The USS Wasp launches Spitfires of 601 and 603 Squadrons towards Malta in a desperate, but successful, attempt to defend the beleaguered island, April 1942.

The besieged isle of Malta, the tiny fortress island so vital to Allied strategy in the Mediterranean, was in April 1942, the most heavily bombed place on earth. With some 600 fighters and bombers based in Sicily, the Axis air forces were intent on neutralizing the island, to gain total air and sea supremacy in the region. Against this continual aerial onslaught, by early April the RAF could muster just 6 serviceable fighters. The vital naval dockyards and airfields were in danger of annihilation.

Following an urgent cable from Winston Churchill to President Roosevelt, the carrier USS Wasp embarked 52 Mk Vc Spitfires of 601 and 603 Squadrons and, under Captain J. W. Reeves Jr., USN, sailed from Glasgow on 14 April. In the early hours of 19 April, escorted by the cruiser Renown and four British and two American destroyers, the heavily laden carrier slipped through the Straits of Gibraltar in darkness. “Operation Calendar” began early the following day, when Wasp launched 11 of her F4F wildcat fighters to provide air cover while the Spitfires started taking off. With the sun already up, by 0645 all 47 serviceable fighters were dispatched.

Monitoring all this activity, Luftwaffe Me109s lay in wait, attacking as the Spitfires made landfall. All but one landed safely, and from their arrival the Spitfires began to dominate the sky above the beleaguered island, and Malta was saved.