The Greyhound rescue detachment costs Fiji and Gloucester

Sending Fiji and Gloucester to protect Kandahar and Kingston while they recovered Greyhound's trained survivors followed normal rescue practice and the navy's obligation to recover scarce personnel. The danger came from detaching the cruisers without first accounting for their depleted anti-aircraft magazines. By the time the recall was transmitted, the four ships were strung out beyond effective mutual support and offered the Luftwaffe an isolated target. Fiji exhausted her service ammunition and resorted to practice rounds before Gloucester was overwhelmed. Fiji still made eighteen knots after the first bomb flooded machinery spaces, but a second hit increased the list beyond control and forced abandonment. Cunningham later called the detachment a grave error and warned that even full magazines might not have saved the cruisers amid the massed aircraft. His warning keeps the loss from being reduced to ammunition levels alone.