This is the first book to focus on the Fleet Air Arm's contribution to naval operations in the Mediterranean after the Italian declaration of war in June 1940. The Royal Navy found itself facing a larger and better-equipped Italian surface fleet, large Italian and German air forces equipped with modern aircraft and both Italian and German submarines. Its own aircraft were a critical element of an unprecedented fight on, over and under the sea surface.

David Hobbs's years of archival research together with his experience as a carrier pilot allow him to describe and analyze the operations of naval aircraft in the Mediterranean with unprecedented authority. This provides the book with novel insights into many familiar faces of the Mediterranean war while for the first time doing full justice to the Fleet Air Arm's lesser known achievements.