By the end of March,1943 the situation was such that there was not the need for so many A Lighters working with the Army.
8 craft were working along the coast, 2 craft were at Tripoli and 9 craft were at Malta presumably having refits or repairs.
On the 12th May,1943 all organised resistance ceased--Algiers became the Mediterranean HQ and Cairo became its subsidiary with
responsibility for training British and Commonwealth troops for landings in Italy. Also responsibility for operations in the
Levant Station which included the sea area to the East of a line from Homs to the tip of Greece ie. it was not involved directly
in the Sicily landings and thereafter I have not the time to talk about what happened in the Levant Station and anyway it does not
fall within the remit of this Address. It will suffice to say that a further 2 craft were lost amongst the smaller Dodecanese Islands.
Overall, therefore 27 of the original 52 craft were lost with 20 of them lost in 1941.
I have only been able to give a general overview of the work carried out by the crews of the A Lighters and as Landing Craft
officers I must leave it to your experienced imagination to fill in the detail. I think you will agree that bearing in mind that
these early craft were not meant to be lived in for more than a few days at a time and certainly not with the temperature variations
experienced in the desert,the crews deserve to receive an accolade for the contribution they made to the defeat of the Axis Forces
in North Africa.
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