Dan Snow's History Hit - Malta: 'The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier' of WWII

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Malta is located in the Mediterranean sea just beyond Sicily, between Europe and Africa; its warm climate and beautiful islands make it a perfect holiday destination. But in World War Two, the Islands’ strategic location made it centre stage in the theatre of war in the Mediterranean: a key stronghold from which the Allies could sustain their North African campaign and from which they could launch their eventual attack on mainland Italy.Museum curator Liam Gauci and Keith Gatt from Heritage Malta take Dan through the country's rich wartime history and shed light on how the country and its people survived some of the most intense bombing of the war, as the Axis resolved to bomb or starve Malta into submission, by attacking its ports, towns, cities, and Allied shipping supplying the island. This episode was sponsored by Visit Malta. Find out more about Malta's rich history here: https://www.visitmalta.com/en/history-of-malta-and-gozo/This episode was produced by Mariana Des Forges, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hey folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hits. Summer of 1942, what a decisive, I don't know, even more than summer of 1943, it was the hinge point, the pivot of the Second World War. In the Pacific, you've got the Japanese rampaging across the Pacific, only to be stopped dead in their tracks at the Battle of Midway, and the US sort of counter-offensive could begin. In the Soviet Union you've got German forces pushing deep into Russia, really reaching Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga River, little old city called Stalingrad. Then the catastrophic, for the Germans, counter-attack by the Soviets at the end of 1942. In North Africa, German forces running riot, Rommel threatening the Suez Canal, Egypt, the oil of the Middle East. Then later in the year,

Montgomery's victory at Alamein and the gigantic Allied landings in Northeast Africa. And in the Mediterranean, you've got a bitter battle for control of that vital inland sea, a battle that came to be focused around the small rocky outcrop of Malta, a ridiculously well-placed from a strategic point of view, or badly placed from the inhabitants point of view perhaps, island archipelago really, in between Italy and North Africa. It had been, before the war, the headquarters of the British Mediterranean fleet, and it sat astride the supply lines from Italy to her chief colony in North Africa, which was Libya. So the Axis needed to crush, to neutralise, to capture even Malta, and they went about it with blockade and a gigantic air assault. The

Maltese population was around 250,000 people in the outbreak of war, and well over a thousand people were killed, many more wounded and traumatised. The island suffered so terribly that King George VI famously awarded it and its inhabitants the George Cross, the highest medal for valour awarded to civilians. And in fact President Roosevelt presented a United States presidential citation to the people of Malta as well. So what was going on in Malta in the summer of 42? Well you're about to hear. In this podcast I talked to Liam Gauci, a museum curator expert from Heritage Malta, and Keith Gatt, a historian. They're going to talk us through the battle for Malta and how it impacted the wider battle in the Mediterranean, North Africa and Europe. It's a good one, folks. You're going to love this.

Here is Liam and Keith talking about Malta in the war. Enjoy. Thanks very much for coming on the podcast, folks. Tell tell me let's start with the geography where is malta and why do we talk about malta all the time we talk about the history of the mediterranean malta is this little rock in the middle of the mediterranean no resources two fine large harbors and you can consider it to be on the frontier of europe on the frontier of africa just on the edge before the Levant starts. It's always been there. Geographically, it's perfect. If you want to dominate the Med, you need to have access to Moldova, her harbours, and eventually by the 18th century, her dockyards.

And as a result, it's been, well, it's been attacked and it's been conquered by, well, every European hegemon you can think of, and all every European hegemon you can think of, and all North African hegemon you can think of. Tell me about the makeup of the people and the architecture and the culture there. This is the whole thing about our island. It's quite a particular place where people get together and take advantage of who's dominating the Mediterranean, and they try to provide a service for them. So it's the same thing with the Royal Navy.

