Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - The Mediterranean - HMSO: The Air Battle of Malta - 13.  The Last Blitz : the Siege is Raised

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

XIII. The Last Blitz : the Siege is Raised
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1942

About one-third of the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean, and half its total bomber strength in the whole theatre, meanwhile assembled in Sicily. It was zero hour at El Alamein. On 11th October the enemy opened a new attack on Malta with a first raid of fifty-eight escorted bombers. Spitfires destroyed eight of the bombers and seven of the fighters. The German radio declared that their object was " to keep the British squadrons grounded and to deny access to the port of Valetta ".

These renewed attacks killed eighty people and destroyed or damaged four hundred and sixty-nine buildings. A force of something like six hundred aircraft was used by the enemy. In spite of their superiority in numbers they were defeated. The Spitfires shot down one hundred and thirty-two of them. The guns destroyed eight. Altogether two hundred and four of them were destroyed or probably destroyed. Malta lost thirty-one aircraft. For every pilot lost, the enemy lost fifteen air crews.

The policy of forward interception, though naturally unable entirely to ward off a heavy offensive, proved itself again. The lower scoring by the anti-aircraft guns was due to the fact that fewer targets reached the island. The system of reporting and controlling worked excellently. In small hutted out-stations radiolocation operators worked hard and long. One of them describes life during this period :

" It was fairly easy to estimate the Luftwaffe's time-table for attacks. Always one could expect a raid a few moments after sitting down to what small amount of food there was. As surely as the earth revolves, at precisely quarter past seven each morning, the first formation of his bombers could be discerned approaching from the east. I noticed also that the ` big stuff' was little used. No 1,000-pounders chained together this time - mostly anti-personnel and incendiaries.

" Even during the day one could watch the thin streamers of light high up in the sky, indicating another load of anti-personnels leaving the plane. Then they would burst across one of the 'dromes like so many pop-corns on a hot shovel. With nightfall there was no cessation of the attacks. Flares were continually in use - usually five, sometimes six. One bunch over Grand Harbour, another in the centre of the island, bathing it in soft mellow light and a pervading 'quietness before the next kite came in on his bombing run. Then once more came that Fifth of November effect - occasionally one of our own star shells, the weaving of numerous searchlights, incendiaries anywhere and everywhere, until it was time for bed and one had just to forget about it.

" There was the ironic angle, too - how often on one of those very rare visits to the cinema could one watch those pictures depicting celluloid people nonchalantly lighting a cigarette, only to grind it immediately into so many shreds of tobacco. And the groans from many throats as they thought of their own meagre ration and the rubbish they had smoked by necessity, if only to soothe tired nerves.

Similar sounds would greet the placing of delicate dishes upon an already lavishly prepared table. This time, perhaps, they were prompted by a memory of bully-beef and biscuits.

" The last daylight raid to reach the island was a formation of three Ju. 88s, all of which were shot down, the last one circling my own station and eventually putting her nose down and diving straight for us. I ran, only to find everyone else running in the opposite direction, which is rather complicating. About a hundred feet from the deck she levelled out, crashing 500 yards away. I think that it was the pilot's unlucky day for his 'chute never opened and I remember him flashing past my eyes to disappear in a cloud of dust fifty yards distant."

THE ISLAND IS SAFE

Not one airfield was rendered unserviceable for more than half an hour throughout October. From 11th to 19th October, during the heaviest period of the attack, when there were nearly 250 raids by day, there was only one night when our aircraft did not carry out shipping attacks. Such was the measure of the enemy's failure to achieve his object.

Air Vice-Marshal Park, in introducing his forward interception plan, had demanded the highest quality of controlling, implicit obedience in the air to the directions of the controller, and good shooting. The Spitfires went for the bombers head-on. In their attacks they were ordered not to open fire at long range but to preserve the element of surprise and to save ammunition.

Captured German pilots confessed that they found the Malta of October 1942 stronger than the island had ever been before. Many of them had imagined that they had bombed the island to the point of surrender in April. From the moment they returned to the attack and were beaten, they lost their belief in the invincibility of the Luftwaffe and became acutely conscious of the superiority of the Royal Air Force in the Mediterranean theatre. A corporal brought down in a Ju. 88 in the middle of October, referring to sorties over the island, said : " Wir wurden auf Malta gehetzt " (" We were being continually driven to it ").

On 23rd October the Eighth Army attacked at El Alamein, and was soon sweeping along the coast of North Africa. Nowhere was its success more keenly felt and cheered than in besieged Malta.

THE LIGHTS OF VICTORY. In the blaze of arc-lights ships are unloaded in Grand Harbour. The quays are battered from past raids. But now few raiders come -  in November and December convoys steam in without loss. The long siege is over.

