HMS Ledbury, Operation Pedestal (COMMISSION)
One off: A commission from my now fiancee’s Stepmother; former wife of Freddie Cripps, former Naval Officer of the HMS Ledbury during the Operation Pedestal Malta Convoy in the 2nd World War. Deceased father of my fiancee.
(Sold)
Price: £800.00
Medium: Oil on canvas block
Status: Unframed, unmounted, but hanging by a wire fixture.
Dimensions: 50cm x 50cm x 4cm
Actual picture size: 50cm x 50cm x 0.1cm
Operation Pedestal August 1942 – The Malta Convoy:
This painting honours the captain and crew of HMS Ledbury, a Hunter Class destroyer which played a critical role in the success of the courageous, battered convoy from Gibbralta to Malta. Without the 55000 tonnes of food, stores and fuel the ships finally delivered to the island, Malta would have been starved into surrender within the month.
Specifically, the painting shows the moment the Waimarama, carrying aviation spirit and ammunition, exploded following attack by German bombers, raising a massive fireball that ignited the oil-covered sea around it.
HMS Ledbury steamed repeatedly into the flames, rigged with scrambling nets for survivors to climb, saving 33 of Waimarama’s crew. The Melbourne Star, following close astern, suffered so severely from the blast and heat that 36 of her crew abandoned ship, believing that their own vessel was ablaze. Ledbury rescued them.
Meanwhile the Ohio, seen here carrying a precious cargo of oil through a burning sea, somehow escaped incineration.
The painting also celebrates the gallantry of Freddie Cripps who, just before he joined the Malta Convoy in Ledbury, had served in her as she protected the Arctic convoys supplying Archangel & Murmansk in Siberian Russia.