The history there, the thing with the Royal Navy. The history there, the connection with the use of the harbour goes back pre-18th century. So 17th century, 16th century already have some evidence of that. But by the 18th century and the use and the importance of the island and the people working there providing a service, you can see it in the paper trail you find a very interesting paper trail there. Keith I'm gonna come to you talk about the siege of the famous siege of Malta in a second but let's just stay with Liam for a little bit let's talk about Malta in the years building up to and the outbreak of war many listening might be surprised to learn that Malta was one of the great linchpins of the British Empire. You've got Gibraltar, Malta, Suez and bases into the Gulf. So this kind of strategic chain of islands and

fortresses and ports, Malta was essential to that. It was, you know, in the paper trade, we are very lucky that we have all the correspondence. For example, recently, we've been working on the War of the Spanish Succession and also the Seven Years' War. And you start to find the interest of the Royal Navy in the island. So just to give you a couple of ideas, we had British privateers sailing into Malta, revitalizing the island and buying the food, buying the gunpowder. And the Knights of St. John who were here in Malta were quite happy to do that. We actually have correspondence with Admiral Hawke, for example, in 1748, granting, let's say, freedom to three French Knights who had been captured by the Royal Navy to come to Malta to do their training in the Levant. And this starts to give us some clue to the importance of all this, just to give you an idea. starts to give us some clue to the importance of all this,

just to give you an idea. But like 20 years later, we have a 200-man strong ship of the line actually docking in harbor and actually having a naval battle within harbor with another French privateer. These little stories start to give you a clue to also the fortifications that were on the island. And the fortifications, which we still have and see today,

were going to be used later on in the 19th century and the 20th century, but they were being built and enlarged at the time. So it was starting to be one of those bases that if you want to dominate the Mediterranean, you needed the island, you needed Malta to be on your side. And the strategic geography at the outbreak of the second world war was very tricky it was the HQ of the the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean that got moved to Alexandria because Malta was what 60 miles or so south of Sicily Mussolini's Italy and nearly 200 miles away from Libya which is an Italian colony so Malta could not have been more

inconvenient for the Italians and obviously the fear was it would be terribly badly bombed in the event of war with Italy. If you take a look at the map of the Mediterranean, you can see Malta right smack in the middle of the sea. And in the Second World War, I like to split the Mediterranean into two different axes. two different axes. You've got the horizontal axis, which was the British and Allied lines of communication from Gibraltar to Malta to Egypt, and you have the vertical axis, which was used by the Italians and the Germans between Italy and Libya. And these were the principal convoy routes used by both forces in the Second World War. If you take a look at the Mediterranean, aside from North Africa, it was a battle of convoys. It was a battle of logistics and it was a battle of who was better supplied.

Even if you take a look at the North African campaign later on, it was a war of attrition. So the side with the better supplies, which eventually turned out to be the Allies, eventually won the day. Is it true, Keith? I've heard a rumour. Is it true that there was a thought that actually you could give Malta to Mussolini to keep him out of the war, to keep Mussolini from declaring war on Britain and France alongside his ally Hitler? It was considered before the Italians joined the Axis in the Second World War. However, Churchill vetoed it and the Royal Navy also vetoed it because they had long-term plans for Malta and they actually saw Malta as an unsinkable aircraft carrier during the war, as an ideal place from which to mount attacks against Italian and German supply lines, as I'm saying, stretching between Sicily and Italy towards Libya.

It's 2022, so 80 years ago, the Maltese situation needed resolving one way or another. There was a big debate, wasn't there? How much time and effort and resource to spend on the behalf of Italy and Germany in bombarding, battering, neutralising Malta? Tell me about that decision. At first in 1940, in June 1940, when Malta was basically dragged into the war, when the Italians declared war on the British Empire, Malta was virtually undefended. We only had a few Gloucester gladiators left behind by HMS Glorious. And the Italians started basically bombing us. Eventually, when the Germans came here, the Germans saw the Mediterranean as a sideshow at the beginning of the war.

And they were dragged into the Mediterranean by Mussolini and his Italian allies. But once the Germans came here, it was a very different situation. The intensity of the bombing was increased and increased drastically. And once the Germans were here, I mean, the worst months, if you look at the tonnage dropped on the island throughout the months of the Second World War, you will notice that there's a difference, a drastic difference between the tonnage dropped when the Luftwaffe was present in Sicily rather than when the forces of the Luftwaffe were decreased. There's also a pattern, if we can call it that, when the Luftwaffe was present here during the winter months, mostly between January to May or early June, because from 1941 onwards, the Luftwaffe was present here during the winter months, mostly between January to May or early June, because from 1941 onwards, the Luftwaffe would be transferred out of Sicily and southern

