Commander,
Malta sits directly between Tunisia and Italy.  Of the three islands of Malta, we'll ignore Comino and Gozo and concentrate on Malta itself.  We need the port of La Valletta and we need the airbases.  With Malta, we secure a damn good chance of success for our upcoming invasion of Italy.  Without Malta all bets are off.

We're on a tight schedule, so the invasion has got to go on now, even though Malta has been under heavy cloud cover most of this past week.  Some of the Italian fleet is missing from where it should be in Taranto, so they may be making for Malta.  We think that the Krauts may have some subs in the area as well, so use your destroyer screen wisely.

Rommel's Afrika Corps has retreated to Malta for now, while they await further reinforcements.  They are high on experience, but they are low on equipment and personnel and ammo.  We know that they abandoned most of their heavy equipment back in Tunisia, but they got most of their men out, and they are probably well entrenched among the seafront villas and farmhouses and in every village inland.

Luckily, we'll be able to provide you with some naval support.  Our Free French Allies have been able to get the damaged Jean Bart back in action along with the Strasbourg.  We've got some British capital ships as well.  I wish that we had more of our own too, but the Pentagon has given the Pacific Fleet priority.