The Battle for Malta Page #3

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And as we crossed the cliffs,

all the ack-ack guns began to fire at us.

But I didn't give a damn,

I just wanted to get my

wheels on the ground.

And as I approached Luqa,

suddenly the airfield erupted.

Aircraft were bombed and burst into flames,

and for the first time I looked up,

and above me were 50,

60, 70 Germans bombing.

They knew what we were

doing long before we did.

We landed eventually, the air

raid was still in progress.

Aircraft were burning

all the way around us.

And then a man appeared, smoking a pipe.

And he came, and he jumped

on board my aircraft.

He said, "There's an air raid on!"

I said, "I know it, mate I've

just landed in the middle of it. "

With Malta's defenders

still greatly outnumbered,

new pilots were thrown

straight into the action.

We'd been there about 20 minutes

when three Germans appeared over the hill

and wrote off what was

left of the squadron.

And before we'd even taken off,

we were reduced to impotence

with three aeroplanes.

And quarter of an hour

later, I was scrambled.

I remember climbing up

above Malta, thinking,

"What on earth has happened to us?"

The infrastructure of the island

was being reduced to rubble.

Thousands lost their homes.

Electricity and water mains were damaged,

and distribution of goods became harder.

These events were recorded each

day by the Times of Malta.

It was run by Mabel Strickland.

We publish seven days a week.

And by the way, tremendous

credit goes to the newsboys.

It would have been useless to have printed

if we hadn't been able to distribute.

Were your printing machines underground?

No, that wasn't possible,

but they were sited around a deep

shelter my father had prepared.

Despite huge bomb damage,

the Times was printed on every

single day of the siege.

Each edition is kept here, at the

National Library in Valletta.

On Friday 10th April,

there's a piece about the

problems facing the island

and distribution of food and so on

and how they're proposing to tackle them.

And it's interesting,

because it reassures them

that that it's the breakdown of

communication that's the problem,

not the shortage of food.

'These editions also give an

insight into the public mood. '

There's a lovely advert

on the back page of the

Thursday June 12th 1941 edition

by CH Bernard and Sons,

who are military tailors.

And it says, "We were blasted well out.

"But we have blasted well started again. "

Nobody escaped the hardship.

Margaret Crawford had

remained on the island

while her father served with the Navy.

One snatched food when you

could, and water, of course.

The shortage of water was a terrible thing.

You had a bucket of water,

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