Re: HMS MEDWAY II (ex TALBOT, MEDUSA)
Posted by:
David H (IP Logged)
Date: December 21, 2016 01:56AM
M29/MEDUSA - does not appear to have left Malta until she was scrapped:
MEDWAY-II
From Ben Warlow: "Shore Establishments of the Royal Navy" -
Medway-II commissioned 1 July 1942 as shore base at Beirut for 1st SM Flotilla; base shifted to Malta in February 1944, using M29/Medusa as a depot ship.
Further from Ben Warlow:
M.29/MEDUSA -
Renamed TALBOT 1 September 1941 to act as a depot ship at Malta. She was renamed MEDWAY-II on 1 June 1944 and reverted to MEDUSA 1 April 1945.
According to Ian Buxton: "Big Gun Monitors":
M29/Medusa – “…renamed Talbot in September 1941 to act as the depot ship for the newly formed Tenth Submarine Flotilla, based in Lazaretto Creek with workshops ashore. She was damaged in heavy Luftwaffe bombing in March 1942, which culminated in the temporary withdrawal of the flotilla. She took up her duties again when the Flotilla returned in July, until it departed for Sardinia in December 1943. When First Submarine Flotilla arrived in February 1944, she adopted the name of its depot ship which had been sunk in 1942, Medway, and continued her service as a depot ship. After the war she was towed back to Britain and scrapped”
The info would suggest that she never left Malta during her WW2 service