BRILLIANT ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1941, Page 5

BRILLIANT ACTION

FOUGHT IN MEDITERRANEAN

BY BRITISH AND DUTCH DESTROYERS ITALIAN CRUISER BLOWN UP. ANOTHER LEFT BURNING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 13. An Admiralty communique states that reports have been received of a brilliant night action fought be- ' fore dawn this morning in the central Mediterranean by destroyers on patrol. One Italian cruiser has been sunk and another severely damaged. In addition an Italian torpedo-boat was seriously damaged and an E-boat sunk. No damage or casualties were suffered by our forces. A little after 3 a.m. this morning H.M. destroyer Sikh, with H.M. destroyers Legion and Maori and the Netherlands destroyer Isaac Sweers- in company, made contact with two Italian cruisers, a torpedo-boat and an E-boat. The Allied force immediately attacked with gunfire and torpedoes. Both cruisers were at once hit. The leading cruiser burned fiercely and later blew up. The other was last seen burning from stem to stern. The tor-pedo-boat was heavily damaged and the E-boat sunk.

The Isaac Sweers was not completed when Germany overran the Netherlands. She was saved, however, from the hands of the invader and towed to Britain, where she was completed in a British naval yard. Her displacement is 1800 tons. The Sikh and Maori belong to the same class as the famous Cossack—the Tribal class—and were launched late in 1937. They are of 1870 tons. The Legion is of the new Lightning class and was only launched in 1938.