[5] The threat of a rearming Germany and a Japanese Empire bent on military expansion, and the approach of war, influenced Ohio's design.

[6] The Westinghouse steam turbine engines developed 9,000 driveshaft horsepower[clarification needed] at 90 revolutions per minute, which gave her a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h).

She set a speed record from Bayonne to Port Arthur, covering 1,882 miles (3,029 km) in four days and twelve hours, an average of more than seventeen knots.

Successive attempts at resupplying the island had mostly failed; the convoys "Harpoon" (from Gibraltar) and "Vigorous" (from Alexandria, Egypt) saw most of their merchantmen sunk and escort ships damaged by aerial and surface attacks.

[11] On 18 June, after the failures of "Harpoon" and "Vigorous", the Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet cabled UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill to express his doubts about attempting another convoy.

[12][self-published source] Three days later Ohio steamed into the mouth of the Clyde, under the command of Sverre Petersen, a former Master in Sail from Oslo, in Norway.

In early May 1942, a radio message had reached Captain Petersen which diverted the ship to Galveston in Texas, and then ordered the tanker to proceed to Britain.

She then moved to Sinclair Terminal, Houston in Texas, where she loaded a full cargo of 103,576 barrels (16,467.3 m3) of petrol (gasoline), and sailed on 25 May.

[8][page needed] Here the captain received a letter from Lord Leathers, the head of the British Ministry of War Transport, bidding the master a personal welcome and "...your safe arrival in the Clyde with the first cargo of oil carried in a United States tanker."

A telegram was received the same day by the head office of Texaco, from the War Shipping Administration, announcing simply that Ohio was being requisitioned "pursuant to the law".

The immediate reaction was a cabled message from Mr TE Buchanan, General Manager of Texaco's Marine Department to the firm's London agent, that on no account was Ohio to leave her discharging port of Bowling-on-the-Clyde.

The decision was finally taken two weeks later, when a launch sped out to the ship anchored in the Clyde and Texaco's London agent, accompanied by an official of the UK Ministry of War Transport came aboard.

The US crew and the captain were exasperated by the seemingly outrageous order, but had no other option but to give in, and started to pack their kit whilst UK seamen began to take the ship over.

On 25 July the MoWT contracted her management to the Eagle Oil and Shipping Company, which was warned of the importance of the impending convoy and that "...much might depend on the quality and courage of the crew.

In the previous convoy, the tanker Kentucky had been sunk with only a few hours' repair work needed on a steam pipe, which had been broken by the force of such explosions.

The Ministry was determined that this should not happen again, and so Ohio's engines were mounted on rubber bearings, to reduce shock, and all steam pipes were supported with steel springs and baulks of timber.

The 14 ships, of WS 21S led by HMS Nigeria with the cruiser Kenya and destroyers Bicester and Bramham formed up; it was dark by the time they reached the open sea.

[16] A day later, four torpedoes from the German submarine U-73 struck the aircraft-carrier HMS Eagle which sank in four minutes, killing 260 men, and losing all but four planes.

One of Ohio's gunners shot down a Ju 87, but the aircraft crashed into the ship's starboard side, forward of the upper bridge, and exploded.

The boiler fires had been blown out, and it was a race against time to restore them before the steam pressure dropped too low to work the fuel pumps.

The ship was making alternate black and white smoke and, with oil in the water pipes and a loss of vacuum in the condenser, Ohio started to lose way slowly, coming to a stop at 1050 hrs.

Ledbury soon left the stricken tanker after being ordered to go in search of the cruiser[21] HMS Manchester, which had been crippled by Italian motor torpedo boats.

Ohio was flung forward, parting Rye's tow, buckling the stern plates of the tanker and forming a great hole.

After the tow line was parted, Ledbury was still secured to Ohio by a heavy wire which had been pulled round by the heavily yawing tanker, and had ended up alongside Penn, facing the wrong way.

[29] At 0600 hrs on the festival of'Santa Marija (Assumption of Mary), with Ohio still hovering on the edge of the minefield, the situation was eased by the arrival of the Malta tugs.

On the ramparts above the wreck-strewn harbour, on the Barracca, Fort Saint Angelo and Senglea, great crowds of Maltese men and women waved and cheered and a brass band on the end of the mole was giving a spirited rendition of Rule Britannia.

[34] On 19 September 1946 the forward half of Ohio was towed 10 miles (16 km) offshore and sunk by gunfire from the destroyer HMS Virago.

On 3 October, the stern half was scuttled in deep water using explosive charges laid by the salvage vessel RFA Salventure.

[citation needed] The nameplate, ships wheel, ensign and several other objects of Ohio are preserved in Malta's National War Museum in Valletta.

[citation needed] The arrival of Ohio at the Grand Harbour provided the climax of the 1953 British war film Malta Story[36] directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, starring Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins.