¹ — Involved an Allied convoy or delivery mission
² — Involved an Axis convoy or delivery mission
Operation Pedestal was a British convoy operation to supply the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. This article lists the ships and aircraft involved in the convoy and those of the Axis forces that opposed it.
From 1940 to 1942, the Axis besieged Malta in what became known as the Siege of Malta (1940). The island was a crucial base for the British in the Mediterranean theatre of the war and could not produce sufficient foodstuffs for the population and the garrison without regular deliveries by ship of food, medicines, equipment and military stores. The island ceased to be an offensive base for much of 1942 and the failure of Operation Harpoon (12–15 June 1942 ) left Malta so short of supplies that its surrender was calculated in weeks. Pedestal was a maximum effort to supply Malta in which ships from the Home Fleet were dispatched to Gibraltar to reinforce Force H, for the convoy and for Operation Torch. The next scheduled Arctic convoy, Convoy PQ 19, was cancelled for lack escorts that had been diverted for Pedestal.[2]
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. Enough supplies were delivered for the population and the garrison on Malta to resume offensive operations. Fuel was carried by the US tanker Ohio, crewed by a British sailors, that reached Malta after an epic voyage, towed for much of the last leg by destroyers. Ohio sank in harbour but most of its fuel was recovered.[3] The Axis attempt to prevent the convoy reaching Malta, with bombers, German E-boats, Italian MAS and MS boats, minefields and submarine ambushes, was their last sizeable success in the Mediterranean.[4] More than 500 Merchant Navy and Royal Navy sailors and airmen were killed, nine of the thirteen merchant ships were sunk and the tanker Ohio was severely damaged.[5]
Pedestal was a costly strategic victory for the British. The arrival of Ohio justified the risks taken because its cargo of aviation fuel revitalised the Maltese air offensive against Axis shipping.[6] Submarines and torpedo-bombers returned to Malta and Spitfire fighters 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 re-conquest 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.[6]
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 29,000 long tons (32,000 short tons) 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 GeneraleGiuseppe 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".[39]
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,
.... To the continental observer, the British losses seemed to represent a big victory for the Axis, but in reality the facts were quite different, since it had not been possible to prevent a British force, among which were five merchant vessels, from reaching Valetta.... Thanks to these new supplies Malta was now capable of fighting for several weeks, or, at a pinch, for several months. The main issue, the danger of air attack on the supply route to North Africa, remained. To achieve this objective no price was too high, and from this point of view the British operation, in spite of all the losses, was not a defeat, but a strategical failure of the first order by the Axis, the repercussions of which will one day be felt...
In 1994, James Sadkovich wrote that Operation Pedestal was a tactical disaster for the British and that it was of a magnitude comparable to the German attack on Convoy PQ 17 about a month earlier.[41] In 2000, Richard Woodman called Operation Pedestal a strategic victory, raising the morale of the people and garrison of Malta, averting famine and an inevitable surrender.[42] In 2002, Giorgio Giorgerini wrote that the operation was an Italian success; Italian submarines had adopted more offensive tactics and sunk a cruiser and two merchantmen, damaged two cruisers and the tanker Ohio.[43] In 2002, Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani called the convoy operation the last Axis victory in the Mediterranean but that it was a tactical not a strategic success. The arrival of Ohio justified the convoy despite the loss of nine of the merchant ships (one in Valletta harbour). Axis shipping had been suspended during the operation, partly because the transport Ogaden had been sunk off Derna on 12 August, by HMS Porpoise and after Ohio arrived, Axis ships had to make longer journeys. On 15 August, Lerici was also sunk by Porpoise and on 17 August, Pilo was sunk by aircraft and the tanker Pozarica was sunk on 21 August.[44]
In 2003, Ian Malcolm listed 160 men killed on Eagle, 132 on Manchester, 52 on Nigeria, 50 on Indomitable, 24 on Cairo, five on Foresight and three men on Kenya. Merchant Navy casualties were 83 on Waimarama, eighteen on Clan Ferguson, seven on Glenorchy, five on Melbourne Star, four on Santa Elisa, one each on Deucalion, Ohio and Brisbane Star.[5]Ohio never sailed again and the British lost the carrier Eagle, the cruisers Manchester and Cairo and the destroyer Foresight. The carrier Indomitable, the cruisers Nigeria and Kenya and three destroyers were damaged and under repair for some time. On the Axis side, the Italian cruisers Bolzano and Muzio Attendolo were damaged and were not operational for the rest of the war, the Italian submarines Cobalto and Dagabur were sunk, the Italian submarine Giada and the German E-Boat S 58 were damaged.[45]
Fliegerkorps II sent 650 sorties against Pedestal from 11 to 14 August and claimed twelve aircraft shot down for eighteen losses. Total Axis losses were 62 aircraft, 42 Italian and 19 German, including losses on the ground and those shot down by their own side. Royal Navy gunners and FAA fighters claimed 74 aircraft shot down, against post-war data that they destroyed 42 Axis aircraft, 26 from the Regia Aeronautica and 16 Luftwaffe aircraft.[4] The FAA lost 13 aircraft on operations and 16 Sea Hurricanes when Eagle was sunk, the RAF lost a Beaufighter, five Spitfires and a Sunderland was shot down by Giada. The Allies could not risk such losses again and another large convoy to Malta was not attempted until November 1942, when the re-capture of airfields in Egypt and Libya after the Second Battle of El Alamein made it much easier to provide land-based air cover.[45][d]
^In 1956, the official history gave FAA losses of 13 aircraft in action and 16 when Eagle was sunk, the RAF lost five aircraft and 35 Axis aircraft were shot down, including losses over Malta.[46]
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