How Ohio Saved Malta

The Month S New Reading

With Judy Tudor

There must be no part of the Second World War that has escaped the attention of book writers—and still the stories come. Yet, and in spite of the assorted skills of the authors, few are ever boring or lack interest. ‘ ‘Malta Convoy”, by Peter Shankland and Anthony Hunter, does nothing to break that record.

HANKLAND was a Lieutenant RNVR in HMS Speedy, which lyed a conspicuous part in the latter ges of Operation Pedestal; and inter was a Spitfire pilot. With this :kground, they have produced a iry about the last and the most al of the Malta convoys that is as dl-binding as a thriller.

By August, 1942, the beseiged md of Malta was reckoned to have ee weeks of life left. It was a iple calculation based on three nmodities —flour, oil and ammuni n. Without oil for aircraft and ps, Malta could no longer be a irn in the side of Axis forces in ir North African campaigns; with t food, the island could not stay in s fight at all.

Fhe convoy of June, 1942, had ;n a disastrous failure, and there s grave doubt in the minds of those ecting the Allied war effort ether there was any point in to supply Malta further.

Finally it was decided to try a t throw of the dice during the onless period of the month of gust. This was Operation Pedestal.

Jn August 10, a convoy of 14 mer mtmen, protected by two battle rs, four aircraft carriers, 12 isers, 40 destroyers and eight sub rines passed through the Straits of jraltar, heading for Malta. in the midst of the armada, 5 the crux of the whole mission— oil tanker Ohio, borrowed from Americans because it was then the y tanker in the world capable of ing at speed in that company. Her w was British. f Ohio and the oil that she carried not get through, Malta must render, and Ohio therefore be les the sometimes flighty heroine the story. he Axis High Command was as 1 aware as the Allies of Ohio’s role, the vital part she and the convoy

played in their war. Every effort was therefore made to destroy her and for three days and nights every trick they had was directed at her, and every new fangled bomb, torpedo and shell was thrown her way.

Seventy miles from port in Valetta, Ohio was engineless, rudderless, holed and waterlogged aft, cut almost in half and held together only by her bottom plates. Paint was scorched and blackened where fire had taken hold, and a broken Ger man bomber lay on her forepeak, one of its wings wrapped around the side of the bridge. Freeboard had shrunk to a couple of feet, and her crew was dazed and red eyed from lack of sleep.

At that stage three of the food ships had got through, and the Navy’s attentions were directed to getting Ohio home. They tried towing her, but to no avail, and Ohio was aban doned by her crew twice—and twice reboarded.

The Navy then tried various com binations of towing and pushing, with

a destroyer lashed to one side of her; and finally settled down to some suc cess with destroyers Penn and Bram ham, supporting her on each side, acting as a splint to her cracks. In a combined effort, they nudged her along at four knots.

Like all heroines in the best regu lated stories, Ohio made it at last— only to expire and sink as the last of her oil was pumped ashore alongside Valetta docks. (MALTA CONVOY. Published by Wm.

Collins Ltd. 22/6.)

The Case Of Mason

Versus it ii rr

Television has some shocking im pacts on modern life. Before TV came to this country and I read about Perry Mason only, in Erie Stanley Gardner’s books, I always saw him as a tall, suave George Sanders type, plus a toothbrush moustache; his con fidential secretary, Della Street, as a clued-up, sophisticated blonde; and Paul Drake, of the Drake Detective Agency, as the typical American private-eye.

T THOUGHT Paul probably put his A feet on his desk, chewed cigars and wore a hat on the back of his head, indoors and out.

Now I know better. I see them all in the flesh, each Tuesday night, 8.30 to 9.30, all mixed up with invisible hair lacquer (it “nourishes the hair with lanalin esters”); and pressure pak insecticide (“if you know a good thing, stick to it”).

After the nightly TV report from the Sydney Weather Bureau, it is my favourite programme and through it I know that Perry is wide rather

than tall—about three feet across the shoulders; has a Mona Lisa smile, never defends anyone who could pos sibly be guilty; and looks exactly like one-time, bit-part movie actor Ray mond Burr.

Della, far from being a glamorous blonde, is brunette; and is kind hearted rather than sophisticated.

While Paul is a great hunk of blond man, who keeps his feet on the ground and never wears a hat.

All of it makes for good mid-week entertainment; the conflict begins when annual or bi-annual efforts of Mr. Gardner himself come along to confuse the issue—as now, in The Case of the Glamorous Ghost.

Perry Mason of the book still seems sharper, tougher, more in human than Mr. Burr; a fellow who runs ice-water in his veins and has kept the beautiful Della dangling through no less than 20 books and about as many years.

In the current Case, Perry Mason fights his way through lies, amnesia, smuggling, murder and general hocus pocus—and again makes the District Attorney look like a first-year ap prentice.

(The Case Of The Glamorous

GHOST. Published by Heinemann. 15/6.)