Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - The Mediterranean - HMSO: The Air Battle of Malta - 6. The Luftwaffe Returns for the Kill

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

VI. The Luftwaffe Returns for the Kill

JANUARY - MARCH 1942

The end of 1941 and the spring of 1942 brought to Malta much foul weather and the most concentrated air bombardment of the war. The assault of the previous year against the Illustrious had been opportunist. The present Axis plan to destroy the weapon of Malta was strategic.

They succeeded in blunting the weapon ; by April they had very nearly broken it. To accomplish this they had to make as many as 400 sorties against the small compass of the rock in one day. In one month they made 5,715 sorties. In April they unloaded 6,728 tons of bombs upon the island.

The enemy's plan, as in the Battle of Britain, was to make a series of bludgeoning blows. The bludgeon was wielded with overwhelming numbers, with limitless replacements and at great cost. It was aimed first at the airfields and fighter strength : then at dockyards and harbours ; finally at the destruction of all stores, barracks and lines of communication. As in the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe never fully attained any one of its objectives, although it seemed to those who watched the fury increasing day by day that the bludgeoning came perilously close to success.

Malta's defenders, fighter pilots and anti-aircraft gunners hit back. Social service and civil defence workers and the civil population fought that staunch, relentless passive warfare in their own streets and homes known so well to the inhabitants of London, Coventry and Plymouth as " taking it ". In the Palace Square in Valetta, for all to see, is the inscription : Magnce et invictce Britannica Melitensium amor et Europce vox has insulas confirmat. This may be fairly translated : To Britain great and unsubdued, these islands are entrusted by the Powers of Europe at the wish of the Maltese themselves. The spirit of those words was never better upheld by the conduct of the people and the Services than in the stubborn battle of 1942.

While the Eighth Army went forward in the desert to relieve Tobruk in the early part of December, there were sixty to seventy Axis aircraft operating each week against Malta. As the Army met with success in the latter part of December, the number of raiders rose to over 200 a week. Escorted bomber formations, varying from seven to forty in number, attacked nearly every day and night, and single aircraft made constant nuisance raids. In the first three weeks of January, during which Rommel's forces retreated, without being destroyed, to El Agheila, the enemy sent some 950 raiders against Malta. In the third and fourth week in January, when Rommel, with only three days' supplies, made his reconnaissance in force, which later developed into an offensive recapturing Ajedabia, and when a convoy vital to this move was approaching Tripoli, there were 150 and 140 sorties per week respectively against the island.

Bad weather, lashing winds and cold rain prevailed over the island almost continuously. Although at times it may have limited enemy attacks, it also reduced Malta's striking power. During the week between 2nd and 9th December, flying was possible on only two days out of seven. A problem peculiar to air control from Malta is that there are no landing grounds to which aircraft may be diverted if the weather has suddenly closed down over the island bases. Any threat of sudden change, therefore, made it necessary to recall aircraft. It was difficult in the isolated situation of Malta at that time to obtain meteorological information upon which to make a forecast covering more than six hours, and sorties often had to be limited to that period.

At the turn of the year there were not only gales and torrential rains but also electrical storms and much low cloud. In January, the fighter airfields - Hal Far and Takali - became waterlogged and operations were so severely hampered that the fighters had to be transferred to the bomber airfield at Luqa. Overcrowding here caused disorganisation among the bombers, which already had their own troubles. Strong cross-winds were prevalent at Luqa during January and several times these grounded the Wellingtons.

Such conditions, combined with the rising enemy pressure, left their mark upon bombing efforts from Malta. During the first fortnight of the Eighth Army's advance from Egypt, 222 sorties were made. In the next fortnight there were 181, and in the next 173 ; finally, in the three weeks at the beginning of January, during the Army's final advance, only 106 were made from the island.

Though the enemy had withdrawn to the Gulf of Sirte, his forces were not destroyed. Upon his power to rebuild his depleted strength by reinforcement across the Middle Sea or upon Allied power to extend its sea-line from Egypt to Benghazi, while maintaining its striking power in Malta, rested the decisive issue of the battle. It was not resolved during that campaign. The Eighth Army retreated, but there was no final enemy thrust into Egypt, as all the world knows. The history of these months in the Battle of Malta is intricately linked with the fortunes of the desert. Air Vice-Marshal Lloyd, the Air Officer Commanding at that time, has stated : " It was because Rommel was out at El Agheila that the big blitz came to Malta. It was the striking force of Malta which caused him to be out from lack of supplies."

The strength of the island came near to being neutralised : but always the potential of Malta remained, upheld by stout hearts.

