Although two large convoys arrived in Malta in July and September 1941, it was important to keep the island supplied as World War II entered its third year.
An enemy aircraft dropped 12 bombs on Victoria, killing a 22-year-old woman- Charles Debono
Submarines operating the ‘Magic Carpet Service to Malta’ brought reinforcements too, but they were not enough. Royal Navy ships too brought personnel and stores. Even unescorted merchant ships were used, until two of them were discovered by the Italians and were sunk.
However, by November 1941, the situation in Malta was stable, and there were plenty of Hurricanes and pilots, adequate supplies of fuel, ammunition and food.
Only the Regia Aeronautica, the Italian air force, was carrying attacks on the island, but by mid-November they resorted to night-time raids.
At the same time, Wellingtons, Blenheims, Swordfish, Marylands and Beaufighters attacked ports and airfields in Sicily and North Africa. In November 1941 alone 63 per cent of all cargo intended for General Rommel’s Afrika Korps in Libya was lost, mainly to Force K, the RAF bombers and FAA torpedo-bombers. However, both suffered losses in these attacks.
Meanwhile, General Auchinleck of the British Eighth Army was ready for another offensive against Rommel, and launched Operation Crusader on November 18. The Eighth Army succeeded in relieving the siege of Tobruk, which had been cut off in the German advance into Egypt, and prompted Rommel to withdraw his army to the defensive line at Gazala, west of Tobruk, and then all the way back to El Agheila on December 30, 1941.
With the involvement of the German U-boats in the Mediterranean, the Royal Navy started losing many ships. Two such losses occurred on November 13, when U-81 torpedoed the aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal, after it had delivered 37 Hurricanes to Malta. Ark Royal sank the next day only 25 miles off Gibraltar, with the loss of only one member of the crew.
However, the heaviest naval loss was the sinking of HMS Barham in the eastern Mediterranean on November 25 by U-331. The escorting destroyers picked up 450 survivors, but 55 officers and 806 men were lost, including 19 of the 36 Maltese ratings on board serving as cooks and stewards.
The naval losses sustained during the following month meant that Force K, Malta’s striking force, could no longer attack Axis convoys from Italy to Libya.
HMS Neptune and HMS Kandahar, which formed part of Force K, were ordered to sail from Malta to intercept an Italian convoy. However, during the night of December 19, when 20 nautical miles east of Tripoli, Neptune, leading the British column, hit first one mine, then others. Even HMS Kandahar, which attempted to tow Neptune, hit a mine.
Both Neptune and Kandahar sank, and when HMS Jaguar was sent to the rescue from Malta, a total of eight officers and 170 crew were pulled out, but 73 men had perished. According to the book, With all Modesty: The veterans’ Tales of the Battle of Malta, edited by C.A. Pomeroy, only one survivor, Leading Seaman Norman Walton from HMS Neptune, was found by an Italian torpedo boat on December 24. A decision by the commanding officer of Able Seaman Norman Stewart saved his life:
“On December 1941 on HMS Neptune I was called to see my commanding officer who told me that I was leaving the ship to get passage for some leave as I had not been back to England for three years and was the longest-serving member on HMS Neptune… I left HMS Neptune three hours before she sailed off with other units in Force K in an attempt to intercept an Italian convoy on its way south to Tripoli.
“As she closed the enemy convoy in the early hours of December 19 she hit a mine in an Italian-laid minefield; then coming out astern she hit another three mines and sank with a very high loss of life. The destroyer HMS Kandahar went in to pick up the survivors, but she too hit two mines herself and lost 73 men and then, her stern having been blown off, had to be sunk by HMS Jaguar some 24 hours later.
HMS Neptune lost 764 men. There remained only one survivor, a seaman named Norman Walton; five other survivors who were clinging to the raft, died in the dark and very rough seas. Seaman Walton was picked up by an Italian ship and held prisoner in Italy for the rest of the war…”
As Axis shipping losses continued to mount, in October 1941 Hitler intervened and ordered the transfer of Luftflotte II from the Russian front to Italy. The Italian High Command agreed with the German plans to transfer their units to Sicily by December 1941. On December 2 Hitler appointed Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Commander-in-Chief, Southern Area, comprising Fliegerkorps II in Sicily, Fliegerkorps X in Greece and Fliegerführer Afrika in Libya. General der Flieger Bruno Lorzer took over as commander of Fliegerkorps II when the headquarters started to function at Messina at the end of December. As the Regia Aeronautica had to vacate a number of airfields in Sicily to be used by Fliegerkorps II, its units on the island became fewer, as a number of them were transferred to Italy or North Africa.
The first Luftwaffe sortie against Malta occurred on December 3, when an armed reconnaissance Junkers Ju 88 flew over the island. Its first daytime appearance over Malta happened during the morning of December 19.
Christmas Eve 1941 brought four alerts. Although several bombs had already been dropped on Gozo in the previous months, it was only that day (December 24) that the island suffered its first casualties, when an enemy aircraft dropped 12 bombs on Victoria, killing a 22-year-old woman and injuring others.
This was the 25th raid in seven days, indicative of the level of activity following the arrival of the German air force. Charles Grech remembers the atmosphere of that particular day: “Christmas Eve 1941 was a Wednesday. I asked Father to borrow the statue of the baby Jesus which he usually set up in the dining room. I also asked him for the festoons and the electric bulbs with which we used to decorate the Christmas tree. Father carefully brought out the statue of baby Jesus from the straw-lined box, where he kept it throughout the year.
“He offered: ‘Let me set it up for you myself.’ We went down into the shelter and Father got down to putting up the Christmas decorations and hanging coloured festoons from the ceiling, in one of the four compartments of the shelter. There was a niche in one of the walls, with a figure of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and we placed the baby Jesus in it…”
The last combat of 1941 occurred during the morning of December 30, when five Junkers Ju 88 headed for Luqa and Ta’ Qali airfields and the Dockyard, where one aircraft was shot down. Just three minutes before midnight of December 31, a single Junkers Ju 88 appeared over Ta’ Qali airfield in bright moonlight and carried out half a dozen strafing attacks.
The air raid alerts continued to increase in November 1941 (76 alerts), and with the arrival of the Luftwaffe in Sicily more than doubled (169 alerts). According to Royal Artillery statistics, during November 1941 the Regia Aeronautica dropped 219 tons of bombs on Malta, while with the arrival of the Luftwaffe the following month this rose to 559 tons.
To be concluded
Mr Debono is the curator of the National War Museum.