Pedestal - Peter C. Smith

In the summer of 1942 one of the main issues in the balance was the fate of Malta. The island was still a bastion of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean and a constant threat to the supply route for the enemy land forces in North Africa. It bravely resisted every onslaught of the Axis powers, but by the middle of 1942, food supplies were desperately short and fuel oil was running low. In August of that year Operation Pedestal was launched, a last attempt to relieve Malta. Fourteen merchant ships were allocated to it and the Royal Navy provided the most powerful force ever to escort a convoy including four aircraft carriers. Operating from bases in Sardinia and Sicily, the Germans and Italians let fly with their shore-based aircraft on an unprecedented scale. The losses on the British side were sever with more than 500 Merchant and Royal Navy sailors and airmen killed. Whilst only five of the fourteen merchant ships reached the sanctuary of Malta's Grand Harbour, these included the oil tanker Ohio. Its cargo of aviation fuel revitalised the Maltese air offensive against Axis shipping. While costly for the Allies, Operation Pedestal was a strategic victory and justified the decision to hazard so many warships; This is a reissue of a classic account of this engagement, whose outcome was crucial to Allied success in the Mediterranean theatre in World War 2.