This is the kind of story you hear little about because the Allies, the winners, tend to disregard in their history books. It was a carefully mounted convoy that was to bring supplies to the island of Malta, Britain's only hold in the center of the Mediterranean, and the most bombed island in the world. The Maltese and the Brits were not only starving and being bombed regularly, they were virtually out of aircraft, ammunition, and most of all fuel. Without relief, surrender to the nearby Italians and Germans was inevitable.
The convoy sailed through the straits of Gibraltar into enemy water. There were fourteen large, fast cargo ships and tankers, with a screen of aircraft carriers and destroyers.
They faced attacks from both Italian and German bombers of all types, from submarines, from fast torpedo boats, and from the entire Italian fleet.
The aircraft carriers were the first to be lost, one by torpedo, the other by bombs. Of the fourteen cargo ships, five made port in Malta, the last ship, an American ship, had been disabled at sea and had to be nursed into port by three British destroyers at a speed of two knots. A celebration swept the rubble-strewn streets.
The final obstacle before Malta was the powerful Italian fleet. The remaining Allied ships stood little chance against them. The Italian ships were being shadowed by a British Wellington that reported on their movements. Facing disaster, British headquarters broadcast to the Wellington -- in plain language, not code -- that it was vital that the Wellington maintain contact because a huge force of Allied bombers was on the way to intercept the Italian fleet. There was no such force. But the Italian Navy picked up the message, as had been planned, and asked the Germans for air cover, which the Germans refused to provide. The Italian fleet was ordered back to port.
This is just one instance of effective British deception, carefully thought out. FUSAG, the decoy army created before D Day was another. And "Operation Mincement", the dumping of a dead body carrying false information about the landings on Sicily was another. They're still crack liars. At the start of the Falklands War, Britain announced that they had dispatched a number of submarines that now formed a defensive ring around the islands -- complete baloney -- and it worked.
The program is narrated, and we see Italian and British newsreel footage, stills photos, and several talking heads who participated in the convoy. It's good that documentaries like this are being made. Without the contributions of the survivors, who are fast disappearing, history has a tendency to fade into myth.