Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - The Mediterranean - HMSO: The Air Battle of Malta - 1: AN OUTPOST OF THE BRAVE

THE AIR BATTLE OF MALTA. The Official Account of the R.A.F. in Malta, June 1940 to November 1942; PREPARED FOR THE AIR MINISTRY BY THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION; London : His Majesty's Stationery Office 1944

I. AN OUTPOST OF THE BRAVE
JUNE 1940

RED FOR DANGER. Malta hoists her tattered flag of warning.

In the clear heat of a Mediterranean summer morning, less than seven hours after Italy entered this war, the first raiders came to Malta. Within the rock-carved bastions of the Knights of St John in Valetta, and across Grand Harbour in the area of the Three Cities, Senglea, Cospicua and Vittoriosa, the sirens were heard for the first time.

From that day, 11th June 1940, until the winter of 1942, when siege-raising ships fought through to the island, the Battle of Malta was waged. It was a battle against the Germans and the Italians, against superior numbers, shortage of equipment, isolation, terror and hunger. From this battle Malta emerged in 1943 to dominate the central Mediterranean as a striking base, a bright weapon in the armoury of the Allied forces, more deadly than ever before in the long history of warfare in the Middle Sea.

The island was not a single weapon wielded as an isolated arm ; it had an integral part to play in Mediterranean strategy as a whole. Malta is linked by air with both extremes of the Middle Sea - with Gibraltar and Egypt. Every theatre of war in the Mediterranean was within range of its aircraft, and not the least important task of its pilots was to watch from their central position all the movements of the enemy. The battles in the Mediterranean hinged upon supplies, on the capacity of both sides to reinforce themselves across a limited area of sea and across desert sand. The geographical situation of the island was vital to the Allies in the supply conflict : but for Malta, Rommel in 1942 might well have pressed on to Alexandria.

Aircraft and submarines from the island, with perseverance and daring worthy of the traditions of the Knights of St John, ravaged the enemy's supplies. Malta-based aircraft alone sank or damaged over half a million tons of his shipping. The island's reconnaissance aircraft sought and brought news of the enemy in Italy, Sicily, North Africa and the Greek Archipelago. Malta was always linked with the fortunes of the armies in the Western Desert. Never in history was the island's strategical significance greater.

To one approaching from the air, as so many of its enemies have approached it, Malta looks at first like a leaf, green or yellow according to the season, floating upon the sea. The whole of the island, owing to its small compass, is visible for a long time, its airfields and defences, its churches and farms close-knit and compact. Once the navigator has found it, Malta seems a simple, rather fragile and easy target. It is a memorable view, either to friend or foe.

It was because of the deadly prosecution of the war by this outpost that during the period of the battle the Axis caused 3,215 alerts to be sounded upon the island, persisting month after month in the effort to neutralise it; and finally, in the six months from December 1941 to May 1942, attempting wholly to reduce the garrison by aerial assault.

The spirit and endurance of the Maltese, which played so great a part in winning the battle, can only be done justice in a book devoted to their problems and triumphs while living besieged upon a target of rock. This is the story of Malta's war in the air, but it must be emphasised that the island's resistance was a unique example of a combined operation in which the Royal Navy, the Merchant Navy, the Army, the people of Malta and the Royal Air Force were all indispensable and inseparable.

With the Royal Air Force were men from all parts of the British Commonwealth and from the United Nations. Conspicuous in the island's defence were Australians, New Zealanders and Rhodesians, while during 1942 never less than twenty-five per cent of the air crews were Canadians. Although most of them must remain anonymous in this account, their individual exploits gain a worthier tribute in the joint success they achieved. Such was the comradeship of fighter and bomber crews, of the British and their brother nations, that this composite honour is the one they would themselves prefer.

The siren, sounding at seven o'clock on that June morning, was the prelude to two and a quarter years of air assault and blockade from an enemy only just over fifty miles distant at the nearest landfall. By the end of 1942 over 14,000 tons of bombs had fallen upon the 143 square miles of Malta and Gozo ; an average of some ninety-nine tons per square mile, though this tonnage was concentrated to a far greater density upon the dockyards, airfields and inhabited places of Malta. During those two and a quarter years 1,468 civilians (or about one to every 200 of the population) were killed or died of injuries and over 24,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged.

The enemy lost 1,129 aircraft in this assault, of which 236 were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire. In the island's defence 568 aircraft were lost ; but for every aircraft bombed on the ground, the anti-aircraft gunners destroyed one Axis machine in the air. For every civilian killed, the Axis paid approximately one raider.