(Photo: IWM)

HMS KITE was a Modified Black Swan class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Cammell Laird shipyard, Birkenhead, and commissioned on 1 March 1943. She took part in a number of successful convoy protection patrols, many of them as part of Captain Frederic (Johnny) Walker’s Escort Group.

In the morning of 21 August 1944 HMS KITE was escorting Convoy JW 59 to Northern Russia. During the morning HMS KITE reduced speed to untangle her Foxers (anti acoustic torpedo noise makers, towed astern) and, after slowing down the ship was hit and sunk by a salvo of two torpedoes fired from U-344 (Oberleutnant Ulrich Pietsch). Of the crew of two hundred and seventeen officers and ratings, only nine survived out of the fourteen rescued from the sea.