Navies in exile and Malta (3)
National War Museum curator Charles Debono writes about warships from European countries occupied by Germany during the early years of World War II, which operated from Malta or were connected with the island.
On December 11, 1941, as a unit of the 4th destroyer flotilla, commanded by Captain Stokes, HNLMS Isaac Sweers departed Gibraltar en route to Alexandria, with a refuelling stop at Malta. She was accompanied by the destroyers HMS Sikh, flagship of Captain Stokes who was in command of the flotilla, HMS Legion and HMS Maori.
At nightfall on the 12th, a Wellington reconnaissance bomber reported two Italian light-cruisers approaching from Cape Bon from the north. These were the Alberico da Barbiano and the Alberto di Giussano, which were transporting petrol, stores and foodstuffs from Italy to Tripoli; they were accompanied by the torpedoboat Cigno. The four destroyers attacked the Italian warships south-south-east of Cape Bon during a short encounter that lasted from 3.15am to 3.26am on December 13.
Both Italian cruisers were sunk but the Cigno made good her escape, though she exchanged a few shots with the Isaac Sweers when she turned back to the scene shortly after the end of the battle. The four destroyers arrived in Malta on December 13. On the 16th, the destroyer departed Malta and, on the 17th, she joined the cruisers of the Mediterranean fleet, which were escorting the store-ship Breconshire towards Malta. After participating in the First Battle of Sirte later on the 17th, the Isaac Sweers proceeded to Alexandria with the cruisers.
Another Dutch naval that had a connection with Malta was the submarine HNLMS Dolfijn, which was based in Malta from March 14 to May 5, 1944. This was a ‘U’ class submarine which was initially the British HMS P47. She was loaned to the Royal Dutch Navy in mid-1942 while still under construction and was commissioned as the Dutch Dolfijn on September 25, 1942, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Henri Max Louis Frederic Emile Van Oostrom Soede, who remained in command of the submarine until July 25,1944.
Another country overrun by the Germans was Greece, which was invaded on April 7, 1941. When the British army began
evacuating Greece, a number of naval units of the Royal Greek Navy escaped to Alexandria, from where they operated alongside the Royal Navy.
One of the units that escaped from Greece was the submarine RHS Glavkos, which came to Malta on November 20, 1941, for a docking and extensive repair. During the Luftwaffe offensive against Malta during the first five months of 1942, a large number of warships were sunk. One of these was the Glavkos, which was sunk at Hamilton Wharf, HM Dockyard, on April 4, 1942.
The RHS Triton was another Greek submarine that escaped to Alexandria when Greece fell in German hands and, under the command of Lieutenant Commander E. Kontoyiannis, she operated with the Royal Navy. On May 10, 1942, she arrived in Malta on a supply trip from Alexandria − these supply trips went under the name of ‘Magic Carpet’. She unloaded her cargo at Marsaxlokk harbour, where she remained submerged during the day and surfaced to unload her cargo at night. She went back to Alexandria two days later. She arrived
again on another supply trip on June 14 and sailed back to Alexandria on the 16.
The Royal Navy loaned many other warships to the Greek navy. These included the Hunt Type 3 destroyer-escorts RHS Adrias, RHS Kanaris, RHS Miaoulis and RHS Pindos based at Malta. Between December 1942 and July 1943, they helped to escort the many eastern Mediterranean convoys. They also participated in the invasion of Sicily of July 10, 1943.
On April 5, 1944, the British ‘E’ class destroyer HMS Echo at Malta was transferred to Greece. She and RHS Navarinon departed for Alexandria on April 25, but was back in Malta in mid-August 1944 during the preparations for the invasion of south-east France. She participated in the invasion as a unit of the aircraft-carrier TaskForce 88.1.
Between March and October 22, 1944, there was a Greek submarine force based at Malta; this force comprised the submarines RHS Matrozos, RHS Nereus, RHS Papanicolis and RHS Pipinos, led by the Matrozos was depot-ship Corinthia. It originally included the Italian submarine Perla, which was captured off Beirut by the British corvette Hyacinth on July 9, 1942. This submarine served for a time as the British HMS P712 but was transferred to Greece in January 1943.
The Pipinos was the former British Veldt, which was transferred to Greece on November 1, 1943. The other two submarines had escaped from Greece in May 1941. These Greek submarines had operated out of Beirut during the previous years but were then stationed at Malta in March 1944 because the war had moved away from Beirut.
Due to political differences between Greek forces in exile (monarchists against republicans), there was almost a civil war between Greek forces in Egypt during April 1944, followed by a mutiny in the Greek navy which was finally quelled on April 22, 1944. This had an effect on Malta because, in midafternoon of April 19, two Greek warships moored at Sliema Creek turned their guns on each other!
One of these was the recently transferred destroyer Navarinon and the other was the destroyer-escort RHS Themistokles. Vice Admiral (Malta) Hamilton spent a very hectic hour exchanging visits between the two warships until he restored peace between the Greeks. Thereupon, the Themistokles sailed to Grand Harbour to refuel and, next morning, departed to Alexandria.
This escort-destroyer had originally been the British HMS Bramham, transferred to Greece on July 10, 1943. This warship had a previous connection with Malta because, as the British HMS Bramham, she was one of the two warships that towed the tanker Ohio to Malta in mid-August 1942.
Yugoslavia was also invaded and overrun by the Germans in April 1941. A large number of warships of the royal Yugoslavian navy were seized by Italy. After the Italian Armistice of September 8, 1943, the southern part of Italy soon fell into Allied hands. Some of the former Yugoslavian warships were in this liberated part of Italy, so the Italians brought them to Malta and, on December 7, 1943, the Italian navy handed back these warships to Yugoslavia. This was done in Grand Harbour and the warships remained at Malta during the rest of the war. They used the hulk of the sunken tanker SS Ohio as an accommodation and base ship − the hull of the tanker was sunk but all the superstructure was above water level.
These Yugoslav warships were the minelayer KM Orao, the minesweepers KM Meljine and KM Mljet, the armed-yacht KM Beli Orao, the tanker Sitnika and six motor-launches. There was also the small, old, passenger-ship Kumanovo which was used as a ferry between Malta and Sicily until she foundered near Catania shortly before dawn of December 28, 1944.
An addition was the corvette Mallow, which was transferred to the Yugoslavs at Malta dockyard on January 11, 1944 and renamed Nada; she remained at Malta to work up until May 5, 1944.
At this time, the internal situation in Yugoslavia was chaotic, with various political factions fighting against the German occupation troops and, more than occasionally, fighting each other. The two principal forces that were fighting the Germans were the Chetniks and the Communist Partisans of Josip Bros Tito. Up to 1944, the Yugoslav warships at Malta pertained to the royal Yugoslavian navy but, late in the summer of 1944, the warships changed their allegiance to Tito’s partisans. Quite a number of their officers abandoned the ships and many settled in Malta.
Except for the well-publicised story of the Polish submarine Sokol, few Maltese are aware of the contribution to Malta’s war that was made by other warships of the exiled navies. The crews of these warships were very enthusiastic participants in the fighting because their homeland was under German occupation, so they were most keen to help the Allies beat Germany in order that their countries would regain their freedom from the German yoke.
HMS Bramham was one of the two warships that towed the tanker Ohio to Malta in midAugust 1942
Concluded. Parts 1 and 2 were published on June 22 and 29 respectively.