Who sank MTB-639?

[cam]

Hi,

Colleagues,
I ask for your help to find out who sank MTB-639 28/4/1943.
The British write
1240 A convoy is sighted and the boats close to attack. MTB 639 has expended both torpedoes in earlier encounters and attacks the leading escort, which is the Italian vessel Sagittario, with gunfire. MTB 633 and MTB 637 close to attack the merchant vessel Teranio with torpedoes. There are around thirty aircraft present and the scene is in range of shore batteries.
1252 MTB 633 fires two torpedoes and MTB 637 follows suit shortly afterwards. Aircraft make a concentrated attack upon MTB 639. The commanding officer and three ratings are killed and the first lieutenant, navigator and two ratings are badly wounded. The coxswain rigs towing lines despite a bad leg wound.
1310 MTB 639 is stopped ten miles south east of Cape Bon and being abandoned. Detonators in the IFF equipment are set and the confidential books are dropped overboard in the safe. MTB 637 goes alongside MTB 639 to transfer the wounded and unwounded survivors. MTB 633 picks survivors out of the water. MTB 639 is then sunk by gunfire. MTB 633 and MTB 637 then disengage to the south under attack by aircraft and shore batteries. MTB 633 shoots down one aircraft with oerlikon fire.
1400 The Senior Officer, Lt Philip Francis Stewart Gould RN DSC, dies of his wounds
https://cfv.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=432
They believe that MTB died from shelling of German fighters.
Italians believe that Sagittario inflicted fatal injuries. Is there reliable information about this event?

[Platon Alexiades]

The report by Sagittario is at variance with the report you mentioned.

The torpedo-boat was escorting the transport Teramo from Naples to Tunis.

Main points:

28 April:
...
1200: in 36°35' N, 11°15' E.
1220: the torpedo-boat picked up three New Zealanders airmen who had been shot down.
1225: Sagittario had just regained her station ahead of Teramo when she came under attack by about twenty-five enemy aircraft. She was machine-gunned and had three killed and about twenty wounded.
1345: three MTBs were sighted at 12,000 metres on the starboard side.
1348: the torpedo-boat opened fire.
1350: the rightmost MTB was set afire and immobilised.
1352: the other two MTBs launched torpedoes from about 8,000 metres then reversed course to assist the stricken one. Sagittario could not close because of the proximity of minefields but kept on firing at one of the MTBs which was laying a smoke screen, presumably to cover the other boat which was recovering the crew of the disabled MTB [note: there is no mention that coastal batteries took part in the action].
1358: two Italian fighter aircraft were now sighted, and they machine-gunned the enemy boats so Sagittario suspended fire and proceeded with Teramo toward Tunis.
1455: about forty enemy aircraft (believed to be Curtis P.40) attacked the convoy. Teramo was hit and set afire. Sagittario was only hit by fragments and proceeded to Tunis [note: the hospital ship Toscana had been diverted to rescue the survivors of Teramo but they apparently reached the coast in lifeboats].
1635-1648: The torpedo-boat came under attack by about forty four-engine bombers escorted by numerous fighters. They dropped bombs from high altitude (6,000 metres) and the fighters did not intervene. The bombs missed by about 300-500 metres and Sagittario replied with her two 10 cm guns (the third was disabled due to mechanical defects) before continuing to Tunis where she arrived at 1725.

So it appears, from this version at least, that MTB-339 was first disabled by Sagittario and finished off by the fighters.

Best regards,

Platon

[cam]

Platon, Thank you very much!