Italian Forces

Off Crete, 21 May 1941

The only knew picture, published by an Italian newspaper of this time of HSM Juno’s sinking off Crete on 21 May 1941 (“Hit Morassuti” by the name of the Italian bomber’s pilot). HMS Juno, a J-Class destroyer of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, Cdr. St. John Reginald Joseph Tyrwhitt, RN, were deployed on Aegean Sea with other warships (C Force) to intercept the German invasion craft on passage to Crete to carry out landings. On the morning of 21 May 1941, from 10.35 until 13.15 local time, three Italian bombers formations took off from the Rhodes bases attempted the attack to British ships but, because the very bad visibility due to thick haze, the first formation, composed by some S.79, returned to the base without obtain none ship’s spot while some SM.84 dropped their bombs without result. The success was obtained by five Cant-Z-1007bis of the 50th Gruppo, based at Maritsa, which raided the British convoy on level flight and in particular by the plane of the Lt. Morrassuti which scored a direct hit with against the Juno (position 30 nm SE off Crete 34º35'N, 26º34'E). Three bombs split the destroyer in two abaft the bridge structure and the ship sunk in less than two minutes with the loss of 116 men of the crew. The destroyers HMS Kingston, HMS Kandahar and HMS Nubian, rescued 96 survivors five of those later died. All the Italian aircraft was damaged by the heavy AA fire of the ships, but returned to base. Victor Sierra