Not long after her precious cargo had been removed, the Ohio, the crippled survivor of Operation Pedestal, was towed to another part of the harbour (Rinella Bay). Later she had broken in two at her mooring. Attempts were made to join the two halves, but local facilities proved unable to do the job satisfactorily and the expense of towing the halves miles away to Gibraltar or Alexandria was too great to justify. The Ohio was used as a makeshift store and later fitted out to house Yugoslav troops.

Then on 19 September 1946, her future was decided. The two rust-streaked halves were towed to deep water 10 miles off Malta to where the executioner, a destroyer, was waiting. After the first shots, the rear portion, weakened by the Germans bombs, soon disappeared from sight. But the buoyant forepart refused to sink. Armour-piercing shells blasted the bridgework and the shored up amidships section where she had been struck by a German torpedo. Slowly she sank beneath the waves, her bows pointing skyward in a final farewell. Then she was gone.