Air Fronts: Theaters of Operation - The Mediterranean - HMSO: The Air Battle of Malta - 8.  Malta Fights for Her Life

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

VIII. Malta Fights for Her Life
APRIL 1942

Doggedly the defenders of Malta fought during April - " April, the cruellest month," as the poet wrote prophetically. In the desert there was a lull in the fighting ; and the enemy could not thrust forward towards Suez until great cargoes had been shipped across from Europe to North Africa. Malta's offensive threatened these supplies. For that reason a vast weight of air power was tied down in Sicily to batter the island. For such a small target, enormous forces were engaged. But for the strategical significance of Malta, they were forces which might have been used to advantage in Russia or in the desert. During the month of April, 6,728 tons of bombs were dropped. Most of them fell upon a handful of targets situated within a few miles of each other. The distribution was :

Dockyard area ..    ..  3,156 tons
Luqa airfield   ..  ..  805
Takali airfield ..  .. 841
Hal Far airfield .. ..  750
Kalafrana seaplane base ..  196
Elsewhere   ..  980

The dockyard district includes the densely populated areas of the Three Cities and Valetta, which contain the waters of the docks. While the inhabitants took to the rocks, their homes, churches and historic buildings were pounded and trampled, together with the military objectives. The loss of civilian life during this black month rose to 300 people, the highest figure for any month, but still relatively low owing to the unassailable rock shelters in which by this time many people were spending their lives. By March, there was already shelter accommodation for some 440,000 - nearly double the number of the estimated population.

But over 10,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged during April. The lovely baroque facades crashed down, the painted roofs of the churches were broken open to the sky, the palaces of the Knights of St John and their hewn bastions were scored and wounded. Valetta's streets of stairs were blocked with masonry. The dockyards were clogged with debris. The Opera House was demolished. The University, the Museum and the Palace of the Grand Masters were hit. The Times of Malta received a direct hit on 31st March, but the issue for 1st April was on the streets in the morning. The nerves of everybody were strained, and the strength of every man was put to the test.

Upon the airfields men of the Army and the Royal Air Force sweated in the growing heat to keep the machines airworthy and the ground clear for flying. All the while, work went forward upon the protective pens. With the exception of three days of bad weather, daylight raids came every day with German persistence and regularity. The Italians had disappeared from the sky, handing over the offensive to their masters. On an average there were 170 bombers over every day, Ju. 88s and Ju. 87s coming in waves of twelve to fifteen at a few minutes' interval from a variety of directions, sometimes making for a single objective, sometimes for several. There were usually three raids every day ; meals in the Royal Air Force messes were arranged to fit in with them. Each raid lasted about one hour. The total time spent under raids during the month came to twelve days ten hours and twenty minutes.

One Hurricane squadron had been re-equipped with Spitfires in March, another re-equipped during the second week in April ; but many Spitfires had been lost on the ground, and it was the Hurricanes again which bore the brunt of battle. Sometimes a dozen Hurricanes would take off to meet a raid of a hundred enemy aircraft. Often the odds were greater.

During the heat of the crisis a Royal Air Force corporal wrote these words : " During dinner the Hun started again. This time he dropped quite a number of bombs on Luqa village. A direct hit was scored on a shelter. It appeared that water was seeping into the shelter, drowning the people trapped there. The Army and R.A.F. squads were attempting to get through to them. After tea another raid - bombs all over the place. As I am writing, the 6 p.m. news from Blighty can be heard in the sergeants' mess. It makes me just a little homesick.

" Back home I can picture the family having tea - Thursday evening - I wonder whether Dad has any inspections to-night. And my thoughts fly to Joan - she is probably making tea now for Jack and her Dad. How I wish I could be there. But this war can't last for ever. The Camp All-Clear has sounded. I wonder how much peace we shall get now. The place seems much the same after a raid, when the smoke dust has cleared - at least from a distance - as I look over the valley to Rabat on the hill, or slightly to the left to Takali then follow on to B'Kara, Hamrun and the Harbour."