There was not enough to eat. The people had withstood the terrific battering of aerial bombardment in isolation. The Royal Air Force had cleared the skies for them, and the Eighth Army day by day fought nearer. The townsfolk had had to live underground. Thousands of homeless people were living in caves and in rock shelters. Their washing and open-air cooking lined the approaches to War Headquarters ; their children played around guns and sentries.

They were a people grown used to total war. The country folk farmed their more distant fields during the all clear and worked the fields nearer the farm air raid shelter during alerts. This ancient and loyal people, who had seen the wars of the Greeks, of Carthage, of Rome, of Napoleon, watched and waited, besieged and hungry, for relief. The October battle of the skies was won. There must be a convoy in November.

The enemy's effort against the island during this month was on a very limited scale. There were fifteen day alerts and fourteen night alerts. Fighter bombers managed to cross the coast on two occasions only. Little damage was caused.

Allied forces landed in French North Africa on the night of 7th-8th November, after a period of intensive reconnaissance by Malta-based photographic aircraft. To cover the landings that night Wellingtons flew from Luqa airfield to bomb the airfield at Cagliari at the south of Sardinia, facing Tunis. Every night of the month, save four when the weather was bad, the Wellingtons from Malta were out. As soon as it was seen that the enemy intended to defend Tunisia, they transferred the main weight of their effort to the airfield at Tunis, where great numbers of Axis transport and other aircraft were concentrating.

Their flying time for the month was over 1,000 hours ; they dropped 334 tons of bombs. Photographs showed that El Aouina, the Tunis airfield, was unserviceable for several days on end and that many aircraft were destroyed on the ground. Beaufighters arrived to take up the strafing of Tunis. They operated on eleven days during the month, averaging eleven sorties a day. Each squadron of them also accounted for four ships.

Sicily was attacked by the Wellingtons toward the end of the month. A successful innovation were the Spitfire bombers. They dropped thirteen tons of bombs, mostly upon Comiso and Gela airfields, during the month.

Although there were still many German and Italian fighters based there, the " Spit-bombers " met with little opposition. On the few occasions when enemy fighters were encountered, the close escort of Spitfire fighters had little difficulty in driving them off.

The November convoy which raised the seige of Malta sailed from Egypt on 16th November. It was attacked by torpedo-bombers during its passage across, but it reached the approaches to Malta intact. Strategical bombing of the Sicilian airfields was carried out by the Wellingtons to cover its passage. An umbrella of Beaufighters and Spitfires was provided for it during the last 135 miles of the voyage. The patrols were flown in very bad weather, and three Spitfires were lost.

The long line of ships forming up outside Grand Harbour presented an easy target for an enterprising torpedo-bomber ; but none came. Upon the bastions of the Knights amid the flowers and debris of the Baracca Gardens, upon thousands of flat roofs, from all the ancient vantage points of Valetta and the Three Cities, the people and garrison of Malta stood to watch these ships. They cheered them. They sang. They listened to the naval bands playing upon the escort vessels. The arrangements to receive the ships and for unloading them went well, though it taxed the outworn transport. The sound of patrolling fighters never ceased. The life-saving cargoes were safely brought ashore. The siege was raised.

In the House of Commons on 3rd March, 1943 the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. A. V. Alexander, presenting the Navy Estimates, said :

" The gallant island of Malta has been sustained and relieved. Since the beginning of 1942, our operations for that purpose, including the reinforcement of the Royal Air Force in the island, cost us the loss of three cruisers, nine destroyers and two aircraft carriers, in addition to merchant ships. In view of the great history of the contribution by Malta, the Royal Navy were very glad to render that service. With the help on two occasions of a United States carrier, our aircraft carriers carried altogether 744 fighters for Malta."

There had been terror ; and there was near-starvation, even after that November convoy. There was disease, infantile paralysis, and all the after-effects of under-nourishment. That is past. Gone are the days of heat and choking dust ; the atmosphere, remembered by so many airmen, of flies, and calls to action and weariness.

With spring and the thunder of the island's aircraft came more food, healthier bodies, smiles, and the flags out for victories. Upon the steep hill at Bighi, overlooking the harbour, the churches, and the streets, a shapely tree flowered magenta against the cypresses and firs shading the resting place of the airmen who fought and died upon this battlefield of rock and sky and sea.

All the while these pages were being written within sight of the twin towers of St John's Pro-Cathedral in Valetta in the early months of 1943, not one bomb fell. Blue water lapped against the wreckage of many gallant ships in Grand Harbour. Great mounds of broken masonry disfigured the streets of stairs and the alleys in towns and villages. The airfields were unlovely with thousands of old wounds. But every hour of every day Malta was striking. The fleet sailed in and out. Submarines added notches to the pictorial chart of sinkings which hangs on a wall at their base. Spitfires, Mosquitoes, Albacores, Beauforts, Beaufighters, Wellingtons and other aircraft rode the skies

THE LAST OF THE GLADIATORS