The spitfire year 1942, he was seriously wounded in the foot by a cannon shell. Spitfires taking off from the uss wasp on april 20, 1942, during operation calendar. On the morning of 9 may, 64 spitfires destined for malta took off from the decks of.
Bp844 was shot down over malta, with the loss of its pilot, on 2nd april 1942. However, at 11.17am, a message was received. In the summer of 1942, malta was vulnerable to air attack.
At 5.45am, the spitfire of squadron leader gracie took off from uss wasp and, within 61 minutes, 47 aircraft were in the air. He managed to bail out but his parachute only partially opened and. Pilot officer jerry smith flew to malta on 17 may from the eagle, which continued flying off planes to malta, but he went missing in august 1942 while chasing a german bomber out to sea. According to the book malta:
On the 20th april 1942 another attempt was made to fly in reinforcements to malta, this time from the uss wasp which had collected 47 spitfires and their raf pilots from glasgow on the 13th. Posted to 603 squadron in the spring of 1942, john mejor was among 47 spitfire pilots launched on april 20 from the american aircraft carrier wasp in the mediterranean north of algiers, from. A further nine spitfires flew off hms eagle on 21st march on operation picket, all reaching.