USS Wasp CV-7, Greenock, Scotland, April 12, 1942

watercolor, 14" x 21"

$5,500

“Who said a wasp couldn’t sting twice?” This was the text of the teleprinter message from Winston Churchill to Franklin D. Roosevelt. USS Wasp had completed a second mission to the western Mediterranean to fly-off Spitfires destined for the defense of Malta. The strategic value of Malta was enormous. It provided a base from which aircraft, ships and submarines could interrupt supplies being shipped to German and Italian forces fighting to take over the Middle East. Month by month this interdiction was maintained, causing enemy shipping losses coupled with serious shortages of fuel, munitions and other war material on the fighting front.

During the siege of Malta, (late 1941 to mid-1943), the island was continually subjected to the most intensive, destructive bombing by aircraft based on nearby Sicily. The island’s air defenses were replenished again and again by flying in fresh aircraft from the western Mediterranean. The routine was to send aircraft carriers through the Straits of Gibraltar and far enough eastward to enable fighter aircraft stowed aboard to be flown off and reach the island, while the carriers would make a u-turn and retire out of harm’s way. Each such operation required mustering a heavy naval escort force.

In April, 1942, the need for more fighters became critically urgent, and especially for Spitfires, which were the best. No British carrier capable of flying off this type was currently available, and the Prime Minister appealed directly to President F. D. Roosevelt for the loan of a ship to make the run. Immediately, USS Wasp was assigned to the task, and sailed to the Clyde.

Wasp was greeted by cheering crowds that lined the river banks. At Greenock she landed her torpedo planes while hoisting on board the Spitfires, which were not adapted for landing on a carrier. They were tucked below on the hangar deck; Wasp’s own air defense Wildcat fighters being retained on the flight deck. It is more than likely that Argyll was enjoying a shower of rain.

Wasp sailed only 14 days after the appeal, under heavy escort. She flew off 47 Spitfires from the turning-point in the Mediterranean east of Gibraltar, returned to the UK and repeated the entire operation. The combined air defense force of Malta, bolstered by the planes supplied on these two runs plus some further aircraft flown in from the carrier Eagle, caused heavy losses to the German bombardment squadrons based in Sicily (140 aircraft in 3 days of battles).

Surely, this Wasp carried two stings.