Force K was the name given to three United Kingdom Royal Navy groups of ships during the Second World War. The first Force K operated from West Africa in 1939, to intercept Commerce raiding. The second Force K was formed in October 1941 at Malta, to operate against convoys sailing from Italy to Libya. Axis air attacks on Malta led to Force K being reduced and on 8 April 1942, the last ship of the force was withdrawn. After a convoy was run to Malta in Operation Stoneage (16–20 November) Force K was re-established against Axis convoys.
Force K (1939)
The Admiralty suspected that a German pocket battleship was at large and on 1 October 1939 it became certain that a raider was operating in the
South Atlantic when the crew of
SS Clement was landed in
South America but who mistakenly named the raider as
Admiral Scheer rather than the pocket battleship . On 5 October the Admiralty formed eight groups, Forces F, G, H, I, K, L, M and N to hunt the German cruisers. Searching in the South Atlantic was conducted mostly by Forces G, H and K under the command of Admiral George d'Oyly Lyon the Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic. Force K was based in
Freetown,
Sierra Leone and consisted of the
battlecruiser , the
aircraft carrier and
, , and . Force K was to track and destroy
Germany commerce raiding in the South Atlantic, including Graf Spee. In December 1939, after the Battle of the River Plate, Force K was sent to the coast of
Uruguay to prevent any sortie by Graf Spee, whose captain had taken the ship into
Montevideo harbour. After Graf Spee was scuttled, Force K was disbanded and
Ark Royal escorted the
heavy cruiser , which had been damaged by Graf Spee, to Britain.
Force K (1941)
Force K was a force composed of the heavy cruisers and to search for German surface raiders in the South Atlantic between January and February 1941.
Force K (1941)
Force K was re-created on 21 October 1941, with the
and and the destroyers and , to operate from
Malta against
Italy ships carrying supplies to the
Axis powers forces in North Africa. On the night of 1941, in the Battle of the Duisburg Convoy, Force K sank the convoy, forcing
Comando Supremo, the supreme command of the Italian armed forces, to consider Tripoli "practically blockaded". Convoys to Tripoli were suspended, only Benghazi remaining in use. Soon afterwards, Force K was reinforced at Malta by
Force B, comprising the light cruisers and and the destroyers and . The combined force was so effective that in November 1941, the Axis supply line suffered 60 per cent losses.
On 19 December, at about the time of the First Battle of Sirte, ships from both forces ran into an Italian Naval mine (including German deep water mines) while pursuing an Italian convoy. Neptune was sunk and Aurora damaged. The destroyer Kandahar also struck a mine while attempting to assist Neptune and was scuttled the next day by the destroyer Jaguar. Following this and with a resurgence of the Axis aerial bombardment of Malta, the remaining surface ships were withdrawn, except for Penelope, which was too badly damaged to leave. Frequent air attacks while she remained in harbour earned Penelope the nickname "HMS Pepperpot"; the light cruiser sailed for Gibraltar on 8 April 1942, terminating the second Force K.
Force K (1942)
Operation Stoneage (16–20 November 1942), a convoy to re-victual Malta, was unloaded in record time. The supplies brought to Malta enabled the third Force K to be established on 27 November, with the cruisers , , and four ships of the 14th Destroyer Flotilla.
Stephen Roskill, the official historian of the
Royal Navy, wrote in 1962 that the arrival of Stoneage ended the two-year siege of Malta. Submarines were transferred from Magic Carpet rides (supply runs) to offensive operations and at the end of November, 821 Naval Air Squadron (
Fairey Albacore) transferred to Malta as did Force K; a Motor Torpedo Boat flotilla arrived soon afterwards.
Another cruiser and destroyer force began to operate from Annaba in Algeria, which, from 1 December, enabled the Navy to attack Axis convoys to Tunisia from both directions. In 2003, Richard Woodman wrote that Stoneage delivered of supplies, which advanced the deadline at which Malta would be compelled to surrender for lack of supplies to mid-December. The Eighth Army had expelled the Axis forces from Egypt and Cyrenaica, having entered Benghazi on 20 November. In Tunisia, the First Army was about from Bizerta, preparing for its next advance. Allied success on land made convoy operations much safer and Operation Portcullis, the next Malta convoy, arrived safely on 5 December.
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