HMS Kingston (F64)

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HMS Kingston (F64) was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy laid down by J. Samuel White and Company at Cowes on the Isle of Wight on 6 October 1937, launched on 9 January 1939 and commissioned on 14 September 1939. Kingston was involved in the evacuation of Greece in April 1941, and attacked and sank the enemy German submarine U-35 in the North Sea on 29 November 1939 in company with the destroyers Kashmir and Icarus. Kingston took part in the Second Battle of Sirte, March 22 1942, where she was hit by a 15" shell fired by the Italian battleship Littorio. At least 13 of her crew were killed in this incident, which left the destroyer dead in the water, almost broken in two, her whaler torn apart, her antiarcraft guns, searchlight tower and torpedo launchers dismantled by the explosion. With an engine in flames and a flooded boiler,she managed however to recover speed, reaching Malta the next day. Whilst in drydock at Malta repairing damage from this encounter, Kingston was attacked by German aircraft while on 11 April 1942 and damaged beyond repair. By a tragic coincidence, some of the surviving complement (including her commanding officer,Lieutenant Commander Somerville DSO) were killed when their rock-carved shelter was demolished by a large German aerial bomb on the same day. She was scrapped at Malta. Althought she was finished off by air raid, this was one of the rare examples of a Royal Navy warship destroyed or sunk by Italian Fleet forces in WWII.