Battle-Cruiser HMS Renown 1916-48 by Peter C. Smith

Author:Peter C. Smith [Smith, Peter C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781844687206
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2012-11-14T08:00:00+00:00

FOH from Ark Royal:

Your 11.30. I hope they would be too polite to say so.

But Renown was clearly in no fit state to fight a major battle and when she finally returned to Gibraltar on 30 December she went straight into dry-dock for repairs, which further delayed the major convoy operation.

Bill Kennelly remembers that: ‘I believe we were the first big ship into the new dock at Gib and we promptly soiled it with the fuel oil draining from out of bulges which in turn had leaked from the outer oil-fuel tanks.’

While these repairs were being carried out planning went ahead to pass the convoy through to Malta, in the operation codenamed Excess. Since early in December the Admiralty had expressed the intention of running another fast convoy through the Mediterranean with ships for both Malta and Piraeus (AT1615/6/12). It was planned to run twenty ships from the UK – sixteen were to go by the Cape route (WSSA) and five were to go by Gibraltar and on through the Med. Of these five, four, Clan Cumming, Clan MacDonald, Empire Song and Northern Prince were destined for Greece and one, Essex, was to go to Malta.

Force H as designated for this operation comprised: Renown (Flag), Malaya, Ark Royal, Sheffield, Faulknor, Firedrake, Fortune, Forester, Foxhound and Fury (8th DF) with Duncan (13th DF).

To supplement Force H were two forces:

From the Mediterranean Fleet – Force B: Gloucester and Southampton with the destroyer Ilex.

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