Italy to go to the Soviet Union and participate in Barbarossa and in the campaign, the summer offensives in 1942, since you can't basically fly in winter in Russia. And Liam, tell me about the effect on Malta. There's also a sort of siege going on. Supply ships are being sunk by submarines, people's homes and communities being battered. What was it like for the people of Malta? It wasn't easy going. And the island was under siege. And the island was constantly being bombarded. There was a lack of food, there was a lack of running water. It was not nice to be living here. But myself and Keith discussed this

with regards to casualties. When you consider the tonnage of bombs dropped on the island, it wasn't that big. We're looking at around a thousand civilians, if I'm not mistaken, and Keith can correct me there. And comparing that, and sorry, because I will always drag you back, comparing that to the blockade between 1798 and 1800, when the Royal Navy was there, you had around 20,000 casualties. Compared in the bigger picture of things, it wasn't that bad. However, in living memory, everybody talks about the siege of the Second World War and how the Maltese and the British forces on the island got together to fight it out. Liam, you never have to apologise for me for dragging our attention back to the 18th century. I am here all week for that, my friend.

Let's do a separate podcast on that another time. I'm very much into that. As well as the bombing, the physical damage to the built environment, what about the blockade? How bad did things get for people in terms of food and supplies? I was really lucky, and Keith will continue on this, but I was really lucky around 10, 12 years ago, my very early days at the Maritime Museum, I got to interview one of the secretaries of the governors of the island.

And just before the famous tanker Ohio sailed into harbor, the governor spoke to his secretary and he told him, whatever you are going to do tonight, just pray to whoever you believe in, we need this to come into harbour. It was so desperate that they were sharing a bag of flour between three families trying to do a basic plate of spaghetti. It was desperate. It was very desperate. Keith, this is the big anniversary coming up this summer of so-called Operation Pedestal, which is the arrival of the Ohio and some of the convoy that left from Gibraltar. What was the decision behind this gigantic British effort? It's actually one of the biggest carrier groups ever formed by Britain to try and punch their way through to the central

Mediterranean. So tell me, what was the thinking there? Before we talk of Operation Pedestal, we have to get a context of the convoy battle going on in the Mediterranean. During 1942, prior to Operation Pedestal, there were two other major convoy operations in the Mediterranean which failed, and they failed very badly. The supplies which were going into Malta were either being brought by air, which, in very small supplies, they were either being brought over by submarine, the famous magic carpet runs by the Royal Navy submarines, which conducted themselves with great valor in the Mediterranean, or else by surface vessels such as HMS Welshman, which was a very fast mine layer, and which dashed through the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Malta under disguise, sometimes disguised as a French destroyer or as

an Italian destroyer, and coming into Malta to bring supplies. However, there were two other major operations. One of them was in March, Operation MW10, which sailed from Alexandria towards Malta. It engaged the Italian fleet en route, and it basically drove them off. Much superior Italian fleet consisting of battleships and cruisers and whatnot. It was brought into Malta consisting of four merchant vessels plus escort. One of these merchant vessels was sunk en route. The other three were sunk in port and they were sunk because they failed to unload them quickly enough. One of them had 20,000 tons of ammunition on board and had that blown up inside Grand Harbour,

it would have devastated the entire region. And so it was moored alongside the quayside there and then it was very vulnerable to German dive bombers effectively or Axis dive bombers. Exactly, yes. They failed to unload it because they were taking their time and decisions which were taken at a high level. Unfortunately, they were sunk in harbor and one of them was on fire.

And as I was saying, 20,000 tons of ammunition and some gallant British and multi-servicemen dove into the sea and scuttled them and put out the fire. Later on in June, another massive convoy operation. They attempted, as the British say, to take two bites at the cherry. Operation Julius, which consisted of two separate and simultaneous convoy operations, one from Alexandria to Malta and one from Gibraltar to Malta to try to separate and confuse the attacks. The one coming from Gibraltar, Operation Harpoon, consisted of six merchant vessels plus a large escort, even two aircraft carriers escorting it. And out of these six merchant vessels, four were sunk, including, quite interestingly, the SS Kentucky, which was the sister ship of SS Ohio. It was sunk en route to Malta. That's a big tanker full of oil.

