Operation Pedestal orders of battle

Operation Pedestal was a British convoy operation to supply the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War. This article lists the ships and aircraft involved in the convoy and those of the Axis forces that opposed it.

From 1940 to 1942, the Axis besieged Malta in what became known as the Siege of Malta (1940). The island was a crucial base for the British in the Mediterranean theatre of the war and could not produce sufficient foodstuffs for the population and the garrison without regular deliveries by ship of food, medicines, equipment and military stores. The island ceased to be an offensive base for much of 1942 and the failure of Operation Harpoon (12–15 June 1942 ) left Malta so short of supplies that its surrender was calculated in weeks. Pedestal was a maximum effort to supply Malta in which ships from the Home Fleet were dispatched to Gibraltar to reinforce Force H, for the convoy and for Operation Torch. The next scheduled Arctic convoy, Convoy PQ 19, was cancelled for lack escorts that had been diverted for Pedestal.

The convoy sailed from Britain on 3 August 1942 and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on the night of 9/10 August. Enough supplies were delivered for the population and the garrison on Malta to resume offensive operations. Fuel was carried by the US tanker Ohio, crewed by a British sailors, that reached Malta after an epic voyage, towed for much of the last leg by destroyers. Ohio sank in harbour but most of its fuel was recovered. The Axis attempt to prevent the convoy reaching Malta, with bombers, German E-boats, Italian MAS and MS boats, minefields and submarine ambushes, was their last sizeable success in the Mediterranean. More than 500 Merchant Navy and Royal Navy sailors and airmen were killed, nine of the thirteen merchant ships were sunk and the tanker Ohio was severely damaged.

Pedestal was a costly strategic victory for the British. The arrival of Ohio justified the risks taken because its cargo of aviation fuel revitalised the Maltese air offensive against Axis shipping. Submarines and torpedo-bombers returned to Malta and Spitfire fighters flown from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious enabled a maximum effort to be made against Axis ships. Italian convoys had to detour further away from the island, lengthening the journey and increasing the time during which air and naval attacks could be mounted. The Siege of Malta was broken by the Allied re-conquest of Egypt and Libya after the Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November) and by Operation Torch (8–16 November) in the western Mediterranean, which enabled land-based aircraft to escort merchant ships to the island.