The bombing had severely depleted the number of operational fighters and anti-aircraft guns and the RAF had to withdraw most of its bombers and reconnaissance aircraft.

The Government Code and Cypher School (GC & CS) at Bletchley Park in England was able to decrypt some Luftwaffe operation orders, which showed that the main effort was to be against British airfields on Malta.

Before a Malta convoy, the RAF conducted many photographic sorties, revealing more about Axis air force locations and strengths but this reached only as far as Naples.

The authorities in London had a grandstand view but for early warning of attacks, until May 1942, convoys were reliant on aerial patrolling, radar and lookouts.

[3] As Malta began to run short of supplies, Operation MG 1 was mounted to escort Convoy MW 10 from Alexandria on 21 March.

[5] By the end of April 1942, Axis bombing had smashed the docks, ships, aircraft and airfields and the bombers began attacks on army camps, barracks, warehouses and road junctions, the preliminaries of invasion.

Four ships departed Italian ports on 17 and 18 March, one hitting a mine near Tripoli and the rest arriving, the danger of attacks from Malta having diminished considerably.

Fourteen convoys had sailed for Tripoli in March and eighteen of twenty ships survived the journey, 47,588 long tons (48,352 t) of supplies arrived (82.7 per cent).

[12] The decline of Malta as an offensive base led the British to resort to submarines, which sank a light cruiser and six freighters and bombers from Egypt attacking Libyan ports.

[12] Italian ships were at their safest from April to mid-July 1942, convoys sailing 50 nmi (58 mi; 93 km) from Malta, escorted by a couple of aircraft.

The RAF withdrew most of its bombers and reconnaissance aircraft and the Navy evacuated most of its ships; Axis convoys were being run to Libya with scant opposition.

[18] The 90-gallon tanks were found to be as unserviceable as on Operation Spotter, ill-fitting and leaking large amounts of fuel, which was being siphoned off into the slipstream instead of flowing into the engine.

The Spitfires that lasted longest were hampered by the chronic shortage of spare parts and ground crews lacking familiarity with the type; the poor standard of the aircraft sent from Britain made this worse and the "humiliating shambles" had been witnessed by the Americans.

[22] Wasp returned to Glasgow on 29 April 1942 and embarked another 47 Spitfires Mk Vc (trop) at Shieldhall; the aircraft had better streamlining which yielded a small but useful improvement, despite the drag of a tropical air filter.

[24] On the night of 7/8 May, Force W was joined from Gibraltar by Eagle, with the destroyers Ithuriel, Partridge, Westcott, Wishart, Wrestler, Antelope, Salisbury, Georgetown and Vidette.

The 23rd Spitfire to take off from Wasp had failed to gain sufficient flying speed, its propeller being set in coarse pitch by mistake, fell off the flight deck and was cut in two by the bow of the carrier, killing the Canadian pilot, Sergeant R. D. Sherrington.

Another Canadian, Pilot Officer Jerry Smith, found that he had a faulty fuel pump and landed on Wasp the second time around, stopping the Spitfire 6 ft (1.8 m) short of the end of the flight deck.

Ammunition rationing was lifted during the arrivals and while the Abdiel-class, fast minelayer HMS Welshman (Captain William Friedberger) was in harbour.

At Gibraltar on 7 May, the ship embarked some unusual items, along with 340 long tons (350 t) of medical stores, other supplies and food, 72 crates of smoke-screen chemicals, 100 spare Merlin aircraft engines and 120 passengers, most being RAF ground crews trained on Spitfires.

As dark fell, the navigator, Lieutenant-Commander Lindsay Gellatly (RAN), plotted a route to Malta as Welshman accelerated to about 28 kn (32 mph; 52 km/h).

Gellatly guided the ship through shoals to the south of Cape Bon then rounded Pantellaria, turning eastwards towards Malta, the island coming into view two minutes before the sun appeared.

The trawler Beryl met Welshman off Delimara Point and led it close to shore along a route used by fishing boats, to avoid mines.

Welshman rounded Ricasoli Point and its starboard paravane severed two mines from their moorings, which passed close by the stern without exploding.

Welshman was showered by wreckage, 4 long tons (4.1 t) of girders were blown onto the forward Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, bomb splinters punctured the hull above the water line and the deck plates were buckled but the cargo was unloaded.

[28] Stephen Roskill, the naval official historian, wrote in 1962 that though the Club Runs by Eagle and the two by Wasp were vital to the survival of Malta by creating the conditions for a convoy operation, they had no effect on the lack of supplies.

[29] In 2003, Richard Woodman wrote that the safe delivery of Spitfires, ground crews and spare parts were only the start of the attempt to revive Malta as an offensive base.

A hole was made in the underside of the ship for a suction pipe but on 3 May only 22 long tons (22 t) of fuel oil was pumped out due to water seepage.

Axis naval and air forces made a maximum effort with ships, submarines and aircraft, managing to sink all but four of the freighters and the tanker Ohio.