Operation Pedestal

10–15 August 1942, Western Mediterranean to Malta

Strategic British success; Malta relieved at heavy cost

Malta had weeks of fuel and food left when fourteen fast merchant ships sailed from Gibraltar with the strongest escort of any Malta convoy: two battleships, three carriers, seven cruisers and more than thirty destroyers. On 11 August U-73 sank Eagle with four torpedoes. Next day waves of Italian and German aircraft hit Indomitable and the destroyer Foresight. As the heavy ships turned back at the Skerki Channel, the Italian submarine Axum hit Nigeria, Cairo and the tanker Ohio with one salvo, and the convoy fell into confusion. That night Italian and German motor torpedo boats off Cape Bon sank Manchester and four merchant ships, and in the morning bombers sank more. An Italian cruiser force sent to finish the convoy was recalled for lack of air cover, and HMS Unbroken torpedoed two of its cruisers on the way home. Five merchant ships reached Malta. The last was Ohio, her back broken, lashed between two destroyers and towed in on 15 August, the Feast of Santa Marija, to crowds on the walls of Grand Harbour. Her fuel kept Malta's aircraft flying through the autumn, when they and its submarines cut Rommel's supplies before El Alamein.