escorted by the Italian torpedo boat . Perth sank a straggler from another convoy before the main convoy was spotted at 08:47. The torpedo boat had been trying to collect stragglers and her commander ordered his convoy to disperse while he laid a smokescreen and then engaged the Allied ships with little effect. His diversion and the lack of visibility caused by his smokescreen, coupled with repeated aerial attacks that peppered the ships with shrapnel, allowed the convoy to escape with only the loss of two ships. Upon her return to Alexandria, Perth spent a few days under repair. On the evening of 28 May, the ship was assigned to Force D, three cruisers, three destroyers and a troopship, which was sent to evacuate soldiers from Sphakia, a small port on the southern coast of Crete, after their defeat by German paratroopers. Perth carried two small landing craft to ferry troops aboard. The Allied ships were not attacked during the following day as they embarked the soldiers and they departed before dawn on the 30th. Beginning at 09:30 Force D was repeatedly attacked by German aircraft, with Perth suffering several near-misses before being struck by a bomb which exploded in the forward boiler room shortly before 10:00 with 4 of her sailors and 9 of the 1,188 embarked soldiers killed. The explosion temporarily knocked out her power and the cruiser came to a halt before it could be restored a half-hour later. It also bent the starboard inner propeller shaft and badly damaged the galley, the high-angle fire-control computer, the Admiralty Fire Control Table for the six-inch guns and started many leaks in the hull plating. The cruiser was able to reach Alexandria the next day and was under repair until 22 June. Perth sailed for Haifa, British Palestine, three days later to participate in the invasion of Vichy Syria and Lebanon. On the 27th she helped to lay a minefield off Damour and then provided gunfire support to Allied forces and bombarding Vichy facilities through to the end of the campaign before returning to Alexandria on 15 July. While she was waiting to be relieved by her sister , the quadruple "pom-pom" and the two Breda guns were removed and her catapult was reinstalled. Return to the Pacific Ocean Perth returned to Australia for permanent repairs, arriving in Sydney on 12 August. The release of her crew for shore