Christmas 1941 blitz recalled

Members of the Neptune Association will be visiting Malta next month for the unveiling of a memorial dedicated to the warships Neptune and Kandahar that hit mines in 1941.

An account of the stricken ships is included in the latest edition of Malta At War, which will lead up to the Christmas blitz of 1941 with photographs of the destruction in the Upper Barrack area, in Valletta.

On December 18, 1941, a Royal Navy squadron, designated Force K, based at Grand Harbour, sailed to intercept an Axis convoy bound for Tripoli to supply the Afrika Korps.

The British warships were the cruisers Neptune, Aurora and Penelope and the destroyers Kandahar, Lance, Lively and Havoc. Neptune struck four mines, capsized and sank and the destroyer Kandahar, which had gone to her aid, was also mined but remained afloat throughout the night and the following day.

This disaster saw the end of the Malta Striking Force, which had sunk Axis convoys with men, fuel and supplies to the Afrika Korps so that the German commander in North Africa, General Irwin Rommel, had been forced to withdraw from Cyrenaica into Tripolitania.

The magazine is published by Wise Owl Publications and sells at Lm1.85 an issue.