Strategically important, Malta was located in the perfect spot in the Mediterranean where Axis shipping crossed from Italy to supply Rommel’s campaign in North Africa. Hitler’s grand strategy of sweeping through Egypt, cutting off the eastern half of the British Empire and seizing Arabian oil fields was being held up by an island of 290,000 people and an assortment of RAF aircraft. By the end of 1941, air and naval attacks from Malta had sunk 64 per cent of ships carrying fuel, tanks and personnel destined for Rommel’s Afrika Korps.2 Malta was a menace and a sore and had to be eliminated.
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