If any should doubt that potential, let him consider the probable course of Mediterranean history if Malta had fallen into Axis hands and had become a power for danger, instead of a power, sometimes greater, sometimes lesser, for support.

On 4th January, the Blenheims took the enemy unawares, shattering his confidence that the offensive power of Malta had been overwhelmed. Ten of them in three formations attacked Castel Vetrano airfield in Sicily, where seventy-five transport aircraft, many of them Ju. 52s and S.M. 82s, were lined up wing-tip to wing-tip. Bombing from anything between twenty and a hundred feet, the Blenheims destroyed at least thirty-five of them and damaged many more without loss to themselves. The following night Wellingtons followed up the raid, left another fourteen aircraft ablaze, and blew up a petrol dump.

Apart from these aircraft, Fleet Air Arm Swordfish and Albacores, and R.A.F. Marylands, Beauforts and Beaufighters struck from Malta. Between 23rd December and 20th January there were fifty-two sorties against Tripoli alone.

Meanwhile the defence of the island grew increasingly arduous for the limited force of Hurricanes. Weather frequently favoured the raiders, enabling them to escape into cloud cover before being intercepted. Nevertheless, the Hurricanes saw the old year out with a tally of six destroyed and five probables for the week from 23rd December to 30th December. Their most intensive effort was between dawn and midday on 19th January, to cover a friendly convoy. That morning there were ninety-three Hurricane sorties from Luqa airfield and a standing patrol of twelve fighters was maintained over the ships.

Seventy-two enemy aircraft operated against the island in the space of two hours, scattering bombs and attacking the merchant vessels, but the convoy safely unloaded. Each succeeding convoy became more valuable as the Mediterranean conflict grew. Hurricane bombers and Wellingtons covered the operation of this convoy by offensive action. The Hurricanes bombed Comiso airfield early in the morning in order to ground fighters which might operate against the ships in passage, and the Wellingtons operated against Catania airfield during the night. While this January convoy was being unloaded, there were heavy raids on the airfields, and some bombers were lost on the ground. The runways were frequently cratered, but it was due mainly to the continued spell of bad weather that operations were reduced.

THE POWER OF THE FOE. This was the threatening sight that met Royal Air Force reconnaissance pilots above Castel Vetrano, Axis airfield in Sicily, on 3rd January 1942. Between seventy and eighty aircraft are dispersed upon the airfield. Most of them are torpedo-bombers----Z 1007s and S.M. 79s. Others are transports - Ju. 52s and S.M. 82s. Outside the roadway surrounding the airfield and extending downwards on the right are clusters of empty dispersal pens. On the roadway itself are groups of motor vehicles and (extreme left) four single-engined fighters.

February saw the Eighth Army retreating on the African mainland, and Malta once more geographically isolated, though still strategically of great consequence. The attack was intensified against the airfields. Between 21st January, the date of the German counter-attack in the desert, and 24th February there were 1,960 bomber sorties against the island. 7th February was a notable day ; there were sixteen alerts in twenty-four hours, a record for Malta. The bomber effort from the island was halved.

In the middle of February rain and gales swept down, curtailing operational flying ; again the fighter airfields at Takali and Hal Far were waterlogged. Nevertheless, Malta struck out both in the air and at sea. There were sixty bomber sorties against Tripoli during the month, thirty against the Sicilian airfields and thirty-four against troops and lines of communication feeding Rommel's advancing Armies.

Though there were a few Italian fighters to be seen over Malta, the Hurricane defenders were now facing Me. 109s which not only outclassed but also outnumbered them. The Luftwaffe, attempting to achieve complete domination of the sky over the island, laid on constant patrols of Me. 109s during the day. They also employed these aircraft as fighter-bombers for the first time against the airfields. In spite of their several handicaps, however, the Hurricanes destroyed ten of the enemy, probably destroyed six and damaged thirty-eight. They operated over a convoy which unhappily did not reach the vicinity of the island. They also flew intruder patrols over Sicily.

THE STRICKEN AIRFIELD. This is Takali. It is 29th April 1942. The attacks of the Luftwaffe on the airfields are reaching their crescendo. The airfield seems to blaze with lights. Each white glow is in fact a bomb crater. Craters cover the landing  ground, almost obliterate the roughly made runway, spatter the " labyrinth " dispersal area at  bottom left. Surrounding the field are protective pens for the aircraft ; many of them are empty.

Most serious for Malta's prosecution of the air war were the burnt-out aircraft and the craters upon the airfields. In spite of a formidrble programme for the building of dispersal pens, hard standing and slit trenches, the enemy looked like succeeding in blasting the island's striking forces on the ground and rendering the airfields useless.

