The four ships of Convoy MW 13 sailed from Alexandria on 16 November, escorted by cruisers, destroyers and round-the-clock air cover from captured airfields in Egypt and Cyrenaica (eastern Libya).

A complementary convoy from Gibraltar was cancelled when the British and Allied First Army, landed in Morocco and Algeria in Operation Torch (8–16 November) and made less progress along the Algerian coast than expected.

The Axis retreat along the Libyan coast was monitored by the Bletchley Park code-breakers of the German Enigma coding machine, which revealed the inability of Panzerarmee Afrika to counter-attack the Allies.

At dusk on 18 November, an attack by Axis torpedo-bombers hit the 6 in (150 mm) cruiser HMS Arethusa forward of the bridge and killed 156 members of the crew.

[2][3] The Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) was expected to be the most serious threat to another Malta convoy, with six battleships, three of them the modern Littorio class, available, with two heavy-, five light-cruisers and at least twenty destroyers.

The three Littorio class battleships moved to Naples on 11 November but this still left them close enough to sortie against a Malta convoy; five of the cruisers were at Messina in Sicily.

Empire Patrol departed Alexandria on 1 November, loaded with fuel and food, escorted by to destroyers, to be disguised as a Turkish ship when east of Cyprus, then under an Italian flag when heading for Malta.

[4] Operation Crupper began when two ships in civilian guise sailed from Britain, with Convoy KMS 1 to Gibraltar, then detached for Malta in the hope that the Vichy French authorities would be incapable of preventing their passage.

AHQ Egypt and the Desert Air Force (DAF) were to contribute single-engined fighters to a north–south line 40 nmi (46 mi; 74 km) west of Benghazi, where they would hand over to aircraft from Malta; US B-24 heavy bombers were also ready at Gambut in support.

As Panzerarmee Afrika withdrew westward, the DAF was to take over the Axis air bases from which the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica had attacked Malta convoys.

Kesselring had the authority only to co-ordinate plans for combined operations by German and Italian forces and some influence on the use of the Regia Aeronautica for the protection of convoys to North Africa.

[9] Convoy MW 13 was not due to sail until the landing grounds at Tobruk had been recaptured and it was hoped that Martuba Air Base, near Derna, would be operational by 17 November.

There was considerable apprehension among the Axis of a British outflanking move south of the Jebel Akhdar, made worse by the loss of a fuel tanker en route to Benghazi.

Euryalus and the 12th Destroyer Flotilla were escorted by the minesweeper HMS Speedy and other local boats into Grand Harbour at 1:30 a.m. on 20 November, to the cheers of the population and garrison.

Another cruiser and destroyer force began to operate from Bône in Algeria, which from 1 December, enabled the Navy to attack Axis convoys to Tunisia from both directions.