Torpedo attack on Malta convoy

23rd July 1941: The Light Cruiser HMS Manchester is attacked by torpedo bombers and suffers casualties - rare images of the aftermath of a naval action

The destroyer HMS Eridge pictured in July 1941.

HMS Eridge was part of a convoy taking urgently needed supplies from the British base at Gibraltar to the island of Malta. Commanding the destroyer was Frank Gregory-Smith, who was later to write a vivid memoir of life during the Mediterranean war:

Now that the moment of decision was at hand many men, who ha…