Operation Pedestal - August 1942

	Operation Pedestal overview & general experience.
	This page: on the aircraft carrier Victorious and cruiser Kenya.
	On the cruiser Manchester and HMS Ledbury.

Douglas Hamby

On board HMS Victorious as a Naval Air Fitter in the Fleet Air Arm, was Douglas Hamby who wrote in his memoir for 10 August:

Throughout the afternoon we were aware of shadowing aircraft keeping close watch on our movements and submarines were also dogging us waiting for another chance to strike. Around dusk, 30 JU88's and 6 Heinkel torpedo bombers attacked. I was in the hangar working on a Fulmar at the time and our first intimation of an attack came when our 4.5 inch guns opened fire, first one or two guns and finally what sounded like all 16. The 8-barrelled pom-poms then joined in with their drumming fire (they were a short range weapon) so we knew we were being singled out for attack. To be in the hangar when this racket was going on was quite frightening and noisier than being on deck. One of our pilots remarked that he felt safer in the air.

On 12 August:

The next wave of bombers then came in, led by an experimental radio controlled aircraft loaded with high explosive which was controlled from a mother plane but this lost control of its charge and the un-piloted plane flew on, crashing in Algeria. Two Italian fighter-bombers detached themselves from this attack and approached Victorious. I was on the flight deck at the time watching one of the other attacks develop, only seeing what happened at the last moment. These planes came in as if making a normal landing approach and deceived the lookouts into thinking they were ours, then released their bombs from a height of about 50 feet over the deck - about 250lb bombs I would think. One hit the deck with an almighty clang about 50 feet away from me, broke into pieces and went over the side without exploding. One piece hit a trolley which carried batteries for starting the Hurricane engines, wrecking it. The other bomb went skidding off the deck into the sea also without exploding. . . The next attack from the air was building up and the two carriers put up 24 fighters to meet it, Victorious with some difficulty as our lifts had started giving trouble.... The dive bombers looked as if they intended to concentrate on the two carriers and Victorious and her A.A ship, cruiser Syrius (which had 10 5.25 inch guns for main armament) put up a furious barrage. I was on deck at the time and the result was spectacular, Syrius astern of us was firing all three turrets forward which was great encouragement to us.... For us it had been a very long day, man-handling aircraft in the hangar and on the flight deck, carrying out repairs and checks as soon as our fighters had returned.

HMS Victorious (at Leyte, Philippine Islands, May 1945,
with the aircraft, Corsairs and Avengers, on deck)

Image from Telegraphist/Air Gunner Derek Foster

As part of Force Z, Victorious left the convoy at the entrance of the Sicilian Narrows, a mined stretch of water too narrow for a large fleet to continue onwards.

Victorious returned to Scapa Flow and the Home Fleet, her reputation as a 'lucky ship' firmly established. 809 Squadron disembarked and went by train to St Merryn in Cornwall on preparations for we knew not what. A lovely late August and September spent at St Merryn in 1942 proved ideal for nerves a bit shattered after the excitement of August on Operation Pedestal.

Another ship which left the main convoy was HMS Kenya, damaged during a torpedo attack. Aboard Kenya was Lt Brian Prendergast who recalled his experiences in a tape recorded interview with Richard Campbell-Begg in March 1998:

We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 9^th of August which was a Sunday. My cruising station was on the bridge as bridge messenger and on the Monday I could see a huge convoy extending outwards in all directions with ships as far as the eye could see sailing in formation. This pleasant state of affairs continued for another 24 hours, until very suddenly the aircraft carrier Eagle took on a list and began to sink. She had been hit by 4 torpedoes and she sank in 8 minutes.
Kenya went at once to action stations and I went to my station in a shell room in the foremost 6 inch gun turret. My job was to lift the 6 inch shells from a rotating ring and place them on a lift which hoisted them up to the gun house where a seaman loaded them in to the breech of one of the guns. I remained at this station for two days with very little information as to how the battle was going. We could hear the guns firing almost continually. Some time on the Wednesday night there was a tremendous bang and the bow of the ship lifted and then fell before resuming equilibrium in a bow down position, with the decks sloping downwards a few degrees, so it was still possible to move about without much difficulty.
After a few minutes the Captain broadcast that we had been torpedoed forward but would continue to Malta at reduced speed. We carried on loading shells and during the night we were given a tablet which we were told was a keep-awake tablet which must have been an amphetamine. Some time the next day, Thursday, we left the convoy and set course for Gibraltar. The air attacks continued and a bomb exploded close to the ship's side and caused some damage in the engine room. On Friday the air attacks gradually ceased and we were able to stop loading shells. When we reached Gibraltar we could not anchor because of the damage and tied up alongside another ship.
There was time off watch to sleep but I was still wide awake from the amphetamines and it was only gradually over a day or two that I managed to return to a normal sleep pattern. We went in to dock at Gibraltar for some temporary repairs to the bows. The anchors, cable lockers and stores compartments had been completely blown away. Fortunately they were unoccupied during action stations and there were no casualties.

	Operation Pedestal overview & general experience.
	This page: on the aircraft carrier Victorious and cruiser Kenya.
	On the cruiser Manchester and HMS Ledbury.