August 15th. Pedestal Convoy arrives on Santa Maria Day

[timlewin]

tot time; on 15th August 1942 the last survivor of the Pedestal Convoy, the magnificent tanker OHIO was dragged into Grand Harbour to the greatest encore applause ever signifying the end of the 3 year siege of Malta. This was our "Stalingrad", the turning point of the war in Europe. Had we lost Malta, history could have gone a very different direction.

Remember too the USS Wasp that delivered two cargoes of Spitfires to Malta ahead of the convoy before she headed East and her nemesis, the Japanese air attacks.

Please all raise your glasses to this dramatic British, and allied, victory on 15th August.

[timlewin]

a few more memories of Pedestal; there is a memorial on Tower Hill in London to all this, so long ago, such sharp memories. Finally, a picture of Fred Jewett who helped me with the memorial, the last known survivor of that fateful convoy, 97 on 21st August.

[oldsalt]

A very timely memory of what dangers those brave RN & MN personnel faced. I have a DVD of Pedestal, I think it was produced by the BBC.

[timlewin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh63H6UaVHs

here is a link to the excellent documentary made by Ch.4 and broadcast in 1996, the narrator is TTL who was there in the director of Ashanti. When Nigeria was torpedoed Admiral Burrough transferred his flag and stall from her to Ashanti. To save time Ashanti's captain, Cdr. Dicky Onslow nosed her up alongside the stricken cruiser and they just hopped over the side, you can see Adm. B. looking very pleased on the bridge of Ashanti still wearing his life jacket. In the painting, made for the film, you see Ashanti steaming past Ohio having just shot down a Stuka which unfortunately then crashed onto Ohio's focsle!.

[timlewin]

if anyone watches the doco, please do post your thoughts here; I knew the production team back then, and TTL did the narration which ultimately lead me to create the Siege Memorial for Malta on Tower Hill in London.

tim

[jbryce1437]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh63H6UaVHs

here is a link to the excellent documentary made by Ch.4 and broadcast in 1996, the narrator is TTL who was there in the director of Ashanti. When Nigeria was torpedoed Admiral Burrough transferred his flag and stall from her to Ashanti. To save time Ashanti's captain, Cdr. Dicky Onslow nosed her up alongside the stricken cruiser and they just hopped over the side, you can see Adm. B. looking very pleased on the bridge of Ashanti still wearing his life jacket. In the painting, made for the film, you see Ashanti steaming past Ohio having just shot down a Stuka which unfortunately then crashed onto Ohio's focsle!.

Although I have viewed the documentary a couple of times before, it was good to watch it again. Against all the odds, a few ships got through, which was enough to keep Malta from surrender. Getting Ohio to Malta is an incredible story in itself.

Jim

[jbryce1437]

I came across an earlier, 1951, Pathe newsreel titled "Malta Convoy" A Tribute to the Royal Navy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzTTpJEMMwY

Jim

[timlewin]

the convoy was actually well filmed by both sides, the Admiralty sent Cdr. Kimmins with the ships, I think first in Nigeria and then he transferred to Ashanti when Axum had her lucky strike hitting Nigeria, Cairo and Ohio with the same spread. I remember when the memorial in Malta, with the big bell, ran out of money half way through TTL and Prince Philip gave a presentation on Pedestal in the theatre of the IWM to an invited audience, the invitation being to bring their cheque books. They used resource material from the IWM including the on-the-spot report from Kimmins. I have their presentation on cassettes minus the Kimmins film-clips, so when the IWM curators return to work I will ask if they might kindly transpose the recordings to an electronic format for me, when they do I will share it with the forum. HRH was not actually on pedestal but TTL was. HRH was there in 1941, the year before, in Valiant, his time overlapped with TTL's but by mid-1942 he had transferred to HMS Wallace on East Coast convoys.

[jbryce1437]

Many thanks Tim, looking forward to seeing that.

Jim