An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 31 it was not a German priority. In a conference with Admiral Raeder on 15th June, Hitler acknowledged the operation's importance but proceed to list all the reasons making it infeasible, including the Eastern Front situa- tion, a lack of transport planes, and distrust of the ability of the Italian armed forces to execute such a complex operation. Also he was wary of having his airborne forces, care- fully rebuilt after suffering huge losses in Crete the previous year, squandered in an operation he felt was unlikely to succeed. Rommel's sea supply lines had been tempo- rarily secured and he insisted the priority should be the conquest of Egypt and the Suez Canal and not Malta, as such an invasion would take away supplies from his offensive, launched on 26th May and which had captured Tobruk on 21st June. Accordingly, Hitler decided to suspend Operation Herkules and give Rommel permission to proceed into Egypt, despite the risk of allowing Malta to once again become a threat to seaborne supply lines. By the end of June 1942 all serious Axis planning for an invasion of Malta abruptly ceased, bringing an effective end to the Axis campaign of aerial denial over Malta. The RAF responded by step- ping up attacks on Axis supply convoys to North Africa. In June/July, although more Spitfires arrived, as did Air Vice Marshall Sir Keith Park to overhaul RAF tactics, resupply convoys were still being heavily interdicted, the population was starving, and the garrison was almost out of combat supplies, including aviation fuel. The island was saved by Operation Pedestal (10th to 15th August) which saw a heavily escorted resupply convoy of 15 merchant ships and two oil tankers attempt to reach the belea- guered island. The convoy was attacked by all available German and Italian naval and air assets and only five ships reached port. Crucially, however, amongst these, although badly-damaged, was the tanker SS Ohio. As a result, by October 1942 the RAF had regained air superiority over Malta and by November convoys started arriving at the island unopposed. Malta suffered over 9,000 civilian and military deaths in 3,343 air raids, the last of which occurred on 20th July 1943, and about 30,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Meanwhile, Malta- based submarines had sunk 390,600 tonnes of Axis shipping. There were two rea- sons why the Axis failed to effectively neutralise and later occupy Malta during the two-year campaign. First, the Re- gia Aeronautica alone was unable to conduct an effective aerial denial campaign against the island. It was not ready for war, didn't have enough suitable aircraft, and also had to fight in Greece and North Africa. Second, Hitler didn't allow the Luftwaffe to mount an effective aerial denial campaign, even thought it had the aircraft and tactics necessary to gain air superiority over the central Mediterranean - in both the spring of 1941 and the spring of 1942 it proved it could neutralise Malta's aerial and naval of- fensive capabilities. The Italian attacks were mostly ineffective because they bombed from too great a height, 15,000 feet, and used 100kg bombs which did little damage to runways. By contrast, the Luft- waffe attacked the British airfields and installations from a similar altitude but used 250kg, 500kg and 1,000kg bombs. The Luftwaffe in Sicily acted as an emergency firefighter for the struggling Italian war effort, and Hitler ignored the strategic importance of Malta to the Mediterranean theatre. His refusal to commit to an invasion allowed the island and the forces based there to play an important role in the final defeat of the Axis pow- ers in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Peter Mulready has an MA in military history and is a council member of the Military History Society of Ireland.

• Cover