Viking halberd a drooping "beard". The name is from Old Norse "skegg", "beard" and "øx", "axe". The term "Viking halberd" was used to describe a find in North America in the 1995 book "Early Vikings of the New World", but it was later demonstrated to be a tobacco cutter. There has currently been, in fact, no clearly identified Viking halberd or bill found. Spears are the only type of polearms found in Viking graves. It is possible that halberds and bills were not part of Viking funerary customs, as opposed to other weapons that have been found in graves. Bills have been
Operation Halberd vessels to be scuttled. The rest of the convoy arrived at Malta and discharged their cargo. Operation Halberd was at the time the largest Malta resupply effort of the war. Nine merchant ships carrying 81,000 tons of military equipment and supplies sailed from Liverpool on 16 September and from the Clyde on 17 September as part of convoy WS (Winston Specials) 11X, passing Gibraltar on 24 September 1941, with a close escort under the command of Rear-Admiral Harold Burrough. The nine ships were: Force H, under the command of Admiral James Somerville, accompanied the convoy as defence against Italian surface