In London last week the British Admiralty announced the loss of one of the crack warships of World War II, the 5,270-ton light cruiser Penelope. She was sunk with another cruiser and two destroyers off Anzio.
Penelope was a ship of many nicknames. In 14 days of continuous air attack at Malta she was pierced with some 2,000 bomb fragments; her admiring crew promptly dubbed her “H.M.S. Pepperpot.” After the worst holes were plugged with planks, they added another: “H.M.S. Porcupine.” While she was alongside a Malta dock, bomb hits on shore threw so much debris around her decks that for a time she became “H.M.S. Rockgarden.”
But under any nickname, Penelope* never took an enemy attack lying down. In 24 days of action her own guns fired 35,000 6-in. shells, 6,500 4-in., 20,000 two-pounders and 8,000 20-mm. Oerlikon shells.
* The ship in C.S. Forester’s The Ship
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