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Operation Pedestal (Italian: Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto, Battle of mid-August), known in Malta as Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija (Santa Maria Convoy), was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War.
Operação Pedestal (italiano: Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto, Batalha de meados de agosto), conhecida em Malta como Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija (Santa Maria Convoy), foi uma operação britânica para transportar suprimentos para a ilha de Malta em agosto de 1942, durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial.
- Background
- Prelude
- First Year
- Aftermath
- See Also
- References
- Further Reading
- External Links
Malta, 1940–1941
Malta, a Mediterranean island of 122 sq mi (320 km2) had been a British colony since 1814. By the 1940s, the island had a population of 275,000 but local farmers could feed only one-third of the population, the deficit being made up by imports. Malta was a staging post on the British Suez Canal sea route to India, East Africa, the oilfields of Iraq and Iran, India and the Far East. The island was also close to the Sicilian Channel between Sicily and Tunis. Malta was also a base for air, sea a...
Central Mediterranean, 1942
Military operations from Malta and using the island as a staging post, led to Axis air campaigns against the island in 1941 and 1942. By late July, the 80 fighters on the island averaged wastage of 17 per week and the remaining aviation fuel was only sufficient for the fighters, making it impractical to send more bombers and torpedo-bombers for offensive operations. Resources available to sustain Malta were reduced when Japan declared war in December 1941, and conducted the Indian Ocean raid...
Battle of the Mediterranean
The Allies waged the Western Desert Campaign (1940–43) in North Africa, against the Axis forces of Italy aided by Germany, which sent the Deutsches Afrika Korps and substantial Luftwaffe detachments to the Mediterranean in late 1940. Up to the end of the year, 21 ships with 160,000 long tons (160,000 t) of cargo reached Malta without loss and a reserve of seven months' supplies had been accumulated. Three convoy operations to Malta in 1941 lost one merchant ship. From January 1941 to August 1...
When Italy declared war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940, the Taranto Naval Squadron did not sail to occupy Malta as suggested by Admiral Carlo Bergamini. With Italian bases in Sicily, British control of Malta was made more difficult from its bases in Gibraltar to the west and Cyprus, Egypt and Palestine to the east, which were much further aw...
July 1940
In the Battle of Calabria (Battaglia di Punta Stilo), Regia Marina escorts (two battleships, 14 cruisers and 32 destroyers) of an Italian convoy engaged the battleships HMS Warspite, Malaya, Royal Sovereign and the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. The British cruisers and destroyers covered two convoys heading from Malta to Alexandria. The first, Malta Fast 1 (MF 1)/Malta East 1 (ME 1), was composed of El Nil, Knight of Malta and Rodi; the second, Malta Slow 1 (MS 1)/ME 1 was composed of Kirkland,...
Analysis
There were 35 large supply operations to Malta from 1940 to 1942. Operations White, Tiger, Halberd, MF5, MG1, Harpoon, Vigorous and Pedestal were turned back or suffered severe losses from Axis forces. There were long periods when no convoy runs were even attempted and only a trickle of supplies reached Malta by submarine or fast warship. The worst period for Malta was from December 1941 to October 1942, when Axis forces had air and naval supremacy in the central Mediterranean.
Casualties
From June 1940 to December 1943, about 1,600 civilians and 700 soldiers were killed on Malta. The RAF lost about 900 men killed, 547 aircraft on operations and 160 on the ground and Royal Navy losses were 1,700 submariners and 2,200 sailors; about 200 merchant navy men died. Of 110 voyages by merchant ships to Malta 79 arrived, three to be sunk soon after reaching the island and one ship was sunk on a return voyage. Six of seven independent sailings failed, three ships being sunk, two were in...
Bonner Fellers - the US military attachéin Egypt whose reports to Washington were being read by the AxisBooks 1. Bartimeus, W. M. (1944). East of Malta, West of Suez. New York/Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 1727304. 2. Castillo, Dennis Angelo (2006). The Maltese Cross: A Strategic History of Malta. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-32329-4. 3. Greene, J.; Massignani, A. (2002) [1998]. The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940–1943 (pbk. ed.). Rochester: Chatham. ...
Books
1. Llewellyn-Jones, M. (2007). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean Convoys: A Naval Staff History (1st ed.). Abingdon: The Whitehall History Publishing Consortium in association with Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-86459-6. 2. Playfair, I. S. O.; et al. (2004a) [1960]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (September 1941 to September 1942). History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. III (Naval & Military Pres...
Journals
1. Caruana, Joseph (2012). "Emergency Victualling of Malta During WWII". Warship International. LXIX (4): 357–364. ISSN 0043-0374. 2. Caruana, Joseph (2006). "Fighters to Malta". Warship International. XLIII (4): 383–393. ISSN 0043-0374. 3. Vego, M. (Winter 2010). "Major Convoy Operation To Malta, 10–15 August 1942 (Operation Pedestal)". Naval War College Review. 63 (1). ISSN 0028-1484. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
Theses
1. Hammond, R. J. (2011). The British Anti-shipping Campaign in the Mediterranean 1940–1944: Comparing Methods of Attack (PhD). registration. University of Exeter. OCLC 798399582. Docket uk.bl.ethos.548977. Retrieved 31 October 2016.
Operation Pedestal was an operation by the British to provide supplies to Malta in 1942 during World War II in order to attack Axis forces in North Africa. During the summer of 1942 the British Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was increasingly concerned with fighter direction in multi-carrier operations.
Hastily, the British Admiralty planned a desperate attempt to beat Lord Gort’s deadline and save Malta—a large relief convoy code-named Operation Pedestal. It would be the most powerful convoy yet attempted, with a heavy fleet escort of battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers shepherding 13 merchant ships and a tanker.
In August 1942 operation 'Pedestal' was launched in a desperate last attempt to relieve the island. The largest, the most expensive and, possibly, the most important of all the Malta convoys.
13 de ago. de 2023 · Operation Pedestal: facts and figures about those fateful days in August 1942. When the Santa Marija Convoy arrived in Malta, the island was only three weeks away from a secret surrender date....
