Military History

Imagine this:

You are a small schoolboy around eight years of age. You are living with your many brothers and sisters on the island nation of Malta. The year is 1942. Your brother is chasing your sister around the streets with a severed lizard tail while she runs screaming, laughing around the city. Below the steep bastions of Valletta, cranes creak and groan and steel hammers play their endless rhythm to the crowded, bustling harbor.

Suddenly, the hammers fall silent. The men on the docks abandon their posts and start up the bastions all at once. You know before you ever even hear the siren; another air raid. That high, piercing warble spins up in every street and town of the island. Your siblings turn and run, and you join them. As you make your way inside the walls of the fort, you find your mother. She is scared. She is always scared. She has your youngest sister already tucked in her arms, struggling to hold her against her pregnant belly.

The doors to the shelter are open, and you can see the soft electric lights glowing from within the tunnel. They fixed the power since this morning! Excellent! The shelter warden marks the families coming in, slowly growing his ledgers. As your group dives downward into the dark, cold earth, your sister stumbles and falls over some of the rubble left by the excavators, hard at work on another chamber. They're supposed to keep their sites clean so this doesn't happen, but I suppose there are more important matters to attend to.

Julian, one of your family friends, knows your mother is due soon. She offers your family her spot on the bunk racks. Mom squeezes in with you and your youngest sister and prepares for the coming onslaught. The hundreds crammed into the small chalky room hold their breath as one as the screaming siren slowly winds down. And then you hear it. *boom* Still far off, good. *boom* *boomboom* Drawing closer... *BoomBoomBOOM* *BOOM* The walls shudder, the bunks creak and sway, dust pours down from the ceiling. The lights shudder once, twice, and go out. The bulbs are safe here, but the three kilometers of cable up top are certainly not.

Between the blasts you can year the soft chatter of the Bofors 40mms, and the occasional thump of a QF 3.7. Give 'em hell, Dad. And what is dripping on your leg? It seems the elderly gentlemen in the bunk above is not entirely consistent. Lovely. The sickly mother below hacks a few times with a healthy bout of tuberculosis. Medicine is hard to come by; the last three convoys have been sunk by German Stukas before they ever made it to harbor. The dank caves and dwindling rations are taking their toll as well. She better get help soon, or she'll be another casualty of the caves, her children adopted by the next family.

Suddenly, mother wrenches over and cries out. Doctor, doctor, the baby is coming! What horrible timing little one; can't you wait until the Germans have finished their own delivery? The doctor is called up from the first aid room. He pushes his way through the crowds as mother is helped free from the tiny bunks. You wait in the main room with your siblings while mother is whisked away to the birthing room. Clean tiles line the floor here, not dirt. A small sink and even a cabinet (the last timber shipment you saw was certainly over a year ago) allow the doctor to do his work. Mother's screams carry well in the tight tunnels, rivaling the pounding of the bombs above. *BOOMBOOM* *BOOM* Today is an especially heavy load; there must be no ships in the area for the planes to harass.

At last, the newest member of your family emerges. "It's a boy!," doctor cries out to the bunk room. But the celebration is short lived. Clackers, like the playing cards in your bicycle (before it was destroyed by falling rubble) echo down the hallways. Gas! The refugees in the room writhe as masks are fetched and passed around. Heavy carpets are rolled over all of the entryways to the chamber. A stranger (but we're all family here) helps your brother into his mask, then tucks your little sister into an infant shroud.

The bombs are less frequent, but just as close. Slowly, the air becomes painfully stale as the 500+ bodies around you consume the fresh oxygen. The smell of feces and burnt oil grows stronger and stronger. A small family is huddled around a shrine cut into one of the walls, working their rosaries. God save our house. God save our friends. God save our souls. Your gas mask clouds over with condensation, and you lay there blind.

You hear the distinct screaming shudder of an airplane slamming into the rock. The mangled propeller and cracked gauges will make an excellent museum exhibit one day. Not long later, the bombings finally wind down. It's been over three hours since you came down here. The warden sounds the all clear, and the march begins to the surface. Outside, the devastation is fierce. A solid quarter of the town has been levelled. Huge craters have replaced the streets. Great plumes of oily smoke belch out from the harbor; two ships are sinking, soon to join the sea of masts and superstructures already protruding comically from the harbor floor. Another three are badly damaged. The aircraft guns finally silent, the men rush for stretchers and fire equipment. Their work today has only just begun.

