 During this, "Wollongong", stood by the tanker , which ran aground and eventually had to be abandoned, was forced to sink the minesweeper , which attempted to turn back to the captured port, and broke off from the convoy to escort the damaged SS "British Judge", which was torpedoed on the night of 28 February and could not keep up.The main convoy and the escorting sloop was sunk on 4 March by a Japanese cruiser group.