The Battle for Malta Page #6

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Fortunately, the pilot,

a Canadian called McCann,

was able to bail out,

but his Spitfire plunged

deep into the ground,

the wings disintegrated as it landed.

The cannons were thrust deep into the soil.

70 years on, they're still here.

Time was running out.

Unsurprisingly, many were

losing their grip on humanity.

A plane was shot down.

And it actually landed in the

rubble of the opera house,

and everybody cheered like mad.

It was terrible really, in war, isn't it?

German pilot Walter Schwarz

came down near Attard,

in the centre of the island.

The German 109 crashed about

a mile away from our house.

When I got there, there

were more dogs than people.

And the dogs were eating bits

of flesh from the pilot.

By the middle of May, Dennis

Barnham was at breaking point.

He'd not been on the island a month.

For pilots like Barnham,

Malta was veiled by an

atmosphere of doom and violence.

But the island's defences

were steadily improving.

More Spitfires arrived on the 9th of May.

The control room had them

airborne again in minutes.

In the next raid, the RAF

shot down 60 Axis aircraft.

And the enemy was releasing pressure too.

"Thereupon the Fuhrer expressed

the following dramatically

"and was very dissatisfied.

"No confidence whatsoever in the

confidentiality of the Italians.

"The British are more likely

to have an articulate picture

"of Italian intentions than

the Italian commanders.

"The Italian assault forces

are completely insufficient

"and no confidence whatsoever

in the Italian fleet.

Kesselring had planned to eradicate Malta.

But the island received

an unlikely reprieve.

Rommel had persuaded Hitler to

back a new push in North Africa

that would require maximum resources.

Plans to invade Malta were quietly dropped.

German interest in taking Malta had waned.

But the suffering of the

people was still to increase.

The island was starving.

You really get a sense of

how the shortages of food

are really starting to kick in.

There's a piece here,

"The Feeding Problem. "

It says, "Keepers of poultry"

and rabbits are their wits' end

"to solve the problem

as to how to feed them.

"The ration allowed by the government

"does not even go halfway

to meet the necessity. "

There's another piece about

firewood for bakeries.

There's no firewood left

because all the wood on the

island has been burned already.

"One commodity stocks which must

be rigidly conserved is coal. "

This is the absolute last resort.

If you can't have fires,

you can't bake bread.

The problems in producing enough

food by the end of June 1942

are just getting worse and worse.

It was in June, when the

siege settled down on Malta

good and proper, grim and cruel.

The phrase "target date"

was introduced too.

It's when the bread runs out, along

with the ammunition and fuel.

And the realisation that

this was actually the test

of how long we could make everything last.

We were very rationed.

We were to have only one slice of bread.

And there were times when

we could have only one egg

and we used to get them because

there was the farmers beside us.

The staple food of the

Maltese workman is bread.

They were given a slice

or so per head a day.

The bread became black.

The government set up a feeding scheme

called the "victory kitchens".

With few supplies,

the island had to feed over

250,000 mouths every day.

You had to go with a bit of

paper worth three pence.

You used to get a bowl of disgusting soup.

Or a tin between four of McConnachies

herrings in tomato sauce

or something like that.

When the authorities start off

instituting victory kitchens,

they were in a way unpopular,

but they were a necessity.

You couldn't do without them in a way.

Because you don't have any food at home.

And sanitation was worsening.

The documents here...

Simon Cousins has unearthed official papers

that demonstrate how bad

things have become.

And even the people in highest

office have to cut corners.

Break their own rules.

For example, "The flushing of

lavatory pans after urination

"to be prohibited.

"And I'm not permitting anybody

"to wash their hands under running water. "

But that's incredible because the

flushing of loos and washing hands

in particular, are one of the

number-one tenets of hygiene.

Most basic.

And this is addressed to the

district medical officers.

"It is particularly necessary to

economise in the issue of drugs,

"cotton wool and dressings.

"As an example, bandages

should not be used once only,

"but washed when necessary

and used repeatedly

"until they are completely unserviceable. "

The island had survived is blitz,

but beating starvation

would be a greater test.

I wondered sometimes whether we

would ever leave the island.

And the Maltese people, you know,

the more bombs that were dropped,

the louder their prayers.

It was quite amazing really.

They were really stoic.

They always believed that

it would be all right.

I think they were rather marvellous.

On the 10th of August 1942, a convoy

of 14 ships set sail from Gibraltar.

It was the last chance to save the island.

With much of the North

African coast in Axis hands,

the convoy could expect to

be attacked the entire way.

The chances of getting through

seemed desperately remote.

On Malta, the island was

now ready to unload

and distribute the goods quickly.

There was no secret about it at all.

A fortnight before, all the

roads had been signposted,

saying where the trucks

with the supplies had to go

to dump the food, the ammunition.

Everybody knew that the convoy was due.

With lessons of past failures

learned, nothing was left to chance.

Making its way across the sea

was a convoy that carried

more than food and fuel.

It carried deliverance.

For those here on Malta, all

they could do now was wait.

At sea, the convoy was repeatedly attacked.

The ships were the most

defended of the war,

but the forces arrayed

against them were immense.

We could hear the poor, wretched

ships as they got nearer,

being bombarded and so on.

One could see from the

rooftops the battle going on.

The most important ship of

the convoy was the SS Ohio,

a tanker filled with vital fuel.

Already hit ten times, and taking on water,

three destroyers hurried to its rescue.

From the roof of my house, I could

see the entrance of the harbour

and I could see ships coming in.

Three at one time, one on its own.

Of the 14 ships, nine had been sunk.

One more was still at sea.

The Ohio was inching towards land.

With a destroyer strapped either

side and a third leading her in,

as dawn broke, the Ohio finally

came within sight of Grand Harbour.

Now tantalisingly close,

but travelling at no

more than walking speed,

there was still no certainty she

would make her destination.

The Ohio, I remember, a ship,

a big ship with its decks completely awash,

no-one on board, like a ghost,

being brought in by a destroyer

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