"Ark Royal" and the ships of Force H returned to Gibraltar on 29 May 1941. Despite the boost in Allied morale from the sinking of the battleship "Bismarck", the war in the Mediterranean was going against the Allies. Greece and Crete had fallen to the Axis Powers, and the "Afrika Korps" was preparing to launch a final push into Egypt. Malta remained an important stronghold in the Mediterranean, but was coming under increased pressure from Italian and German air attacks, and could no longer be supplied from the east since the fall of Crete.