HMS Maori (F24)

Picture the light about fifteen metres down, a soft blue-green that turns everything slightly silver. Your own breathing is the loudest sound, a slow rumble of bubbles rising past your mask. Below you, on a pale bed of sand, a dark shape rests on its keel. Steel plates, round openings, the sharp lines of a bow. This is what remains of HMS Maori, a British warship that came to rest just off the walls of Valletta.

If you are not diving today, stand near the sea walls below Fort Saint Elmo and look out at the water. The wreck lies out there, close to shore and quite shallow. Thousands of people walk this waterfront every week without knowing it. The fort above you guards the entrance to the harbours, and the ship below the surface is part of the same story. Malta's war history runs above the water and below it.

HMS Maori was a Tribal-class destroyer. In the Royal Navy, a destroyer is a fast, narrow warship built to hunt submarines, escort convoys and attack larger ships with torpedoes. The Tribal class was a group of large, heavily armed destroyers built in the late 1930s. Each ship carried the name of a people from around the world. This one honoured the Māori, the Indigenous people of New Zealand.

She was built on the River Clyde in Scotland and launched in 1937. Her first pennant number, the code painted on her hull, was F24. Early in the Second World War the navy changed it to G24. So if you see both numbers on dive maps or in books, they describe the same ship. Divers and historians still use the original name and number together.

Here is the first surprise. Before she ever reached Malta, this ship took part in one of the most famous chases of the war. In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck broke out into the Atlantic. British forces hunted her across the ocean. During the final night, destroyers including Maori closed in and fired torpedoes in the dark, harassing the battleship until the main fleet arrived.

When the Bismarck sank the next morning, Maori was among the ships that pulled German survivors from the cold water. It is a striking image... sailors who had been firing at an enemy ship hours earlier, now throwing ropes to its crew. Then the threat of submarines and aircraft forced the rescue ships to leave. Many men were still in the sea.

Later that year, Maori came to the Mediterranean. In December 1941, she sailed with a small group of destroyers off Cape Bon, the northeastern tip of Tunisia. In a short night action they met two Italian cruisers, much larger ships. The destroyers attacked with guns and torpedoes, and both cruisers sank. For such small ships, it was a remarkable result, and it is remembered as the Battle of Cape Bon.

Now the story returns to the harbour around you. In early 1942, Malta was under almost constant air attack. The island sat between Italy and North Africa, and whoever held it could strike at enemy supply routes. German and Italian aircraft bombed the harbours day and night. In February 1942, during a night raid, bombs struck Maori while she was moored in Grand Harbour. Fire spread, an explosion followed, and the destroyer sank where she lay.

Think about that for a moment. This ship survived the Atlantic and a night battle at sea. Yet she was lost while tied up in harbour, only a short distance from the city's homes and churches. That was the reality of the siege. In Malta, there was no safe place behind the front line. The harbour itself was the front line.

The second surprise is how the wreck came to be here, outside the harbour. A sunken ship in a busy port is a hazard. After the war, the wreck was raised from Grand Harbour, towed out past the breakwater and sunk again off Fort Saint Elmo. What divers visit today is the forward section of the ship. It sits upright on the sand, and you can still recognise the shape of a warship's bow.

Underwater, the steel has become a reef. Fish shelter in the openings, and soft growth covers the plates. Divers often describe seeing the outline of the deck and the hull frames, with light falling through open sections. Because it is shallow and close to shore, it is a popular dive for people of many skill levels. Visibility depends on the weather and the sea, so every visit can look a little different.

Remember that this is also a war grave site in spirit, if not in law. Men served and suffered aboard this ship. Most divers treat the wreck with quiet respect. They look, they photograph, and they leave everything where it is. That small act of care keeps the site whole for the next visitor, and for the memory of the crew.

Back on land, the setting completes the picture. Fort Saint Elmo stands at the tip of the Valletta peninsula, its honey-coloured limestone warm in the sun. The National War Museum inside the fort tells the wider story of the siege. Across the water you can see Sliema on one side and the Three Cities on the other. Every one of these shores came under fire during those years.

So take a last look at the water in front of you. Notice its colour, the small boats crossing, the way the waves break against the rocks below the walls. Somewhere out there, on the sand, the bow of an old destroyer is still pointing quietly into the current. As you walk back toward the city, listen to the harbour — and remember that some of its history sits just under the surface.