Yes, it was. As a class, they could take above 11,000 tons of oil and fuel and lubricants and other fuels. There was also Operation Vigorous, which was simultaneously coming over from Alexandria. Again, this was intercepted by the Italian fleet. Once again, the Royal Navy drove the Italians off with minimal casualties. However, the order was given for the convoy to scatter, and the decision was taken to recall the convoy, and it lost two merchant ships en route, and none of the merchant ships actually reached Malta since they were taken back to Alexandria. This was June of 1942. Later on in July, some places, the Arctic convoys, we have the disaster of PQ-17, which was en route to Murmansk and it was ordered to scatter again and

it was massacred by the German forces. And then we have the famous Operation Pedestal. It was massive in scale, wasn't it? It was a huge effort. It was the largest collection of British warships since Jutland. You had four aircraft carriers accompanying the convoy. You had two battleships, HMS Nelson and Rodney. You had seven cruisers, 32 destroyers, minesweepers, fleet oilers, motor launches, 32 destroyers, minesweepers, fleet oilers, motor launches, 11 submarines patrolling off the coast of Sicily and southern Italy to try to intercept the Reggio Marina in case they came out, and 14 merchantmen. That was the scale of Operation Pedestal in a nutshell.

It's an incredible drama, but the British lose an aircraft carrier, another one turns home, many merchant ships are sunk. Give me a kind of quick pricey of how it goes down. The first casualty was actually HMS Eagle, which was an aircraft carrier. It was torpedoed by U-73 south of the Balearic Islands, just as pedestal had ventured inside the Mediterranean. Another aircraft carrier, HMS Furious, was tasked with delivering about 40 Spitfires to the defenses of Malta. Once it accomplished its task, it also turned back to Gibraltar. Interestingly, I had an interview with a German Stuka pilot who was present during the attack on Pedersen, and the German aircrew, they were told to go for the merchantmen and to focus particularly on the tankers. However, once they reached the convoy, they became distracted, you know, young men, and they went for the carriers. In fact, another one of the carriers,

HMS Indomitable, was hit by about six bombs and basically put out of commission, and it also had to turn back to Gibraltar. And if you take a look at the map of the Mediterranean, it narrows drastically once you reach the area between Sicily and Tunisia, what is called the Skirky Narrows. And the decision was taken that the major units, such as the battleships and the carriers escorting pedestal, had to turn back to Gibraltar once they reached that area, leaving the escort to the cruisers and to the destroyers. And it was there that the mass of the damage was done to pedestal, because the Germans and the Italians had concentrated a force of around 600 aircraft, based in Sardinia mostly and Sicily and they had also a mass of submarines and also MAS boats torpedo boats and Schnellboot from North Africa which ambushed the convoy

and the so-called Skerkin arrows causing massive damage over there. The sea would have been aflame there were aircraft ships of all sizes, submarines. I mean, it was a scene from hell. And let's remember, lots of these merchant ships, the ships actually carrying the supplies, they were civilian crews. They were just guys who were told what their next job was going to be.

They were not enlisted men, incredibly brave. Yes, in fact, most of them were crewed by merchant sailors, the merchant navy, which I must say conducted itself in a brilliant manner throughout the war, not just in the Mediterranean, but also in the Arctic and the Atlantic theaters of operation. As you are saying, the only servicemen on board would have been the so-called DMS gunners, which were taking care of the anti-aircraft artillery, which was installed on board the ships to give

them some form of defense, because their job was basically to receive bombs and they could not punch back. So they were given some defences in the form of anti-aircraft guns, bow force guns or Lickung guns to defend themselves against their attack. We've mentioned the Ohio a couple of times. It became the kind of icon of this expedition. How did Ohio get into malta i mean just tell people what it had to go through and the efforts required to drag that beast into the harbor it had a stuka stuck on it for starters yes a german aircraft crash landed onto it it

arrives in malta with these two wings sticking out either side of the bows. Unbelievable. And in addition to Ohio, I must say that five merchant ships reached Malta. These were Melbourne Star, Port Chalmers, Rochester Castle, Brisbane Star, and Ohio. All of these five merchant vessels had varying degrees of damage. For example, if you take a look at some of the videos taken from the period, you will notice a ship, which is probably Brisbane-style since she was hit by a torpedo, with a gaping hole in its bow section. But let's go back to Ohio. Ohio, any kind of damage you can imagine she received. She was bombed. She was torpedoed. She had a number of fires on board.

As Liam said, she had a Stuka dive bomber crash on board. She was abandoned a number of times, her decks were awash. If you take a look at photographs and videos taken during Operation Pedestals, you can see two destroyers lashed on both the starboard and the port side of the tanker in an attempt to keep her afloat, and another destroyer towing her into port. And she also had what is called in naval jargon a broken back, which basically means that the ship was split into two parts and it was only held by the deck. So it's a feat of seamanship to bring in Ohio.

