 was to accompany the ships and then dash for Malta at , with ammunition for the aircraft on Malta.Off the Italian coast, were to patrol, ready to ambush Italian ships.A shortage of oil limited Italian naval operations but the accumulation of ships at Alexandria and decrypted wireless messages from Colonel Bonner Fellers, the US Military attaché in Cairo ("die gute Quelle", the good source), alerted the "Regia Marina" that convoys were about to be run from Alexandria and Gibraltar to Malta.