The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 10

The 12th MTB flotilla was soon out on another patrol, heading for one of its hunting grounds off the coat of France. Knight's MTB 413 was accompanied by Orion James' MTB 430 and the green crew of Lennox Dean's MGB 91. This would be good experience for both Harvey Knight's and Dean's crew.

But as they approached the French coast an ominous shape was spotted in the darkness. Heading straight at them, making no attempt to hide on its approach, was a German destroyer!

The British boats poured on the speed as the destroyer closed with frightening rapidity. 

And then opened fire.

With two green crews the British escape was disorganised. So disorganised that whilst my brain told me that one boat was MTB 430 and that another was MGB 91, I actually swapped them over in terms of models. Which is my way of saying that in the following pictures the part of MTB 430 will be played by MGB 91, and vice versa. 

Anyway, the destroyer kept firing and a hit on Knight's MTB 413 damaged the engines. There was little changes of outrunning teh big German vessel now. 

Dean's MGB 91 was ordered to run for it as it had little hope of damaging the destroyer. Meanwhile Orion James brought MTB 430 round to engage the destroyer with torpedoes, hopefully buying the damaged MTB 413 time to escape.

Torpedoes away! But they missed. 

The destroyer continued to engage Knight's boat as he sought cover in a patch of mist. 

A near miss on MTB 430, but no damage. 

The destroyer was fast, and was soon ahead of MTB 413, blocking its escape. Knight turned sharply away and headed away from the German vessel, trying to buy time. Maybe he could line up a torpedo run of his own. 

Orion James came up again. He had no torpedoes, but he did have an reasonably experienced crew and some depth-charges. In desperation he sped towards the German vessel. It fired at him, and a fire started on the little MTB. Putting the helm over James attempted to pass teh destroyer's bow and drop depth-charges as he did so. 

The manuever failed, and the little boat was run down by the destroyer and smashed to pieces. Amazingly most of teh crew survived, clinging to life-rafts. But the impact had badly damaged the bows of the destroyer as well. MTB 430's sacrifice might yet not be in vain.

The damaged destroyer kept up its aggressive attack on Knight's limping MTB 413. And it was inevitable that the frantic dodging and weaving ... 

... would lead to another collision. Knight's boat was now seriously damaged, whilst the destroyer escaped unharmed. But Knight had depth charges too.

Despite its damage Knight pulled his stricken boat past the destroyer and fired off charges as he did so. They hit, and the already damaged destroyer began to list and sink. 

There was no hope of continuing with the night's patrol. Knight coaxed MTB 413 over to the remains of MTB 430 and picked up the survivors (Orion James among them), and then headed for a rendezvous with MGB 91 and the trip home. 

Knight's reputation didn't improve off the back of this encounter. Yes, he was praised for sinking an enemy destroyer, but it came at the loss of yet another MTB, as well as the serious damage done to his own boat. And things got worse. The repair crews were already stretched and whilst they got MTB 413's engines back into working order they were unable to do little more in the way of repairs. And in addition there were no replacement boats available for MTB 430 or MTB 418. On the plus side, James' crew were recovered so they wouldn't lose their accumulated experience, and all of the boats picked up valuable experience as well. However the 12th MTB Flotilla was now down to one functioning MTB, with a second badly damaged and two others waiting to be replaced. For the next mission they would be relying on the two MGBs.