Kimberley over Nullo

The south end of the Red Sea was the scene last week of one more conflict between the British and Italian Navies and one more conflict in official reports. A big British convoy, carrying troops and supplies from England and Australia to reinforce the Middle East armies, was attacked under cover of night. The Italians said their motor torpedo boats sank six merchant vessels in the convoy, some of them filled with troops, of whom 3,000 drowned. A British cruiser of the Sydney class, chasing the attackers after dawn, was heavily hit by artillery fire from the Eritrean shore.

The British account denied damage to any British ship except the destroyer Kimberley. This 1,690-ton vessel, said the Admiralty, pursued the convoy's attackers, which included two Italian destroyers. She chased the 1,058-ton Francesco Nullo to shore, shelling her so she had to be beached. While the Kimberley was polishing off the Nullo with a torpedo, three field guns ashore opened up on her. Splinters from one hit damaged a steam pipe, reduced the speed of the Kimberley. Because her silhouette is not unlike the Sydney's, mistaking the Kimberley for a cruiser might be understandable. But the Italians' gloss-over of their loss of another destroyer was something else. It was further evidence that the Italian Navy, in which armor and striking power are sacrificed for speed, is good only for swift hit-&-run attacks, not for a stand-up fight with the tough R. N.

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