Just like that, your brother is at it again, chasing after your sister with a worm. He acts as if nothing has happened. They came once already this morning, and they'll be back again before supper. For him, for you, this is life.

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Sunday was my trip to the war museums on Malta. It was a fantastic day, and I got to see a great deal. I was able to take as much time as I needed at the displays, and even got my own personal tour from one of the curators. I hopped off the bus for a few unplanned stops as well, such as the Maltese Society of Model Makers exposition and the Grand Master's palace.

The biggest surprise to me over the course of the day was the extent to which Malta was involved in, and affected by, the Second World War. I knew from my research that the island was bombarded several times by both Italian and German air forces. It wasn't until I actually saw the displays and read the stories that I realised the extent. This island was not a peripheral, no secondary target. It played a front line roll in the European theater. The Allies used Malta as a home base for their naval strikes throughout the Mediterranean, and cracking Malta has a high priority indeed for the Axis powers.

Civilians were never targeted in the attacks, but the fact is in a place as small and dense as Malta, with military structures and support everywhere, there is nowhere to hide. British defences were brutal though, and axis pilots faced heavy losses. In the fierce aerial battles above, pilots often had little or no time to designate their mission targets; drop the load and get out of there!

Raids were constant. There would be dozens of attacks some days, then none for a week while an allied convoy passed nearby, ripe for the picking. Overall, Malta faced more than 2000 raids over the course of three years, with more than 6000 tons of bombs dropped. This makes the island the most heavily bombed landmass of the war. However, despite the brutal attacks, there were only some 2000 civilian casualties of a 270000 person population, thanks in large extent to the excellent shelters on the island. While conditions were horrible, they were well constructed and stood strong throughout the bombardments.

After my tours of the war museums, I made my way to Fort Rinella for a special show on firearm evolution. I arrived just in time for the day's main presentation. A line of re-enactors stood in a field, each one dressed in period garb with a rifle fitting their costume. Over the course of an hour, they worked their way from the original black powder musket up to the Thompson submachine gun, explaining all of the technical progressions along the way. For each era, the actor would step forward and fire a volley at his natural pace. While the musketeer took close to three minutes to load and fire a single shot, the submachine gun chewed through 30 rounds in a few seconds. An excellent demonstration of evolving technology!

One of the most interesting facts I picked up was the evolution of copper-jacketed bullets. A lead ball is designed to do as much damage as possible, killing its adversary. However, during the industrial and logistical warfare of the Great War, armies realized that it takes about five men to clear a wounded soldier from the battlefield, but no men to clear a dead soldier. Faster, smaller bullets were designed not to kill but to maim, clogging the supply lines with doctors and medical supplies instead of petrol and ammunition.

After the talk, I milled about with the other members and presenters at the show. One member of the Maltese army identified me almost immediately as service, and we chewed the fat for a while before he let me play with some of the more current hardware he had with him. What an excellent opportunity! As I had expected, the firearm culture in Malta is incredibly lax; anyone who is interested in shooting has no problems obtaining a license and a firearm. Ranges are as prevalent as I had expected, and they are heavily utilized by both military and civilian alike. The Maltese soldiers I spoke to have the opportunity to train with their RPGs and MP5s as often as every few weeks! Obviously the crowd was very biased, but I got the vibe that this is just how things work on Malta. I had also talked to the driver for my scuba trip on Saturday, a born and bread Maltese man, about shooting on the island. He explained to me that while he was a bird man (and recommended several good avian reserves for me to see), he felt that the hunters were mostly well behaved, and it was the actions of a few malicious ones that tarnished the reputations of the rest.

My research day went fantastically, and was a strong highlight of my time on Malta. I learned a great deal about the island's roll in history, and have a whole new appreciation for Maltese resilience during WWII. These people went through hell and back! The cross on the Maltese flag, the George Cross, was actually awarded by the King of England in 1942 as an acknowledgement of the incredible tenacity of the Maltese. It has been a rewarding and educational experience, and I tip my hat to Malta and her steadfast resilience.