly damaged and headed for
the shore trying to beach herself but being
chased by Javelin she blew up in shallow water.
The next two ship's sighted were chased at over
thirty knots before being engaged and sunk' a
Merchant vessel of about 4'000 tons taken by
surprise was hit at over two mile's range and
later blown up with her Torpedo-boat escort by
the Javelin,while Kelvin engaged and destroyed a
third ship.
By this time the enemy convoy was scattered all
over the place and we were in the middle of them
unable to miss our targets'our guns swinging round and round on to different targets and the
cheering every time a new one was indicated could be heard all over the ship and in the brilliant moonlight night other ships could be
seen trying to escape Kelvin sighting one and
Javelin one which had been attacked previously
but had apparently escaped'that oversight was
made good.
It was now after midnight and we were beginning
to wonder whether targets or ammunition would run out first'the Kelvin sank another with one
salvo and then Javelin performed what was derscribed by the Sunday Dispatch as one of the
most spectacular close range sinkings of the war
in the Mediterranean,dashing across a Corvette's
bow we threw two depth charges one on each side
of her and blew her clean out of the water,and
finally two more small ships were sunk leaving
just one ship to escape believed to be a destroyer.
The action started just after 10pm and was broken off about 1,30am when it was getting too
late for the Destroyers to engage any more ships
if we had met any and as the ammunition supply
was very low we would not have been able to defend the ship if we were to meet any enemy war
ships,both ships were officially congratulated
on an excellent nights work.

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