Battle of the Ligurian Sea which struck "TA24". "Meteor"s commander, Richard Pankhurst, saw a "geyser of flame and metal" and "TA24" sank just after 04:00, losing 30 men in 13 minutes. This was the German "Kriegsmarine"'s last surface action of the war. The British destroyers ended any possibility of German deep water offensive operations in the Ligurian Sea, let alone anywhere else in the Mediterranean. The engagement was also the last surface naval action the British fought in the western theatre and the last substantial surface action fought on the Mediterranean Sea. "TA32" was damaged but managed to escape; she was scuttled by her crew
Ligurian language (ancient) the Ligurian place-name "Genua" (modern Genoa, located near a river mouth) is claimed by Delamarre to derive from PIE *"ǵenu-", "chin(bone)". Many Indo-European languages use 'mouth' to mean the part of a river which meets the sea or a lake, but it is only in Celtic for which reflexes of PIE *"ǵenu-" mean 'mouth'. Besides Genua, which is considered Ligurian (Delamarre 2003, p. 177), this is found also in "Genava" (modern Geneva), which may be Gaulish. However, "Genua" and "Genava" may well derive from another PIE root with the form *"ǵonu-", which means "knee" (so in Pokorny, IEW). Delamarre's second