The urgent need was for more protective pens for the dispersed aircraft and for maintenance squads to service the airfields quickly and to repair runways. The story of the pen building and airfield maintenance under day and night attack is one of complete understanding and comradeship between the Army and the Royal Air Force.

" I'd have been out of business but for tin soldiers ", Air Vice-Marshal Lloyd said after-wards. There had been a great expansion on the operational side of the Royal Air Force since the days of Faith, Hope and Charity. Reinforcements had been drafted to cope with this expansion, but difficulties of communications, the call on manpower at home during the Battle of Britain, and the rapidity of the expansion itself left the Royal Air Force with a serious shortage of personnel. The defensive building so immediately necessary presented apparently insuperable difficulties in man-power. Then the men of the infantry and field artillery came to the rescue.

MALTESE PIONEERS and other troops built the first protective pens with disused petrol cans. Later, bomb-spilled masonry was used. Often working under fire, the Army built 285 pens in three months.

Some 2,500 soldiers made up the working parties which were regularly distributed every day over the three airfields. Some days there were as many as 3,000 infantry and Royal Artillery troops at work. Each airfield was more or less adopted by a brigade. Famous county regiments became associated with the various airfields. The Royal West Kents and the Buffs were at Luqa, the Manchesters at Takali and the Devons at Hal Far ; but a feature of the organisation was its flexibility, which enabled rush jobs of crater-filling to be done by day or by night.

In the space of three months the soldiers laid twenty-seven miles of dispersal runways, and built fourteen large bomber pens, one hundred and seventy fighter pens, seventy reconnaissance aircraft pens and thirty-one naval aircraft pens. They worked twelve hours on and twelve hours off. They worked in the open, without protection during raids, and everyone who saw them felt that their steadiness under fire was an inspiration to the whole island. They scattered for cover only when the red flag proclaimed imminent danger. Even then they fought back with Bren guns and rifles.

The normal coast watch and patrol of ninety miles of intricate foreshore was still being maintained, and in many cases men had only three nights' sleep each week over a period of three or four weeks.

There were other aspects of the Battle of Malta where the collaboration of the Army saved the day ; as, for instance, in providing vital transport, housing and feeding men of the Royal Air Force as well as civilians, and, as will appear later, in working as airmen upon the aircraft.

WOUND UPON WOUND. This German reconnaissance photograph shows a section of Luqa, the bomber airfield. Damage and targets include : (1) and (2), destroyed aircraft ; (3) and (4), empty pens ; (5) and (6), twin-engined bombers

The building of pens and filling of craters were recognised as vital to the survival of the air forces, and everybody joined in the work. At first the aircraft pens were made of sandbags ; but it was soon found that this method was laborious and not very effective. Petrol cans and oil drums filled with earth and stones were then tried : and when these were used up, walls of stone and bomb-damaged masonry took their place. The Bomb Disposal Squad, under Flight Lieutenant Dickinson, did a heroic job in tackling unexploded bombs in inconvenient places. Officers and men from Air Headquarters made up working parties when they were not on watch. On many occasions officers' and men's messes on the airfield were emptied for urgent manual labour. For the runways there were a few steamrollers, and it soon became necessary to build pens for them ; until they were finally destroyed they were used day and night. In the dark the infantry who operated them marked out with lamps the strips to be rolled.

One of the most remarkable dispersal strips ever devised came into being as a link between the airfields of Luqa and Hal Far. Famous among everyone who has worked in Malta as the Safi strip, it is a track winding through grey rock, small terraced fields, carob trees and scrub. Here and there are small farmhouses, built like fortresses in the days when the Maltese farmer had to defend himself against Arab marauders, and guarded by clumps of tall prickly pear. Many tons of bombs have been dropped on the strip, and it was often considered an adventure to travel the length of it unless guided by someone who knew all the shelter holes. Throughout its length pens were built in an intricate pattern, making the best use of the lie of the land. It was the Hampshire Regiment which was associated with much of this work, though the labour in its early stages was provided by the Malta Police Force.

That memorable spring was a progression of alerts : and an officer of the Royal Artillery suggested that the B.B.C. in their news bulletins should cut a long story short and say, " During the last month Malta had six all clears, one of which lasted for twenty-five minutes ". On 7th February there was a record number of alerts, the time under alert totalling thirteen hours six minutes.

So many interruptions seriously hampered maintenance and repair work on aircraft. No sooner were they repaired than they were hit again. The damage rate became higher than the repair rate, and though in some cases the damage was only superficial, it was enough to keep the aircraft temporarily grounded. Fleet Air Arm attacks on shipping were heavily cut down. The fighters were fully occupied in maintaining patrols over the island, and it was obvious that if enemy attacks continued to increase, fighter reinforcements would be needed to deal with them. The fall of Benghazi and the Eighth Army's retreat to Gazala had brought home to everyone the urgency of Malta's air defence.

