page_title: HMS Kimberley (F50)
section_title: Off the Greek coast
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Kimberley (F50) / Career / Off the Greek coast
caption_attribution_description: Major General Wagner, Commander of German forces in the Dodecanese, and two of his staff officers come alongside the destroyer HMS KIMBERLEY, on a motor launch which the Germans had captured from the British a few months previously. The KIMBERLEY took Wagner to the island of Symi in the Aegean, where the unconditional surrender of German forces in the region was signed. (Comment: most probably HDML motor launch, possibly ML 1039 or 1069 captured in Tobruk in 1942)
context_page_description: HMS Kimberley was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She served in the Second World War and survived it, being one of only two of the K-class to do so. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Kimberley, after the town of Kimberley, Northern Cape, site of the Siege of Kimberley in the Second Boer War. She was adopted by the civil community of Eastwood, Kimberley and Selston, Nottinghamshire in 1942 after a successful Warship Week campaign for National Savings.
context_section_description: On 1 September she began a series of bombardments in the Rimini area, and having completed these by 13 September she resumed her patrolling.  In October she was transferred to the British Aegean Force, in order to support the landings to reoccupy the Greek mainland (Operation Manna).  She intercepted the hospital ship Gradisca on 29 October, and took her as a prize.  She carried out interception patrols throughout November, in order to prevent the evacuation of German personnel from occupied territory.  On 5 November she sank an F lighter off Piscopi and carried out a bombardment at Alimnia on 11 November.  She remained in the Aegean throughout December and in January 1945 was acting in support of operations on the Greek mainland.  She was at Athens during the communist rising.
  Kimberley took part in a raid on Rhodes on 1 May with HMS Catterick and the Greek destroyer Kriti.  She was off Rhodes on 8 May 1945 when Major General Wagner, Commander of German forces in the Dodecanese, and two of his staff officers came aboard her to formally surrender.  They came alongside on a motor launch they had captured from the British some months previously.  The Kimberley took Wagner to the island of Symi, where the unconditional surrender of German forces in the region was signed.  Kimberley landed an armed party the next day and confined the Germans to quarters.  She later transported the 117 Germans to Alexandria.  She remained in the Mediterranean after the end of the war, taking passage to the UK in August.  She was paid off in September, was de-stored and then reduced to the reserve.
caption: The German delegation, aboard a captured British motor launch, come alongside Kimberley to formally surrender
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