AFTERNOON IN SPRING. Bombs thunder across Floriana, south-west of Valetta, in an afternoon attack on 24th April. Malta's light soil and soft stone blow up into dust clouds thick as a smoke screen. The church with twin towers is the famous St. Publius, badly damaged in the April raids.

By the middle of April the fighter defence was seriously weakened. The defenders thought they were lucky if they could regularly put up six aircraft, four to engage the enemy and two for airfield defence. The system used was to scramble the four strikers immediately the warning was received of the approach of hostile aircraft. The fighters would then gain height as rapidly as possible in the sun. In order to save petrol, the airfield defence pair were sent up at the last possible moment. Keeping radio silence, they would fly to a point twenty or thirty miles south of the island. There they would gain height until ordered by radio to swoop in to whichever airfield was most in need of defence.

The Messerschmitts were in the habit of flying into the airfield circuit as the pitifully small striking force returned with ammunition spent. The airfield defence fighters then came into action.

Amazing battles were fought by Malta fighter pilots without ammunition. The Germans were never certain when they were really without it but it was seen that the enemy always sheered off as soon as the fighters formed upon them. But prisoners of war captured later affirmed that they were no longer afraid to fly over the island in their Ju. 88s in broad daylight without fighter cover. They began to believe that the Battle of Malta had been won. They had been doing three sorties a day, four days a week.

FURY OF ATTACK. Men went out to their work. Women tended their homes. The dive-bombers came in seemingly endless waves of twelve to fifteen every few minutes. This time it is Sliema that is blasted. In April, nearly 7,000 tons of bombs rained down on an area of a few square miles.

Sometimes ingenuity played a part in the fighter effort. During April, Pilot Officer " Humgufery " appeared upon the scene. His parent was Group Captain A. B. Woodhall, who was in charge of the Operations Room. He described this incident : " On one occasion all our fighter aircraft were grounded in order to try to increase serviceability. The Hun bombers came over in force with quite a large fighter escort. It happened that there were several fighter pilots with me in the Operations Room, one of whom was a Canadian with an unmistakable voice. I put him at the micro-phone at a stand-by radio set and proceeded to give him dummy orders. He replied just as if he was flying his fighter. This, we suspected, caused a cry of ` Achtung ! Spitfeuer ! ' to go over the German radio. In any case, two 109s enthusiastically shot each other down without any British aircraft being airborne. This knowledge that the Germans intercepted our orders stood us in good stead. We claimed that Pilot Officer ` Humgufery ' shot down the two Huns."

The anti-aircraft artillery for a time had the battle almost to themselves. They destroyed 102 enemy aircraft in the month, their best achievement. Thirty of these fell to them during one week ended 8th April. In the course of that week they achieved their record of ammunition expenditure. In one day an average of sixty-nine rounds were fired for every heavy anti-aircraft gun and fifty-six rounds for every Bofors gun. "Malta's anti-aircraft artillery ", said the German radio, " must be counted among Tommy's very best, and plays the greatest part in the defence of the island."

A Staff officer of the Royal Artillery described the raids from a gunner's point of view :

" The dust after any air raid is terrific ; but in Malta, where the soil is so light and the stones so soft, the cloud of dust that rises is as thick as any smoke screen and makes the work of the gunners trying to see their targets doubly difficult. Sometimes an hour later one could see the dust cloud in a compact mass miles out above the sea, driven along with the wind. The weight of these attacks was particularly severe on the gun positions surrounding the airfields.

" At first, the enemy made the actual airfield itself his main objective. Gun positions suffered from badly aimed bombs and from those released too early or too late, but very soon his main objective became the fringes of the airfield where the aircraft were lying. Combined with this, he made deliberate attacks on the anti-aircraft positions. These suffered severely as they could not be moved out too far lest the airfield runways became bereft of protection, particularly by the light anti-aircraft guns."

