HMS Kingston (F64): Sunk in Dock After Surviving the Battle at Sea

Built at Cowes

HMS Kingston was laid down on 6 October 1937 by J. Samuel White and Company at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, one of six similar destroyers ordered together, launched at East Cowes on 9 January 1939 and named by the Mayoress of Kingston upon Thames.

She commissioned on 14 September 1939, joining the 5th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet for escort and anti-submarine duties in the opening weeks of the war.

The Red Sea and East Africa

HMS Kingston transferred to the Red Sea in May 1940, taking part in the sinking of the Italian submarine Torricelli that June and attacking the submarine Perla in the same campaign, before supporting the landings at Berbera in March 1941 as British forces fought to reclaim British Somaliland from Italian occupation. She subsequently redeployed to Alexandria to join the main Mediterranean Fleet.

Crete and the Battles of Sirte

HMS Kingston took part in the desperate fighting around the Battle of Crete in May 1941, engaging German invasion convoys and, together with HMS Kandahar, rescuing 523 survivors from the sea, a significant humanitarian achievement carried out in the middle of an active combat zone.

She fought at the First Battle of Sirte that December, and returned to action at the Second Battle of Sirte in March 1942, where she was struck by a 15-inch shell that passed clean through her foremost starboard whaleboat, killing fifteen of her crew, a devastating hit that nonetheless failed to sink the ship outright.

Destroyed at Her Own Repair Berth

HMS Kingston limped into Malta for repairs following her battle damage, only to find herself in one of the most heavily bombed places on earth at exactly the wrong moment. Between 4 and 11 April 1942 she endured a sustained series of German air attacks while sitting largely helpless in dock.

On 4 April a bomb struck the entrance to the Corradino Tunnel where sheltering crew members had gathered, killing fourteen sailors outright.

Further attacks followed on 5 and 8 April, the latter seeing an unexploded bomb pass straight through her hull without detonating, before a final strike on 11 April finally rolled the ship over and sank her in dry dock.

In total, 21 of her crew died at Malta, either during the earlier battle damage or in the bombing raids that followed, including her commanding officer, Commander Philip Somerville, a painful toll for a ship whose crew had already fought and survived so much at sea.

A Wreck Put to One Last Use

HMS Kingston was declared a constructive total loss, and in January 1943 her wreck was towed to St Paul's Bay and deliberately scuttled as a blockship, finding one final piece of usefulness even in destruction.

The remaining hull was scrapped years after the war, and today only a few scattered pieces of metal remain at the site, a quiet, largely forgotten memorial to a destroyer whose story is a stark reminder that for so many Royal Navy ships defending Malta, the greatest danger came not from the enemy at sea but from the bombs falling on the very dockyard meant to keep them safe.