The "Maria Kerma took one last shuddering beam sea, disappeared beneath it, and rolled over. "Maria Kerma', nicknamed H.M.S. "Unexpected," was to have sailed into Malta's Grand Harbour at Valetta under the flimsy deck of plywood that disguised her as an aircraft carrier; but the storm defeated the plan - the Mediterranean storm that came from nowhere and destroyed the over-weighted and ill-balanced ship. This time the elements had conspired with the enemy; the decoy vessel had been intended to foil the Germans into believing that an aircraft carrier had reached Malta unobserved. But it seemed that Malta carried a curse.