And she sank basically, but in the Grand Harbor and the British Maltese were able to get the liquids off. Yes, in fact, she settled underneath Fort Ricasoli in the spot where is the tank cleaning yard nowadays. If I might add, the locals, however, had one complaint about the whole thing, because their bread, when they were baking the bread from the wheat that these merchantmen brought in, their bread was black. So they were complaining about the bread, that's all.

But the rest, they were really happy to have all the stuff back. It's a reasonable complaint, I tell you. Yeah, it's quite. We talk about pedestal. Was it decisive? Is that what allowed the island to hold out for those critical months? Yes, it was decisive since we had the target date of surrender fixed at September and it was pushed back by a few months. However,

it was not the only decisive date. It was not the only decisive operation undertaken by British forces in Malta in order to turn the tide of the siege. But I think, yes, it does deserve the accolades it gets, but there's other operations like Operation Bowery, which occurred in May of 1942, which was the delivery of a number of Spitfires to Malta, which actually helped to turn the tide in the air over Malta. In war, it's not, this is more important than the other. It's a chain of events which eventually work out fine and bring about victory or defeat. The year 1942 is decisive. You get the Battle of Alamein in Egypt, the turning of the tide in North Africa, and then the massive invasion of Northeast Africa

a few weeks after that. So the situation is very much reversed. And then in 1942, the King George VI famously awards the entire island the George Cross. Is that something that people care about? Is that a thing? Or was that done for a British audience?

No, no. We care a lot, a lot about that. And we're very proud to have it on our flag. And you get a couple of dissidents saying no, but it is something that we're very proud of. In the collective memory, first of all, it is something that endears us to the Royal Navy. We must say that the legacy of the Royal Navy on our island goes back generations upon generations upon generations of families working in the Royal Navy, working in the dockyards, and the George Cross is a symbol to a relationship that now is on our flag. We are very proud. Every time you see a Maltese flag with the George Cross on it, it was even changed by the constitution of the island in the 60s so that it has a red band around

it making it Maltese per se as a unique Maltese national symbol. If I might add, it is a reminder that our older generations, that our grandparents fought on the right side of history and that other countries, other major European powers, such as, for example, France and other major countries like Poland, resources, actually held our own and defended ourselves. And in the end, we're not conquered by either the Nazis or the fascists. Finally, what was the legacy on the island to rebuild, to recover from this trauma that you suffered? Malta became independent in the 1960s, now part of the EU, booming economy with lots going on. Not least, the most exciting film location of all time we're all very excited about the new giant Napoleon film that's coming out soon which has been shot in Malta welcome back to the 18th century Dan yes we're very excited about that

movie the new movie about dinosaurs it was also here. So you will see dinosaurs eating people in Republic Street, which is quite something. However, the legacy is something that endears us to our forefathers, our history, our identity, an identity of a people in the middle of the Mediterranean connected to the sea. And the sea for us was a bridge. It never was a barrier. And it brought in commerce, it brought in money, it brought in food. Till this very day, in the middle of COVID, we were panicking because if the ports are closed, we will die of hunger. That is the situation of our island. However, a connection, I think, to the Royal Navy, and myself and Keith love to mention this, was that in 1979, when HMS London sailed or steamed out of harbour, the song by Rod

Stewart, I Am Sailing, was being played by the band of the Royal Marines on the deck of HMS London. And you ask any family on the island who had a connection with the Royal Navy, they cannot hear that song without actually mentioning this connection. The legacy is there. Myself and Keith, who form part of the Maritime Museum, have the largest section dedicated to the Royal Navy outside of British waters because we have so many artifacts pertaining to that period, including one of the largest figureheads of the Royal Navy still in existence of HMS Hibernia, which was donated to us by Prince Philip a few years back, I think in 1992. But we have so much artefacts. You walk into any house in Malta, and you'll find Nafi plates, you'll find Royal Navy crockery. It is these little snippets that remind us of a long story that goes back centuries. Guys, that was such fun. Thank you very much indeed on this big anniversary year to come on and talk all about Malta and its wartime experience. Thank you very

much, Liam and Keith. Thank country, all of our God.