HMS Kingston (F64) - Air Raids and Loss

Air Raids and Loss

Whilst in dock at Malta repairing damage from this encounter, Kingston was attacked by German aircraft and on 5 April was further damaged by a near miss. On 8 April she was hit by a bomb, forward. This penetrated the decks and passed out of the ships bottom without exploding. But now the destroyer needed to go into dock for underwater repairs. On 9 April she was placed in No. 4 dock, but remained afloat. By 11 April she was still afloat in the dock. - perhaps plates bent outwards by the passage of the bomb through the bottom made it impossible to dock-down and these plates were being burnt away by divers. At about 17.30 on 11 April 1942 she was hit on the port side amidships in the area of the bulkhead between the engine-room and the gearing-room. She rolled over on her port side and sank in the dock. The ship was declared a constructive total loss. On 21 January 1943 the No. 4 dock was dried-out. The damaged midships part of the destroyer was scrapped, thus separating the destroyer in two sections. Dummy bulkheads were fitted to make the two sections floatable while an amount of the superstructure was burnt away. The two sections of the Kingston were floated out of the dock on 5 April 1943 and in June were scuttled as a blockship between the Selmun headland and Selmunett Island (St Paul's Island) in northern Malta in the preparations for making a safe anchorage before the invasion of Sicily. In the early 1950s the two sections of the Kingston were scrapped, where sunk, by Italian shipbreakers.

On 4 April 1942 a bomb fell directly at the entrance of the Corradino tunnel. Among those killed by the blast were three officers from Kingston Commander Peter (or Philip) Somerville DSO., Lieutenant P. Hague and Sub-Lieutenant J. Carter, as well as five other sailors from the destroyer. Commander Somerville is buried at the Mtarfa Military Cemetery.