Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta, 1942

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At 1.15pm on August 11, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (Captain: L.D. Macintosh) was torpedoed by three or four torpedoes by the German U-boat U-73, captained by Kapitän Leutenant Helmut Rosembaum, and sank within eight minutes. Out of a crew of 1,100, there were 160 fatal casualties plus the loss of all the aircraft bar four. Hooton, E. R. (2010) [1997]. Eagle in Flames: Defeat of the Luftwaffe. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1-85409-343-1. At 1.20am on August 13, the cruiser HMS Manchester (Captain H. Drew) was torpedoed and remained immobile. It was scuttled later at 5.50am. There were 11 fatal casualties – 484 men were taken on board British ships while 525 reached the Algerian shore and were interned by the Vichy French.

Motor Vessel WAIRANGI built by Harland & Wolff LTD. In 1935 for Shaw, Savill & Albion Co. LTD., Southampton, Refrigerated Cargo". The aircraft carrier HMS Victorious suffered eight fatal casualties, and all its air crew were lost in action. In the same action, the anti-aircraft ship HMS Cairo (A/Captain C.C. Hardy) was hit by two torpedoes fired by a German U-boat and had its stern blown off. There were 25 fatal casualties but the rest of the crew were taken off and the ship was sunk by gunfire by the destroyer HMS Pathfinder (Commander E.A. Gibbs). Pearson, Michael (2004). The Ohio and Malta: The Legendary Tanker That Refused to Die. Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84415-031-1. a.m.: With HMS Penn and HMS Bramham edging Ohio along the shore, HMS Ledbury lends its power to shove the tanker’s bow to make the turns off Delimara and Żonqor Points.Brian Crabb details all the ships involved in WS21S, the journey down to Gibraltar, and gives an exciting account of the desperate race through the Mediterranean, highlighted with accounts from those that took part. It is, as I have said, a story with every element one could wish for and laid out in fine style in this excellent book. Latimer, Jon (2003) [2002]. Alamein. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01016-1.

On August 10 the convoy was spotted by Axis aircraft that alerted U-boat Command. Eagle had escaped an Italian submarine in July, but on August 11, south of Majorca, U-73 slipped past the destroyer screen and fired a devastating spread of torpedoes. All four slammed into Eagle’s twenty-four-year-old hull, sending her down in less than eight minutes. Destroyers rescued 1,160 men of 1,291 aboard. The British escort was formidable enough, but opposing them there were 18 Italian and two German submarines, 19 motor torpedo-boats, six cruisers, 11 destroyers and a total of 540 serviceable aircraft based on Sicilian and Sardinian airfields. 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, three on Kenya. Merchant Navy casualties were 83 on Waimarama, eighteen on Clan Ferguson, 7 on Glenorchy, 5 on Melbourne Star, 4 on Santa Elisa, 1 on Deucalion, 1 on Ohio and 1 on Brisbane Star. [98] In 2010, Milan Vego wrote that about 350 men had been killed, Ohio never sailed again and the British lost a 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 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 S58 were damaged. [64] And so, he was taken out to the Ohio where he had to scramble up onto the ship via a scramble-net - though he likely didn't have too far to clamber up: the tanker by then was just 15 centimetres above the water line. Between all this, and a huge number of contemporary photographs and later paintings, it's probably safe to say that this book will be the last word on this incredible and heroic episode for many years, and probably decades, to come.The Axis command structure in the Mediterranean was centralised at the top and fragmented at the lower levels. Benito Mussolini had monopolised authority over the Italian armed forces since 1933 by taking the offices of Minister of War, Minister of the Navy and Minister of the Air Force. Feldmarschall Albert Kesselring of the Luftwaffe commanded German ground forces in the theatre as Commander-in-Chief South ( Oberbefehlshaber Süd, OB Süd) but had no authority over Axis operations in North Africa or the organisation of convoys to Libya. Fliegerkorps II and Fliegerkorps X were subordinate to the usual Luftwaffe chain of command. Since November 1941, Kesselring had exercised some influence over the conduct of German naval operations in the Mediterranean as the nominal head of Naval Command Italy ( Marinekommando Italien) but this was subordinate to the Kriegsmarine chain of command. German inter-service rivalries obstructed co-operation and there was little unity of effort between German and the Italian forces in the Mediterranean. Kesselring had authority only to co-ordinate plans for combined operations by German and Italian forces and some influence on the use of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) for the protection of convoys to North Africa. The Italian Navy resisted all German attempts to integrate its operations; ships in different squadrons never trained together and Supermarina (Italian Naval High Command) constantly over-ruled subordinate commanders. [11] Prelude [ edit ] Allied plans [ edit ] Operation Pedestal [ edit ] Rear-Admiral Harold Burrough, CB, who commanded the close escort, shaking hands with Captain Dudley Mason of Ohio