[3] Members of the ship's crew recovered from U-559 a new, four-wheel Enigma cypher machine and the books to go with it,[4] albeit at the cost of the lives of her First Lieutenant and an Able Seaman, both of whom were drowned when the U-boat they were searching sank with them inside.
As a result of these locations, confusion could arise when 'action stations' were sounded which might involve the officers making their way forward towards the bridge while gun-crews attempted to move aft to the stern armament.
[7][8] Petard began operations in late July as part of the naval escort of the Middle East-bound Convoy WS 21, (via the Cape of Good Hope).
Thornton seemed to live up to his reputation for eccentricity, standing for long periods on the upper yard, tied to the mast, ensuring the crews' state of alert was maintained by pelting those below him that he thought needed stimulation with objects brought from his pockets.
[13] Training continued, at one point soap was spread on the upper deck to make keeping one's footing difficult, thunder flashes were also used and the ship given an artificial list, to simulate realistic battle conditions.
Later awarded the George Medal for the U-boat action, Brown died in 1945 attempting to rescue his infant sister from a fire in the family home in North Shields.
After an initial flurry of bombs, which scored no hits, the German aircraft broke off to attack individually, at which point they were close enough for every gun in the convoy to engage them.
The naval action was curtailed when four Spitfires attacked the bombers; the convoy had suffered only minor damage but was nonetheless ordered to return to Port Said, which, for the merchantmen only, was amended to Alexandria.
The navigator surprised his rescuers after being picked up by running up to the bridge chart house to confirm his estimate of their position, thus winning a bet with his fellow survivors.
The following morning more attacks were carried out by the Axis, but accurate bombing was discouraged by advantageous cloud cover, the escorts' barrage and the presence of Bristol Beaufighters over the convoy.
[36][37] On 23 November Petard led Paladin with the two merchantmen originally destined for Mersa Matruh and an armed merchant cruiser loaded with reinforcements to Tobruk.
A tanker was hit and soon burning but the inferno did not deter a party of Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) soldiers who unloaded their stores with studied nonchalance.
[38][39] While on her way to Malta with Queen Olga from Benghazi on 15 December 1942, Petard (still under the command of Lt Cmdr Thornton), engaged and sank the Italian Adua-class submarine Uarsciek.
Arriving without incident on 21 February, the harbour entrance was found to be partially blocked, compelling the ships to discharge their human cargoes into lighters and landing craft.
[47] Food captured from the Italians was issued to the ships, but in many instances the labels had come off the tins; discovering the identity of the contents was a bit hit and miss.
Egan established his style of ship-handling, lying back in his bridge chair and wearing smoked glasses (against the sun's rays), while calling out helm and speed alterations.
Over the next month Petard was employed mostly on escort work, including being part of the screening force of 23 destroyers for the aircraft carriers Illustrious and Formidable and the battleships Nelson, Rodney, Warspite and Valiant.
Petard landed Warspite's Forward Observation Officer, (FOO), using her cutter, then stayed close in-shore to use her own guns to help to retrieve the situation.
[68][69] In early October Petard was based in Brindisi, from where she crossed the Adriatic, searching coves and inlets between Iasun island and Dubrovnik for German shipping.
[71][72][73] She, with Panther was escorting the anti-aircraft cruiser Carlisle and searching at night, with two Hunt-class destroyers, for a German force reportedly heading for the island of Leros.
On 22/23 October Petard and another destroyer, Eclipse, acting after the loss of the Hunt class Hurworth and the Adrias (which lost a third of her forward section before being beached), entered a minefield east (rather than west) of Kalymnos Island.
[80] For Petard's fifth Aegean sortie, Egan, as senior officer, was in charge of a three-destroyer flotilla loaded with men and stores that met up with the cruiser Aurora on 30 October; her extra anti-aircraft firepower was soon needed.
While there it was discovered that the bomb had torn through thawing beef, creating a gory scene which the damage-control party initially mistook for a massacre:[85] Rockwood was eventually towed to Alexandria.
Following extensive exercises and drills, there was a welcome break when the aircraft carrier Unicorn and the battlecruiser Renown were diverted to Cochin in south west India on 24 January; Petard was part of their escort.
[93] On 12 February Petard, now under the newly promoted Commander Rupert Egan, was involved in the destruction of the Japanese B1 type submarine I-27 after it had sunk the troop ship Khedive Ismail with the loss of 1,297 lives.
Petard pulled away to engage the submarine with her four-inch guns once more, but this was also ineffective: hits were registered, but they were with impact-fuzed shells due to the lack of SAP ammunition.
[97][98] Douglas Vowles, a Leading Seaman operating "B" gun, sighted I-27's log book floating in the water near the stricken submarine amidst a school of sharks that was corralling the Japanese survivors.
With Paladin homeward bound for repairs, Petard sailed to Bombay, where she enjoyed a nine-day break before leading the River-class frigates Plym and Helford, the Dutch ship Derg and Convoy BA 66A to Aden.
Just after passing through a strangely quiet Suez Canal, Petard sighted and recovered the crew, complete with hand baggage, of the American Liberty ship Samslarnia in the eastern Mediterranean.
[108] Leaving the 'Flow', she was in transit to meet a Russian convoy, but diverted into dry-dock at North Shields to rectify damage to her propeller which had apparently been caused by her own depth charges.