Operation Pedestal
Operation Pedestal (Italian: Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto, Battle of mid-August), known in Malta as Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija (Santa Maria Convoy), was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War.[a]
Malta was a base from which British ships, submarines and aircraft attacked Axis convoys to Libya, during the North African Campaign (1940–1943). From 1940 to 1942, the Axis conducted the Siege of Malta, with air and naval forces. Despite many losses, enough supplies were delivered by the British for the population and military forces on Malta to resist, although it ceased to be an offensive base for much of 1942. The most crucial supply item in Operation Pedestal was fuel, carried by Ohio, an American-owned tanker with a British crew. The convoy sailed from Britain on 3 August 1942 and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on the night of 9/10 August.
The Axis attempt to prevent the fifty ships of the convoy reaching Malta, using bombers, German E-boats, Italian MAS and MS boats, minefields and submarine ambushes, was the last sizeable Axis success in the Mediterranean. More than 500 Merchant and Royal Navy sailors and airmen were killed and only five of the fourteen merchant ships reached Grand Harbour. While costly for the Allies, it was a strategic victory; the arrival of Ohio justified the decision to hazard so many warships; its cargo of aviation fuel revitalised the Maltese air offensive against Axis shipping. Submarines returned to Malta and Supermarine Spitfires flown from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious enabled a maximum effort to be made against Axis ships. Italian convoys had to detour further away from the island, lengthening the journey and increasing the time during which air and naval attacks could be mounted.
The Siege of Malta was broken by the Allied reconquest of Egypt and Libya after the Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November) and by Operation Torch (8–16 November) in the western Mediterranean, which enabled land-based aircraft to escort merchant ships to the island.
Aftermath[edit]
Analysis[edit]
German reports on 17 August claimed that all the tankers in the recent Mediterranean convoy had been sunk and none of the transports had reached their destination (assumed to be Egypt). The Allies had lost thirteen vessels, including nine merchantmen, one aircraft carrier (Eagle), two cruisers (Manchester and Cairo) and a destroyer (Foresight) but the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy had saved Malta. The arrival of about 32,000 short tons (29,000 t) of general cargo, together with petrol, oil fuel, kerosene and diesel fuel, was enough to give the island about ten weeks' supply beyond the few weeks that the existing stocks would last. Axis propaganda broadcasts made extravagant claims but a Kriegsmarine report noted the incomplete and contradictory evidence, allowing only a provisional conclusion. The arrival of four merchant ships and a tanker was unsatisfactory, because the revival of Malta as an offensive base would affect Axis supply routes in what might be the "decisive phase of the struggle for North Africa". Supermarina reached the same conclusion and Generale Giuseppe Santoro, deputy chief of staff of the Regia Aeronautica, wrote that the British had achieved a strategic success by bringing Malta back into action "in the final phase of the struggle in Egypt".[93]
In August, with Malta still besieged, 35 per cent of Axis convoy shipping to North Africa was lost. Later that year, Admiral Eberhard Weichold summed up the Kriegsmarine view,
Commemoration[edit]
In recognition of their fortitude during the siege and air attacks during all of the Mediterranean campaign, Malta was awarded the George Cross in the months immediately preceding this operation. Syfret was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for his "bravery and dauntless resolution in fighting an important convoy through to Malta in the face of relentless attacks by day and night from enemy submarines, aircraft, and surface forces".[104] The master of the tanker Ohio, Dudley Mason, was awarded the George Cross for showing "skill and courage of the highest order and it was due to his determination that, in spite of the most persistent enemy opposition, the vessel, with her valuable cargo, eventually reached Malta and was safely berthed".[104] Several other men of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy, including the commander of Ledbury, Roger Hill, received military awards ranging from the Distinguished Service Order and Conspicuous Gallantry Medal to Mentioned in Despatches, for the bravery shown in ferrying the merchantmen to Malta.[104][105][106] The United States' Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal was awarded to Junior Third Officer Frederick August Larsen, Jr. and to Cadet-Midshipman, US Merchant Marine Academy, Francis A. Dales for "Heroism beyond the call of duty" for their conduct aboard the Santa Elisa and Ohio.[107] Operation Pedestal was the subject of a 1953 black and white British film, Malta Story, that interspersed archive footage of Ohio with scripted studio scenes.[108]
See also[edit]
Books
Theses
Websites