Not only were the fighters unable to operate during eleven days in this month, but a serious shortage of ammunition developed. Cuts were imposed upon the gunners, restricting them to fifteen rounds for each gun. These restrictions were only lifted upon special occasions, such as the arrival of fighter reinforcements later in the month. To meet the difficulties of this shortage the guns and fighters collaborated in the creation of a " sanctuary " at Takali. Bofors guns round this airfield were not limited in their number of rounds ; and if any fighters were being harassed by the enemy and had expended their ammunition, they would immediately make for Takali and remain low down in the circuit. The guns then saw them safely in to land."

The gunners, Maltese and British, stood side by side and fought with courage in conditions of frustration and strain. The ammunition expenditure rate was very carefully watched and reports were called for twice in every twenty-four hours. This in itself presented a problem to detachment commanders when communications broke down. One of the battery commanders twice swam across a creek in the harbour to deliver his report.

During the period of the Battle of Malta, there were seventy-eight direct hits upon main cables ; half of these were in April. Gas, water and electric light services were often cut off. For four or five weeks main water was not available in Valetta, much loss having been caused to the water reserve by bombs dropping upon reservoirs. After every raid the Maltese people emerged stoically from the rock and attempted to carry on the business of living, of salvaging their goods, of looking after the needs of the hordes of dark-eyed shrill children who played and prayed in the shelters. The civil defence services were quick to arrive at the scene of every bombing. The only horror they were spared was fire ; from the sixteenth century, when so many of them were built, till the present day, the buildings of Malta have been made of stone.

Malta's proudest reward in the midst of these trials was contained in a message of 15th April received by His Excellency General Sir William Dobbie, Governor and Commander-in-Chief, from the Secretary of State for the Colonies :

" I have it in command from the King to convey to you the following message : ` To HONOUR HER BRAVE PEOPLE I AWARD THE GEORGE CROSS TO THE ISLAND FORTRESS OF MALTA TO BEAR WITNESS TO A HEROISM AND DEVOTION THAT WILL LONG BE FAMOUS IN HISTORY - GEORGE R.I.' " The people rejoiced, and The Times of Malta printed a banner headline - " King Sets His Seal On Living History ". The Governor's broadcast to the people included these words : " The safety and well-being of this fortress rests under God on four supports. They are the three fighting services and the civil population. Each one of these is essential to the well-being of the others, and each one depends on the other three and cannot do without them."

The same evening the Italian radio added its version of the event's significance : " This is but one more preposterous deception by the British Government. Had not our unfortunate Maltese brethren been under the heel of British domination which is being forced on them under the threat of guns and bayonets, we have no doubt as to how the Maltese would behave."

On 20th April Spitfire reinforcements were flown in from the American aircraft carrier Wasp. They were chased in, and the moment they arrived a terrific attack was launched at them on the ground. While they were being refuelled, rearmed and serviced many of them were " spitchered ". The enemy sent 306 bombers in one day to destroy them. Within three days they were all grounded. Such bitter experiences against overwhelming odds pointed to the necessity of an even greater acceleration of methods on the ground. In that lay the only hope of reinforcing the sadly reduced fighter strength.

As April drew to a close the situation in Malta was nearly desperate. Though in that month the guns and fighters destroyed or probably destroyed two hundred of the attackers, the defenders had lost twenty-three Spitfires with fifty-seven damaged and, eighteen Hurricanes with thirty damaged. The service-ability of the fighters dropped ; some days the air force was virtually grounded and, while the gunners were still rationed with powder and shot, the losses could ill be afforded.

During the whole of this period, the 10th Submarine Flotilla had continued to operate successfully, but conditions of " rest " in harbour naturally fell far short of normal. The crews could not continue indefinitely to dive by day in selected berths and undertake repairs by night. It was therefore decided at the end of the month that the Flotilla should temporarily withdraw and be refreshed.

On 27th April, the Air Officer Commanding signalled that the enemy operations during this period might prove disastrous unless immediate steps were taken to counter them. There was a danger that radiolocation and wireless equipment would be destroyed, making it impossible to operate Spitfires. He stated that he could not tolerate the enemy's ability to operate without hindrance.

