HMS Sirius was a light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Portsmouth Dockyard (Portsmouth, United Kingdom), with the keel being laid down on 6 April 1938. She was launched on 18 September 1940, and commissioned 6 May 1942. History Siriuss completion was delayed due to German bombing at Portsmouth Dockyard so she was completed at Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company (Greenock, Scotland). On completion she initially joined the Home Fleet, and was then assigned to operate in the Mediterranean in August for Operation Pedestal, the supply of Malta. She was then ordered to the South Atlantic to patrol against Axis blockade runners on the Far East route, returning to Gibraltar in November for Operation Torch, the North African landings. As part of Force Q at Bone in December she harried Axis convoys to and from Tunisia until the Axis surrender in North Africa. Force Q, including Sirius, took part in the last naval battle held in the Mediterranean Sea during 1942. It consisted of cruisers Sirius, , and destroyers and , which intercepted a small Axis convoy in the Sicilian Channel destined for Tunisia, starting the Battle of Skerki Bank. The Axis convoy consisted of the German troopship KT-1 () and Italian troopships Aventino (), Puccini () and Aspromonte (a militarized ferry-boat, ) and an escort force composed of three destroyers and two torpedo boats. Force Q intercepted the convoy on the night of 1–2 December. The British ships attacked and sank all four troopships alongside one of the escorting destroyers, heavily damaging another and both torpedo boats. The destroyer Camicia Nera launched all of her six torpedoes from a range of only 2 kilometers, but missed the British ships. At dawn, the savage short-range engagement revealed a clear British victory: Axis losses amounted to 5 ships and over 2000 men, for the loss of HMS Quentin (G78) at dawn to Luftwaffe dive bombers. Sirius then joined the 12th Cruiser Squadron and participated in the Allied invasion of Sicily, (Operation Husky), in July. For the next few months she supported the army ashore, and in September took part in the occupation of Taranto before transferring to the Adriatic, where, on 7 October 1943 Sirius, and the destroyers and , engaged the enemy north of Astipalea (Stampalia) in the Dodecanese, where they attacked a German convoy consisting of the auxiliary submarine chaser Uj 2111 (former Italian gunboat Tramaglio),