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The siege of Malta in World War II was a military campaign in the Mediterranean theatre.From June 1940 to November 1942, the fight for the control of the strategically important island of the British Crown Colony of Malta pitted the air and naval forces of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany against the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy.
Dunlop (1941) — delivery of 24 Hurricanes to Malta from HMS Ark Royal (1 lost en route) Encore (1945) — Allied assault on mountain positions in Italy; Excess (1941) — Malta convoy to reinforce Greece and Malta MC4 (1941) — shipping movements to and from Malta; Exporter (1941) — Allied invasion of Vichy-controlled Syria and Lebanon
The Malta convoys were Allied supply convoys of the Second World War.The convoys took place during the Siege of Malta in the Mediterranean Theatre. Malta was a base from which British sea and air forces could attack ships carrying supplies from Europe to Italian Libya.
The Axis plan to invade Malta had its origin in Italian military studies conducted during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War in the mid-1930s. By 1938, Comando Supremo, the Italian army general staff, had estimated the amount of sea transport it would require to move military forces into North Africa, and identified the seizure of Malta as a prerequisite.
The Battle of the Mediterranean was the name given to the naval campaign fought in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, from 10 June 1940 to 2 May 1945.. For the most part, the campaign was fought between the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina), supported by other Axis naval and air forces, those of Nazi Germany and Vichy France, and the British Royal Navy, supported by other Allied naval ...
Malta was a base for air, sea and submarine operations against Axis supply convoys and from 1 June to 31 October 1941, British forces sank about 220,000 long tons (220,000 t) of Axis shipping on the African convoy routes, 94,000 long tons (96,000 t) by the navy and 115,000 long tons (117,000 t) by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA).
From bases at Gibraltar and Alexandria, the Royal Navy attempted to convoy supplies to Malta to maintain it as a base in the central Mediterranean. As Italy attacked Egypt from Libya in September 1940 and Greece from Albania in October 1940, the Royal Navy maintained most of their Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria and used Force H at Gibraltar ...
Malta had become an important staging post for aircraft and a base for air reconnaissance over the central Mediterranean. [ 1 ] The Axis powers Italy and Germany made several attempts from 1941 to 1942 to either force the British military authorities on the island to surrender or to destroy its effectiveness as a military base.