“So as to free our naval forces if the convoy is cornered,” Harwood had told Churchill in a message, “I intend to arrange for the merchant ships to be scuttled, as by doing this they will release the warships for offensive purposes against the enemy, or, if this is impossible, for a rapid return through the bombing areas. What I particularly want to avoid is the loss of both escorts and convoy.”

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What Churchill wanted to avoid was the loss of Malta. Besides, the role of the warships was to protect the merchant ships, not attack the enemy. And how could a man like Churchill read the words “rapid return” without hearing “run from the fight” ring in his ears like the boom of a fifteen-inch gun?

While Captain Hardy was off in the Cairo trying to keep the Italian warships away from the convoy, the Italian bombers arrived. It had been perfectly coordinated between the Italian navy and air force, and Hardy had fallen perfectly into Admiral da Zara’s trap: almost all the convoy’s antiaircraft guns were away chasing ships—and getting blasted for their efforts.

A Stuka dive-bombed MS Chant, a 5,600-ton Danish freighter with an American crew. All but three men jumped overboard before her superstructure collapsed and she quickly sank. “Her oil tanks burst as she went down, leaving a terrific pall of smoke and fire that was visible for most of the day,” said the master of the Orari, steaming behind her.

Captain Roberts watched it all from Monkey Island, a platform above the bridge of the Kentucky, with nothing between him and the dive-bombers but his binoculars. “Captain C. R. J. Roberts gave the impression of having particularly outstanding qualities of courage and organizing abilities,” said the admiral who recommended him for a medal. “Throughout the violent attacks on Kentucky, he remained exposed on ‘Monkey Island’ with very little protection and maneuvered and fought his vessel magnificently.”

But there were too many bombs to dodge. Roberts watched a Ju 88 dive at his ship and drop two bombs that “straddled the poop,” said the third mate. Giant col­umns of water crashed on deck.

“The chief engineer reported that the main generator steam feed pipe was fractured, and the engine room full of steam and ammonia,” stated Lieutenant Huntley, the Royal Navy liaison officer aboard Kentucky. “The Chief and Second Engineer again went below, and the Chief Engineer reported to the Master, that, lacking electricity, he could neither fill his boilers, nor raise steam.”

Sometimes the men in the engine room were cooked like lobsters when a steam line snapped. Or a man could get scored and split by an invisible jet of steam, 300 degrees at 220 psi.

But somehow the Kentucky’s men got out of the engine room. Captain Roberts praised his chief engineer, J. J. Ross. “His cool and calm bearing were an inspiration to all the Engine Room staff,” he reported.

Ross had just three days in Gibraltar to learn the complicated Westinghouse steam turbine engines, Brown-Curtiss water tube boilers, and the elaborate electrical systems. The chief engineer from the American crew had been with the Kentucky for nearly a year, during her construction and trials, and he had tried to stay with the ship. Had he been permitted to remain aboard, the steam line almost certainly would have been repaired.

Captain Roberts asked the minesweeper Hebe for a tow, but they could only make five knots, so Captain Hardy sent back the destroyer Ithuriel to help. Then he changed his mind. “I reconsidered and cancelled this order as I came to the conclusion that I could not afford to immobilize one of the three remaining fleet destroyers for this purpose while the threat from enemy surface vessels was considerable.”

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