Max Hastings - Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled to Malta, 1942

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2021

Copyright Max Hastings 2021

Cover: the tanker Ohio is torpedoed on 12 August 1942 IWM

Maps by Martin Brown

Max Hastings asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008364946

Ebook Edition May 2021 ISBN: 9780008364960

Version: 2021-04-08

For Nick Carter,

Britains best chief of defence staff

thus far in this troubled century

When this war is a misty memory in the minds of old men, they will still talk of the convoy for Malta which entered the Mediterranean in August 1942.

Norman Smart, a war correspondent accompanying the Pedestal fleet

Winston Churchill and Dudley Pound (Imperial War Museum/A16717)

Maltas opera house (Imperial War Museum/A8379)

Lord Gort on bicycle (Imperial War Museum/CM1367)

Keith Park (Imperial War Museum/CM2068)

Neville Syfret (Imperial War Museum/A14163)

Harold Burrough briefing aboard Nigeria (Imperial War Museum/A11249)

Burrough in conversation with Drew of Manchester (Imperial War Museum/A11250)

Burrough talking to Wren of Rochester Castle (Imperial War Museum/A11248)

An Italian aerial reconnaissance shot (Imperial War Museum/HU43467)

Tom Troubridge (Imperial War Museum/A1103)

Indomitable (Charles E. Brown/Royal Air Force Museum/Getty Images)

Men look through a U-boat periscope (ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Men making repairs in a U-boat (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Helmut Rosenbaum (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Kenya (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Eagle survivors transfer to a destroyer (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Eagle crew are filmed for propaganda (Imperial War Museum/GM1422)

Lachlan Mackintosh (Imperial War Museum/A26912)

Kesselring with Rommel (Keystone/Getty Images)

Alberto da Zara with Wallis Spencer

Giacomo Metellini

German Ju88s in flight (Imperial War Museum/MH6115)

An Italian Sparrowhawk torpedo-bomber (Imperial War Museum/HU43447)

Ju87s in flight (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A depth-charge exploding (Imperial War Museum/A14362)

A rating making a signal (Imperial War Museum/A11181)

Cobalto moments before sinking (Imperial War Museum/HU53129)

Survivors on Ithuriel (Imperial War Museum/A11414)

The crew of Wolverine (Imperial War Museum/A12424)

Rearming a Hurricane (Imperial War Museum/A11164)

Harold Burrough on his bridge (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Carriers in line with an Albacore in the foreground (Imperial War Museum/A11293)

Hugh Popham

Dickie Cork (Imperial War Museum/A11271)

Rodney Carver (Imperial War Museum/A11281)

Mike Crosley (courtesy of Joan Crosley)

Pilot smoking (Imperial War Museum/A11280)

Pilot with helmet and goggles (Imperial War Museum/A11277)

Martlet landing on Indomitable (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

An Oerlikon cannon being fired (Imperial War Museum/A8204)

Crew with a 2-pounder multiple pom-pom (Imperial War Museum/A11180)

Alastair Mars (Imperial War Museum/A14520)

Vincenzo Costantino (courtesy of the Costantino family)

Muzio Attendolo (Imperial War Museum/HU2288)

Bolzano (Imperial War Museum/HU52344)

A group on the bridge of Furious (Imperial War Museum/A7835)

A warship engine-room (Imperial War Museum/A11900)

A bomb near-misses Glenorchy (Imperial War Museum/A11171)

A merchant vessels wheelhouse (Imperial War Museum/A11268)

Freddie Treves (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Fred Jewett (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Anthony Kimmins (Imperial War Museum/A30528)

Richard Onslow (Imperial War Museum/A7971)

Syfret on bridge (Imperial War Museum/UK7425)

Charlie Walker

Giorgio Manuti

Nigeria after a torpedo attack (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Renato Ferrini (courtesy of Giancarlo Garello)

A battle scene featuring Brisbane Star and Wairangi (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Kenya being near-missed by bombs (Imperial War Museum/HU53130)

Fiji firing her armament by night (Imperial War Museum/A11247)

Captain Drew of Manchester (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Italian torpedo boat (Imperial War Museum/HU43228)

An Italian Sparrowhawk plunging towards the sea (Imperial War Museum/FLM3795)

Dorset hit by air attacks (Imperial War Museum/A11173)

Fred and Minda Larsen (Larsen family collection)

Fred Larsen and Lonnie Dales (Larsen family collection)

Gerhart Suppiger

Fred Riley

David MacFarlane (Imperial War Museum/GM1699)

Dudley Mason (Imperial War Museum/HU43092)

Richard Wren

Ledbury (Imperial War Museum/A30687)

Harold Burrough on his bridge (Imperial War Museum/UKY425)

Alf Russell (courtesy of Brian Crabb)

Eddie Baines and Milford Haven (Imperial War Museum/HU70699)

Ohio is hit (Imperial War Museum/HU47560)

Bramham stands by Deucalion (Imperial War Museum/A11188)

Ohio completes her last voyage (Imperial War Museum/GM1480)

Melbourne Star returns to Grand Harbour (Imperial War Museum/GM1429)

Survivors disembark from Ledbury (Imperial War Museum/GM1483)

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.

On 10 August 1942, the largest fleet the Royal Navy had committed to action since Jutland in 1916 entered the Mediterranean to fight a four-day battle that became an epic of courage, determination and sacrifice. The objective of Operation Pedestal was to pass through to beleaguered Malta fourteen merchant vessels. Their ordeal, together with that of the fifty-odd ships of their protective naval force, deserves to be much better known to posterity than it is. Neglect stems chiefly from the fact that at the heart of Pedestal was a convoy. The word conjures up images of lumbering merchantmen, escorted by a handful of destroyers and corvettes. Yet this action engaged on the British side two battleships, four aircraft-carriers, seven cruisers and thirty-two destroyers, together with a hundred naval and RAF aircraft, eight submarines, two minesweepers and a bevy of smaller craft, almost all the survivors of which came home with gun barrels worn out, ammunition almost exhausted, men absolutely so. A separate book could be written about the experiences of every ships company through those August days. No comparable British naval force would be sent into action again, save for bombardment support of invasions, and the Pacific Fleet in the dying days of the war. Meanwhile, against Pedestal Germany and Italy deployed more than six hundred aircraft, twenty-one submarines and two score torpedo-boats. The best of the Italian battlefleet put to sea.