HMS Janus in Norway and the Mediterranean

Janus fought at Calabria and Cape Matapan and took part in the fighting around the Tarigo convoy. At Matapan, destroyers considered whether they could tow away an Italian cruiser while Cunningham rejected the idea. Her war had begun off Norway, where she helped the crew of HMS Bittern after Ju 87 attacks. The aircraft had mistaken the sloop for a cruiser, exposing another weakness in the assumption that attackers would reliably distinguish major ships from escorts. Janus eventually sank the damaged Bittern to prevent its capture. She also escorted twenty convoys in 1940 before her Mediterranean service.