Fiji, the only ship of the Royal Navy to be named after the
Crown colony of
Fiji, was
laid down by
John Brown & Company at their
Clydebank shipyard on 30 March 1938. The ship was
launched on 31 May 1939 and completed on 5 May 1940. On 31 August 1940 she sailed for the African Atlantic coast to take part in
Operation Menace, the attack on
Dakar, but before she could join the taskforce,
Fiji was damaged by a torpedo from the on 1 September and had to return to Britain for repairs, which lasted for the next six months. The torpedo hit abreast the forward
boiler room and most of the force of the detonation escaped up the forward
funnel, but the boiler room and an adjacent compartment flooded, reducing her speed to . The flooding gave her a
list to port; to counter it the ammunition from the forward turrets was thrown overboard and the portside torpedoes were ejected over the side. While under repair she was fitted with a
Type 284 gunnery
radar and another pair of quadruple Vickers 0.50-inch AA machineguns were added. She returned to service in March 1941 and was assigned to patrol the
Denmark Strait for German commerce raiders. She missed the homeward-bound
heavy cruiser on 26–27 March, and in early April she was reassigned to Force H at
Gibraltar to blockade the German heavy ships then stationed at
Brest. With Force H, she sailed into the
Mediterranean to support operations to relieve the island of
Malta in late April. On 5 May Force H departed Gibraltar to escort a heavily-laden convoy bound for
Egypt (Operation Tiger); Force H only escorted the convoy halfway through the Mediterranean before the Mediterranean Fleet took over.
Fiji joined the fleet at that time.
Battle of Crete Rowland Langmaid RN) British intelligence anticipated that the Germans would attack the island of Crete on 17 May 1941 and
Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, ordered his ships to sea on the 15th. Force B,
Fiji and the light cruiser were tasked to patrol west of the island. The Germans began landing paratroopers on 20 May when Force B was en route to rendezvous with the battleships and and their escorts west of Crete. The ships rendezvoused the following morning and German air attacks began a few hours later, although with little effect other than to help exhaust the ships' anti-aircraft ammunition. That afternoon, Cunningham ordered the cruisers to disperse into their original groups and search for any troop convoys in the Aegean. The Germans spotted Force B shortly after dawn on 22 May as the cruisers were steaming south to rendezvous with the battleships again.
Fiji was not hit during these attacks, but was damaged by near misses that knocked out her aft anti-aircraft
director. Force B made the rendezvous with Force A1 (Rear Admiral
H B Rawlings) and Force D (Rear Admiral
Irvine Glennie) at about 08:30 and the combined force was ordered to report on their levels of high-angle anti-aircraft ammunition. Of the cruisers, had 40%, 38%,
Fiji 30%, 25% and
Gloucester only 18%.
Ajax,
Orion and
Dido were ordered to return to Alexandria with Glennie's Force D to rearm but
Gloucester and
Fiji remained with Rawlings' Force A1. At 12:25 Force A1, stationed 20 to 30 miles west of
Antikythera, received a request from Rear Admiral
Edward Leigh Stuart King to support the damaged and the rest of his Force C. Force A1 headed east into the
Kythera Channel, rendezvousing with Force C between 13:30 and 14:00. As the more senior admiral, King took command, with air attacks now inflicting damage on both forces. At 14:02 and 14:07 respectively,
Fiji and
Gloucester were detached to provide anti-aircraft support for the
destroyers and . The two destroyers having already been ordered to rescue the survivors of the destroyer , which had been sunk at 13:50. Writing in despatches after the battle, Cunningham stated that King was unaware of the shortage of anti-aircraft ammunition in
Fiji and
Gloucester. At 14:13 King and Rawlings exchanged messages about the shortage of ammunition within both Force C and Force A1, with Rawlings expressing concern about the orders given to
Gloucester and
Fiji. Following this communication, King issued an order to recall both
Gloucester and
Fiji at 14:57. The
Luftwaffe focused its attention on the four ships dispatched to
Greyhound and they were under near-constant attack for several hours. By 15:30, while attempting to rejoin Force A1,
Fiji had exhausted her supply of anti-aircraft ammunition and was reduced to firing practice
rounds. She closed on
Gloucester at 15:50, right when that ship was struck by four bombs and was near-missed by three others.
Fiji dropped life rafts, but was forced to depart the area with the two destroyers. These ships fought on and shot down one attacker and severely damaged two others. The aerial attacks continued despite the heavy cloud cover; at 19:00 a
Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter bomber struck the cruiser amidships with a bomb. The forward boiler and
engine rooms flooded and gave her a severe list. Despite this damage
Fiji was able to maintain a speed of until another Bf 109 hit her with another bomb that increased her list to 30 degrees. Abandon ship was ordered in the face of the uncontrollable flooding and she
capsized around 19:30. Her accompanying destroyers were unable to rescue any of the crew until after dark when almost all of them were recovered.
Kit Tanner, the ship's chaplain, was posthumously awarded the
Albert Medal (since replaced by the
George Cross) for repeatedly entering the sea to rescue men from the water. On 30 May 1941, in a letter to the
First Sea Lord,
Sir Dudley Pound, Cunningham wrote, "The sending back of
Gloucester and
Fiji to
Greyhound was another grave error and cost us those two ships. They were practically out of ammunition, but even had they been full up I think they would have gone. The Commanding Officer of
Fiji told me that the air over
Gloucester was black with planes." Following the loss of both
Fiji and
Gloucester to air attacks after their anti-aircraft ammunition was exhausted, all British cruisers were instructed to not allow their anti-aircraft ammunition reserves to fall below 40%. ==Notes==