One story says that HMS Somali, having exhausted ordinary ammunition, threw tins of baked beans at an Italian battleship simply to keep sending something toward the enemy. The anecdote is separate from verified operational history: it survives as a personal recollection passed down among destroyer crews and does not appear in the official account. The comic detail comes with a serious source warning about the difference between crew memory and documentary evidence. Its value lies less in proving that the incident happened exactly as told than in showing how destroyer folklore can preserve experiences that senior officers or public narratives omit.
Notable Point · 1:02:31-1:04:07
The HMS Somali baked-bean story as destroyer oral history
A story about an ammunition-starved destroyer throwing food tins at an Italian battleship becomes a lesson in how crew folklore differs from the official record.