Operation Harpoon and the Battle of Pantelleria

14–16 June 1942, Central Mediterranean, south of Pantelleria and off Malta

Italian victory; two of six merchant ships reached Malta

By June 1942 Malta was close to starving, and two convoys were sent at once: Vigorous from Alexandria and Harpoon from Gibraltar, six merchant ships with a close escort, Force X, under Captain Cecil Hardy in the anti-aircraft cruiser Cairo. On 14 June, south of Sardinia, Italian torpedo bombers sank the Dutch freighter Tanimbar and torpedoed the cruiser Liverpool, and the heavy cover turned back at the Sicilian Narrows as planned. At dawn on 15 June, south of Pantelleria, Rear Admiral Alberto da Zara came out of Palermo with two light cruisers and five destroyers. Hardy's fleet destroyers charged them through the smoke; Bedouin and Partridge were stopped by 6-inch shells and the Italian destroyer Vivaldi was set on fire. While the warships fought, German and Italian aircraft sank Chant and crippled Kentucky and Burdwan, which the escorts left behind and da Zara's ships finished off. Bedouin, under tow, was sunk by an Italian torpedo bomber that she shot down as she went. That night the convoy ran onto a minefield off Grand Harbour: the Polish destroyer Kujawiak, going to help Badsworth, struck a mine and sank. Only Troilus and Orari reached Malta, and Vigorous had turned back; it was the Regia Marina's clearest victory of the war.