 The Italian cruisers reappeared, fired on a previously disabled destroyer, which had been taken in tow by an escort destroyer; the crippled ship was left adrift, and eventually torpedoed and sunk by an aircraft.The damaged merchant ships were scuttled or abandoned by their escorts.The rest of the convoy sailed into a minefield, a destroyer hit a mine and sank, the two surviving merchantmen and the remaining escorts reaching Malta that night.