Very Special Ships. Arthur Nicholson
likely invasion of Crete, he pointed out that he had ‘a fast ship, the Abdiel, which could be used to run guns and other urgent equipment into Crete’.21 Cunningham was so enamoured of her speed that one day he signalled her to pass close by at speed, which she did at 35 knots, to have her picture taken. In the coming weeks and months, Admiral Cunningham was able to find some very useful employment for the speedy Abdiel that did not require her to traverse the Mediterranean without refuelling.
On 6 May, the Abdiel went to sea with the Mediterranean Fleet and took station as part of the destroyer screen.22 The Fleet’s sortie was but one part of Operation ‘MD.4’, a complex movement of convoys to Malta and Suda Bay, as well as the running from Gibraltar to Alexandria of the vital ‘Tiger’ convoy of merchant ships to reinforce the British Army in Egypt and warships to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet.23 On several occasions, the Fleet was heavily bombed and on board the Abdiel it seemed that she was the only target. She had a load of mines on board at the time and everyone on board ‘felt their position somewhat acutely’. One stick of bombs fell right across her bows, but caused her no damage.24 While the Fleet returned to Alexandria, the Abdiel disembarked her mines at Haifa and then made her way to Alexandria. It had been planned to have her lay mines off Lampedusa the night of 10/11 May, but the operation was cancelled due to the uncertainly of her being able to fuel at Malta.25
The Abdiel’s unique minelaying abilities were nevertheless soon put to work. On 17 May, she once again sailed from Alexandria to Haifa to embark mines,26 and received orders to sail from Alexandria to lay two lines of mines inside and at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras between the islands of Levkas and Cephalonia off the western coast of Greece. On the evening of 19 May she departed Alexandria27 to begin Operation ‘Mat One’ and proceeded to the target area at high speed.
On the outbound voyage, two enemy reconnaissance planes sighted the Abdiel, but by the use of diversionary courses she was able to shake them off. To the Captain, the lay was ‘a most eerie performance’, as the entrance to the Gulf of Patras was very hard to find at night and the first mines had to be laid just a quarter of a mile offshore. As the mine doors were opened, the mining party could be heard to mutter, ‘Lord! The Owners almost put us on the _____ beach’. Lieutenant Austen recalled it as a calm, clear night and ‘one had the feeling that even if those ashore did not see us they must hear the plop as the mines were dropped’ and ‘it seemed impossible that we could not be spotted’. No alarm was raised and beginning at 03.28 on 21 May the Abdiel proceeded to lay her 158 mines.
Once the minelaying was completed, the Abdiel made tracks to the south at full speed and was out of sight of land by dawn. It was intended that she would rendezvous with the Mediterranean Fleet to the southwest of Crete, but the fleet was not at the appointed position and the Abdiel continued on her way alone. Once she turned to the east, she became the object of three air attacks, one of them by thirty bombers that dropped everything they had but missed by a mile and a half. On 22 May she returned safely to Alexandria.28
As it turned out, the waters off Cape Dukato were rich with targets for the Abdiel’s mines. At 05.40, a little more than two hours after the first mine hit the water, they claimed their first victim, the old Italian gunboat Pellegrino Matteucci, which was proceeding alone from Brindisi to Patras at a leisurely 7 knots. Of only 630 tons and armed with 76mm guns,29 she sank immediately, her demise marked by a column of smoke. She went down with forty-one of her crew.
The Matteuci’s smoke was soon sighted by a convoy of three Italian tankers, which was escorted by the armed merchant cruiser Brindisi and the old 1811-ton destroyer Carlo Mirabello, armed with eight 4in guns.30 At 06.30, the Mirabello hit another of the Abdiel’s mines, with more flames and smoke the result. The more substantial Mirabello stayed afloat for a time, but her captain decided to abandon her at 11.20 and she finally foundered at 12.00, about two miles south of the lighthouse at Cape Dukato. She took with her forty-four of her crew.
More pickings were on their way. A small but important convoy consisting of two large German transports, the Kybfels of 7764 tons and the Marburg of 7564 tons. They were carrying elements of the Wehrmacht’s 2nd Panzer Division, which had taken part in the invasion of Greece and was on its way from Patras in Greece to Taranto in Italy en route to Germany.31 On board the Marburg there was a young Panzergrenadier named Zaloudek, who wrote an account of the day’s events in his diary.32
The Marburg and Kybfels had left Patras at 09.00 the morning of the 21st. The ships were escorted by two Italian aircraft, which seemed a bit weak to some of the men aboard, but they trusted in their commanders’ judgement. It was a sunny day and soldiers were allowed to sunbathe up on deck as long as they had their life jackets with them. Only a few soldiers were below deck. On the horizon, ships could be seen, with smoke rising from one of them. One of those ships, the Brindisi, sighted the Marburg and Kybfels and made ready to send a signal, ‘You’re heading into danger’.
It was too late. At 14.15 observers in the Marburg saw a huge fountain of water rising next to the Kybfels. She and the Marburg veered to port. An alarm was sounded in Marburg and then there was another explosion. All men were ordered up on deck and told to don their life jackets. In total, there were four explosions. From the Marburg, the Kybfels could be seen slowly disappearing, with men jumping from her deck. The captain of the Marburg soon ordered all men aboard her to jump into the water. Zaloudek jumped and was pleasantly surprised to find the water was warmer than he thought it would be. While she still could, the Marburg lowered at least one boat. As its occupants rowed away, they could see the Marburg down by the bow, with smoke streaming from her fires. Both ships went down, with a total of 121 men.33 Most who survived the sinkings came ashore on the island of Cephalonia and those who had drowned were buried in Argustoli.
The steamer Marburg sinking after hitting an Abdiel mine. (Franz Steinzer, Die 2. Panzer-Division 1935-1945 [Friedburg: Podzun Pallas Verlag, 1977])
The authors of the German Naval War Diary was not pleased that the ships had not been warned about the mines and described the sinkings as a particularly severe blow. The ships went down with all the 2nd Panzer’s cargo, including sixty-six artillery pieces, ninety-three artillery tractors, fifteen armoured cars and 136 motor vehicles.34 The Wehrmacht high command was at first informed that 122 tanks had been lost in the ships, but soon learned that they had already been transported to Taranto in an earlier convoy.35 The Germans at first believed a British submarine was responsible for the sinking of their ships,36 but they soon realised that mines were the cause.
Much of the lost materiel was not easy to replace, particularly the artillery and their prime movers.37 Perhaps as a result of that, the 2nd Panzer Division missed the opening of Operation ‘Barbarossa’, the invasion of the Soviet Union, on 22 June 1941. Instead, in July the division was sent from Germany to Galicia in Poland and then in August to France. It did not reach the Eastern Front until October of that year, when it joined Army Group Centre. Arriving in time for the onset of the Russian winter, the division participated in the Wehrmacht’s final drive on Moscow. On 5 December, it was stopped just 25 kilometres from Moscow’s defensive perimeter, almost within sight of the Kremlin, and was forced to retreat for the first time in the war.38 The 2nd Panzer Division’s losses to the Abdiel’s mines probably delayed its arrival on the Eastern Front and that delay may have made a difference in the outcome of the offensive against Moscow, if not the war on the Eastern Front. The Royal Navy had not only designed a ship capable of such an operation, but had boldly ordered and executed the operation and was amply awarded for it.
Not many ships can take credit for ‘sinking’ a Panzer Division or rather much of it, but the men of the Abdiel could have if they had known the