With March began the most critical period in the Battle of Malta. At the beginning of the month the Axis air forces were just recovering from their rough handling in the Western Desert. As they were reinforced, so the bomber sorties against the island increased to seventy or eighty a day. Some idea of the mounting violence of the attack may be gained from the weight of bombs dropped : in February about 990 tons, in March about 2,170 tons. The enemy was rapidly gaining local air superiority. Fighters and fighter bombers could fly in at low levels with ever increasing confidence. They attained greater accuracy in their results against the airfields and the submarine base, from which the loth Sub-marine Flotilla grimly refused to move.

The island's bombing offensive still managed to show its teeth at the beginning of the month, when on the night of 2nd March sixteen Wellingtons dropped twenty-six tons of bombs on an Axis convoy in Palermo harbour. The striking force, however, virtually ceased to exist after 8th March. The Hurricanes, out-classed and outnumbered, fought doggedly on.

On 5th March, Air Vice-Marshal Lloyd signalled to Cairo to the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief that the daylight attacks on the airfields were very serious and that little work could be done owing to the continuous alerts.

Much minor damage, he said, was being done to aircraft, making them unserviceable for night operations. Every day they were repaired, only to be hit again. The longer they stayed in the island, the more they were damaged. He added that he had seventeen Wellingtons in this condition, and that the only way to prevent delivery aircraft destined for the Middle East from being damaged on the island was to pass them through each night as they arrived with relief crews. In spite of continuous intruder raids, this was being done. His most urgent request was for immediate reinforcements of Spitfires.

THE SPITFIRES COME. Bound for Malta, a Spitfire roars down the flight deck of the Eagle. She was one of fifteen from Gibraltar, the first Spitfires to enter the battle. They arrived on the desperate day of 7th March 1942

It should be explained that throughout the battle the island continued to serve as a posting station for aircraft flown from Britain to the Middle East. Its constancy was remarkable. Nearly 750 aircraft passed through between November 1941 and July 1942, the period of the heaviest assault. In March, April and May of 1942, the worst period of all, and the most vital for reinforcements for Egypt, more aircraft were passed through than in the three preceding months. From October 1941 on-wards, unarmed aircraft of the British Overseas Airways Corporation on their way to the Middle East were running the gauntlet of the German and Italian bases to carry supplies to Malta and to bring out sick and wounded. Unloading  and loading, refuelling and checking of the engines had to be carried out in darkness, often while bombs were falling on the airfield. On one occasion a captain came in to land six times only to be warned off at the last moment each time because the airfield was obstructed by bomb craters. It was two hours before he landed. The pilots of this " Merchant Service of the Air " did not interrupt their hazardous flights even during the height of the blitz, but they badly needed fighter protection over their landing grounds.

The first Spitfires to reach Malta arrived two days after the A.O.C.'s signal ; they provoked a new onslaught. An R.A.F. sergeant who manned a fire-tender on one of the airfields throughout the battle described their arrival in these words :

" The Spitfires came waggling their wings as if to say ` O.K., boys, we're here.' But that very same evening the ` gen ' went round that a big plot was building up over Sicily and within half an hour or so we were to see that Jerry really meant business. Standing at a vantage point in the village of Zurrieq, I saw the first waves of 88s coming all the way over the island. They dived down on Takali where the whole batch of ` Spits ' had landed. We tried to count them as they came in, but it was an utter impossibility. Straight down they went, and one could see the stuff leave the kites before it really got dark.

" The guns were belting rounds up like nothing on earth ; tracers filled the sky, and if things weren't so serious one could have called it a lovely sight. The din was terrific and Takali seemed to be ablaze from end to end. The lads would shout that some gun or other had stopped firing, the crew had been knocked out ; but no ; they've started again pushing up rounds harder than ever. The Jerry seemed to be under orders to finish the place and, by hell, he tried his best."

The Spitfires numbered fifteen. They came through from Gibraltar, being flown off an aircraft carrier, and arrived without loss. Forty-four Messerschmitts carried out intruder patrols, and the Hurricanes were up to cover the deliveries. During the next few days the airfields were persistently blasted. On 10th March the Spitfires were ready for action, and they destroyed one Me. 109, probably destroyed two, and damaged one. A spell of bad weather and the Spitfires brought a lull. Work on the airfields proceeded furiously. The men on the guns had a breather. Once again the most famous fighter of the war seemed to have scored a triumph.