No sooner had this signal been sent than there were encouraging signs that the enemy was slackening off. One afternoon when the sirens went, instead of low-flying Junkers, five " Black Crows " - as the gunners called the multi-engined Italian bombers - appeared. They flew at an immense height in precise formation, just as they had flown before the Luftwaffe took over. The Germans had had to transfer some of their strength to other fronts ; they also needed time for resting and servicing their aircraft. On 29th April there were 220 sorties against the island; on 30th April there were only sixty-eight. These attacks were directed mainly against stores, camps, lines of communications and civilian targets. Four churches, a convent and a hospital were bombed in one day.

The possibility of an invasion of Malta, particularly since the German invasion of Crete, had always been present in the defenders' minds. They therefore planned to meet it. The Royal Air Force was still flying reconnaissance sorties regularly, often at great hazard, to keep a check on the numbers of enemy aircraft opposing Malta.

"THE CRUELLEST MONTH"

On 21st April, when the offensive was at its height, attention was drawn to a feature which had appeared to the west of Gerbini airfield, one of the enemy's main bomber airfields in Sicily. It consisted of a rectangle marked out on the ground by a plough. On 24th April more photographs were taken of the same area, and it was observed that the ground enclosed in the rectangle had undergone a change. The vegetation had been cut short and small hollows and mounds had been levelled. The rectangle measured some 1,500 yards long by 400 yards wide. The immediate interpretation put upon it was that the enemy had found the existing bomber airfields, Gerbini, Catania and Comiso, inadequate and were preparing a satellite landing ground.

This theory was not accepted for long. By the end of April two other strips were found in the same vicinity, one of which was nearly complete when first photographed. The new satellites were about the same size as the first, and all three ran parallel to the runway of Gerbini airfield - that is, roughly west to east, the direction of the prevailing wind. It was also observed that each strip had been laid out within easy reach of a railway station, and that at four of these stations new sidings were under construction. It became evident that there was a second and more disturbing explanation of the strips, namely that they might be intended not to provide additional dispersal for bomber aircraft but to accommodate a large number of gliders for an airborne invasion of Malta.

The Vale of Catania, where the strips were found, is a flat tract of open land, nearly a hundred miles square. It is only about a hundred miles from Malta, and would be an ideal site for the purpose. The satellites could be prepared with the minimum of time and labour, and each would be within easy access of its railway station, of which the significance was that the two most common of the German gliders, the Gotha 242 and the D.F.S. 230, are built in sections which can be easily transported and rapidly assembled. The sections could be brought from Italy by rail the whole way, over the Messina train ferry, to the strips. Following their customary plan of surprise, the Germans could bring down their gliders in sections, and need not assemble them until a day or two before the operation was due to begin. Though it is possible on air photographs to distinguish glider components on an open landing ground, the parts could easily be concealed under trees or camouflaged. The invasion troops could be accommodated in the large camps already existing farther afield until they were required. Obviously, large quantities of stores and ammunition would be required, but any increase in the size of the existing dumps in the vicinity may well have been interpreted as heralding an even greater air bombardment of Malta. It is probable that the enemy intended to give this impression, and hoped that the new satellites would be regarded as take-off strips for more bombers. Their real intention would not be fully proved until the assembled gliders themselves appeared at the last minute.

On the discovery of the three strips, the Royal Air Force photographic reconnaissance staff considered in what areas further strips could be built, and aircraft were sent out to photograph these areas. As a result, photo-graphs were obtained of the whole of the Vale of Catania, and other areas in southern Sicily. In all, about 300 square miles of country were photographed, but no further strips were discovered. It seemed that the enemy thought that the three existing strips were enough.

Regular reconnaissance was therefore made every other day, and progress closely observed. New huts were erected. Underground cables were laid. By 10th May, all three satellites were complete. A close watch was kept for any increases in stores, or the arrival of anything resembling glider components, but no further developments occurred and no anti-aircraft defences appeared to have been prepared.