“At 08.00 on 15 August 1942, the feast of Santa Marija, the broken-backed and almost derelict hulk of Ohio made the tight turn inside the mole, rounded Ricasoli Point and headed up Grand Harbour. It was a sublime moment. The stupefied men were greeted by crowds, ‘cheering like mad’, lining the ramparts and bastions while bands played God Save the King, The Star-Spangled Banner and Rule Brittania! in an emotional, competing din of noise… along the shore, Maltese children shouted, ‘We want food, not oil!’”

‒ Richard Woodman, Malta Convoys 1940-1943

As the surviving ships of Operation Pedestal ‒ better known as the Santa Marija Convoy ‒ were entering Grand Harbour, the seamen were met by the above contradictory messages. Most people on the island were experiencing hunger, yet, the scene of the five merchant ships and a tanker entering port boosted the morale of the Maltese civilians and the military garrison. The survivors of the convoy were subsequently very well received by the Maltese.

Praising and welcoming the survivors

The arrival of the ships led the British press to praise the merchant and royal navies on their achievement, even though the losses were high. The masters and the crews were warmly welcomed by the Maltese population.  Governor Lord Gort received them at San Anton Palace and they were entertained by several clubs, institutions and private families.

The masters and officers of the five merchant ships were invited to a luncheon at the Casino Maltese on September 4 and, five days later, the business and mercantile community of Malta held a function at the Roxy Theatre, in Birkirkara during which the masters were presented with a silver model of a Gozo boat and a silver watch inscribed ‘For Valour and Devotion to Duty, Malta Convoy, August 1942’.

The officers were offered temporary membership of the exclusive Union clubs in Valletta and Sliema while the Vernon, Toc H, the Knights of St Columba Hostel, Under Twenty, Connaught Home and Salvation Army placed all their facilities at the disposal of the ratings.

The Raffians gave a special performance in their honour at the Manoel Theatre, in Valletta, by courtesy of Captain Godfrey Car­uana. The management of the thea­tre and nearly all cinemas on the island offered them a large number of complimentary tickets.

A simple gesture of appreciation, which drew the admiration of the command welfare officer, was that made by G.M. Bonello, a barber from St Julian’s, who gave his services for free to all the men accommodated at the Toc H and in the vicinity.

On August 21, 1942, the Times of Malta launched the ‘Malta Convoy Fund’ for the dependents of seamen who had lost their life in Operation Pedestal. Subscriptions, big and small, poured in from every town and village, regiment and platoon.

When the fund closed on October 12, Joseph Cassar, honorary treasurer of the Anglo-Maltese League, received the sum of £7,525.15. Following consultations between the sponsors and the British Sailors’ Society, it was agreed to allot £1,000 to the society’s Samaritan Fund. This sum was then invested in the Prince of Wales Sea Training Hostel for the sons of seamen lost in the August convoy.

Cases of petty pilfering

Less happy were the men supervising the discharge of the MV Brisbane Star.

The provisions of Operation Ceres were more than adequate to deal with the three transports which had arrived on August 13 and MV Rochester Castle, MV Port Chalmers and MV Melbourne Star were emptied in double-quick time, the Axis making no attempt to interfere.

SS Ohio was drained of her kerosene and diesel but aboard MV Brisbane Star, Lieutenants Eva and Fearfield found that pilfering was rife and appeals to the police were unavailing.

After a day or so, the two officers took some strong measures. Arming themselves, they threatened to shoot anybody caught pilfering or smoking near petrol that was being discharged. After a few shots had been fired at men in dgħajjes (Maltese boats) in the vicinity of octane and a few looters had been threatened with a revolver, there was little trouble.

A confidential memorandum about the night duty at Canteen Wharf shed some light on the pilfering. Unloading by troops was, to some extent, winked at by the authorities; for example, the filling of Mess tins with flour from a split sack or using spilled sugar for tea at tea-time.

But certain cases led to some conflict with the Malta police, who arrested one or two soldiers for taking flour remnants from the ship, after getting the permission to do so from some officers on board.

A rather nasty feeling of antagonism started to arise between troops and the local police, so commanding officers gave strict orders to all troops.

Junior officers were warned to give a proper example. There was a case where the action of an officer was such as to give the impression that a broken case of chocolate was removed from the custody of the dockyard officials on the quay to the ship for the purpose of private consumption. Being an officer, the dockyard official had no option but to comply. It is not suggested that the chocolate was, in fact, removed except to avoid being too tempting on the quay but the way it was done suggested the opposite.

A censored document found at the National Archives dated August 30, 1942, describes the process of the unloading of the cargoes from the merchant ships onto the lighters (flat-bottomed barges). A hollow lighter with cases of Tennant’s beer was unloaded by a section of Maltese soldiers. Owing to the darkness and shape of the lighter, it was difficult to notice anything unusual, until it was observed that the gang got merrier and merrier.

It was pointed out to their commanding officer that the men’s obvious exuberance was probably due to pilfering of beer but the reply was that the local soldiers did not pilfer more than the British soldiers and, anyhow, “the men were working very hard and deserved something extra for it”.

When the lighter was unloaded, five cases were found empty and others broken open, with some contents missing. Dozens of empty bottles littered the bottom of the lighter.

Damaged cases − and there were many of them − were set aside and the police sergeant on duty was asked to post a constable on guard over the dump until cases could be sent for repair. However, it was often found that the constable had absented himself for some reason or another and several labourers were loitering around.

This was especially the case during war alerts, when lights were turned off and the result was, of course, that damaged cases were subsequently found empty. When a lighter containing ‘interesting cargo’ was brought alongside, labourers would swarm all over it like ants and, favoured by darkness, they would pry open cases in order to ‘examine contents’.

An inquiry

When the enthusiasm had abated, Operation Pedestal caused some boat-rocking of a different nature.

Frederick Treves kept a diary from the time he had joined MV Waimarama at Birkenhead, where he noted that the packing cases marked MALTA, lying on the quay before loading, were visible to all.

On his return to Britain, he remarked on the lapse of basic security. The admiral of the fleet, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, and Admiral Lord Chatfield took up the matter. It was on the evidence of Treves’s diary that Mr Justice Tucker held an inquiry on behalf of the British government which resulted in the alteration of the coding of material shipped by convoys.

Surviving Harvest Day

Returning to the supplies that reached Malta, although 53,000 out of 85,000 tons of cargo loaded at the Clyde in Scotland finished at the bottom of the Mediterranean, the remaining 32,000 tons enabled Malta to survive the dreaded Harvest Day, which was known as the target day of surrendering to the Axis.

Charles Debono is the curator of the National War Museum.