Operation Pestal

[Art]

There are a lot of major naval battles that don't get a lot of attention. In WWII we all know about the Bismarck Chase or the Battles of Midway and the Coral Sea, but no naval battle in the European Theatre was more important than Operation Pedastal.

Long story short. In the Summer of 1942 it became apparent to the British that the Island of Malta, which was an important Brit base athwart the Axis supply lines to North Africa would fall. It had sustained aerial bombardment heavier than that sustained by London during the "Blitz" and was very effectively blockaded by the Germans and Italians. Without massive resupply, and soon, Malta would fall.

The British mounted a resupply convoy of thirteen fast merchant ships with probably the heaviest escort of any supply convoy in history. The escort included a reinforced aircraft carrier division, a battleship division, a heavy contingent of (mostly) anti aircraft cruisers and a large screen of destroyers. The carriers carried mostly fighters only so you can see what the major threat was seen as. The Axis mounted a maximum effort to prevent the relief effort. The convoy was attacked by submarines, surface craft and air raids in numbers sometimes approaching 100 aircraft of all types. The cost to the Brits was heavy, they lost an aircraft carrier, two light cruisers a destroyer, nine of the merchant ships and 34 aircraft. In addition one carrier, 2 light cruisers and three merchant ships were damaged; but the 55,000 tons of supplies delivered to Malta guaranteed that the island could hold out and defend itself for at least 10 weeks. This played a critical role in the defeat of the Axis in North Africa and later in the invasion of Sicily. In the movie Patton the general says he always wanted to command a lot of men in a desperate battle. No battle was more desperate than Operation Pestal.

The saga of the Texaco Tanker "Ohio" is one of the greatest feats of guts and endurance by any ships crew you'll ever hear of.

The link is for the first of a three part series on the battle through the eyes of the British combatants. I think it is excellent. If you like it just pull up parts 2 and 3 yourselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjL0ZXwAhOI

[free1954]

thanks for the post. man, that island took a pounding.

[blackhawknj]

The decision of the Axis not to attempt the invasion of Malta was one of their biggest mistakes.

[RED]

On July 12, 1970. I was flying in a F-4J off the USS Saratoga. My pilot was a newbie and this was his first night time launch since joining VF-31. We were to be the first to land and we were called early. We had too much fuel and were too heavy to land so we had to dump fuel... I told (suggested) the pilot to hold the dumps until we were on final. Oliver Kendall Power was the pilot. "Ive got 1t," he said. Bottom line he dumped 600 lbs too much. We were waved off for a fouled deck, We went around the pattern and boltered. Our next attempt waved off and we were "bingoed" to the British Airfield on Malta. A Bingo is an emergency.

We flew the bingo profile and contacted Malta approach control. I told them we had a low fuel emergency and were requesting a straight in GCA to the active runway. They replied "Runway XX is closed, there is a aircraft on fire on the runway and it is closed. I asked where is the nearest runway with a 5,000' runway? The answer was, Sigonella Sicily 350 degrees and 300 miles. We had 10 minutes of fuel. The Air Boss told us to head back to the carrier and jump out when the engines quit.

I shut off the radio and told the newbie pilot put this plane on the runway and if it looks like we are going to hit something we will jump out. We stopped 100 feet from the bull dozer that was clearing the runway. Absolutely a true story...

[Art]

The decision of the Axis not to attempt the invasion of Malta was one of their biggest mistakes.

The Germans and Italians thought about it but the defenses of Malta were stout and British naval superiority at the time meant it would have to have been an airborne operation. Memories of extremely heavy casualties suffered by Nazi paratroopers in the invasion of Crete led them to try to starve Malta into surrender instead. They came really close to succeeding!!

[m1ashooter]

great story Red

[Sunray]

There are lots of books about Operation Pedestal. This one might be the easiest to come by.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ope...zzi/1113712453
The Germans didn't invade Malta primarily because they were very busy with invading Russia at the time. Mind you, if they had, it would not had affected anything other than them not being evicted from North Africa. Torch started on 8 Nov. 1942.

[bdm]

Thank You for posting so interesting to watch