The Siege Of Malta: Starving (Part 5)

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Speaker 1 The tempo of life here is just incredible. The morale of all is magnificent pilots, ground crews crews and army.
But it certainly is tough. The bombing is continuous on and off all day.

Speaker 1 One lives here only to destroy the Hun and to hold him at bay. Everything else, living additions, sleep, food and all the ordinary standards of living, have gone by the board.

Speaker 1 It all makes the battle of Britain and fighter sweeps seem like child's play in comparison. And that was Pilot Officer Herbert Mitchell of 603 Squadron.

Speaker 1 And he was shot down two days later after saying this on the 12th of May 1942. And he was heard to tell the fighter controller Woody Woodall as he went down, Bye Woody, I've had it.

Speaker 1 Then he crashed into the sea at 350 miles an hour and his body was never found. Welcome to We have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland.

Speaker 1 And the Siege of Malta, Jim, is at its dramatic height, is it not?

Speaker 7 Yes, we left it at the end of April, didn't we?

Speaker 1 The thing is, though, James, every episode of the story of the Siege of Malta, there's more drama. You think, well, we got through that.
Can't ramp it up the ante any further.

Speaker 1 I mean, if this were a TV miniseries, they blew the budget on special effects in the first episode. You know,

Speaker 1 when they run out of money on a show and they end up with lots of scenes, which are obviously interiors where they're in a set.

Speaker 1 We're way past that with the Siege of Malta, aren't we? It is truly incredible. As Herbert Mitchell says, it makes the Battle of Britain and fighter sweeps seem like child's play in comparison.

Speaker 1 We have kind of made that point already, haven't we?

Speaker 7 It's just the conditions, the toughness, the intensity of it all.

Speaker 7 I mean, even if you're only flying, you know, six times in one month rather than six times a day, everything about it is just so hard and tough and brutal and you're short of everything and there's nothing to do when you're not flying apart from, you know, billboard blast pens.

Speaker 7 And, you know, there's a sandfly fever and malted dog. And, you know, it's mosquitoes galore.
And it's just, it's just absolutely miserable. Yeah.
But there is a final chance for the Spitfires.

Speaker 1 After the last episode's extraordinary cock-ups. I mean, well, we've had two episodes of diabolical organization and piss-poor preparation.

Speaker 7 I'm really glad that we weren't recording them all in one go because I needed yesterday afternoon to calm down.

Speaker 7 So crossed by the time we finished.

Speaker 7 Fortunately now

Speaker 7 feels like, you know, I can relax a bit. Okay, right.
Why not the people on Malta?

Speaker 1 People on Malta can't relax. Because, I mean, so we got to the end of April in our last episode and it's quite clear that the chiefs of staff, you know, they know what's going on now, don't they?

Speaker 1 The penny's dropping, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, big time. And they've also, you know, this is the height of Bonifella's, isn't it?

Speaker 7 And Bonifellows is an American attaché in Cairo whose signals have been cracked by by the Germans and he was basically inadvertently feeding high-class intelligence about allied intentions to Rommel without realizing it.

Speaker 7 But fortunately the British have got they've cracked a lot of the Enigma traffic and so the ultra decrypts are starting to be fed into the kind of appreciation of what's going on in Malta.

Speaker 7 And there is nervousness at the end of April and why wouldn't there be?

Speaker 7 that there are signs of gliders coming onto the island and glider tracks being created at Giabini, which is a series of airfields in the center, the sort of eastern centre of Sicily.

Speaker 7 And this only leads to one thing. And of course, you know, having had such a heavy blitz, the obvious next course is to invade Malta.
I mean, you know, duh. I mean, obviously that's what you do.

Speaker 7 And yet, when the governor on Malta, Lieutenant General Sir William Dobby, signals his nervousness back to the chiefs of staff in London, he gets a pretty, you know, he gets pretty swatted away.

Speaker 7 And Air Chief Marshal Charles Portals, who's head of the air staff, replies, we have as yet received no evidence of preparations to carry out an airborne invasion of Malta.

Speaker 7 We believe that if such an attack was intended, we should by now have seen some signs. There is also no evidence at present pointing to a seaborne invasion of the island.

Speaker 7 Of course, Dobby is not ultra-clear, so doesn't know about ultra-traffic.

Speaker 7 And in fact, actually, by this point, by the very end of April, beginning of May, the signs that the Luftwaffe is bucking out of Sicily. Yeah.
And ultra decrypts on the 26th of April confirm this.

Speaker 1 Yes, and after all, the situation Malta's in is partly to do with the Luftwaffe, but also partly to do with the disorganisation at the top and the failure to organise a proper defense and prepare for the convoys that are coming and the Spitfires that have been coming in.

Speaker 1 Don't get me rolled up again. Yeah, complete the failure of leadership.
No, nothing in place for unloading the march convoy. Nothing in place for getting the Spitfires on the 20th of April into shape.

Speaker 1 At the core of it, they've been knocked from pillar to post. So maybe, maybe that explains it.
They're overwhelmed by the situation.

Speaker 1 But for those of you who aren't watching this, Jim's shaking his head. He's jutting his chin out.
He's not happy.

Speaker 1 As you heard earlier, there's some top historical analysis with well duh as to what the Germans ought to be doing at this point.

Speaker 7 We always try to maintain a level of sophistication on this podcast.

Speaker 7 An incisive historical analysis.

Speaker 7 But, you know, to be fair, I mean, look, Trimp Simpson, commander of the 10th Submarine Flotilla, but he can see this as race. He's a sub-mariner.
You know, he's not an airman, okay?

Speaker 7 But you don't need to be an airman to appreciate that when 47 Spitfires come in, or the 48 are planned, you need to prep for them.

Speaker 7 And so he speaks to an RAF friend back on before the Spitfires have come. And he says to him, says to his mate in the RAF, you know, so what are the plans?

Speaker 7 And, you know, I hope you've got them all ready.

Speaker 7 And his friend just says, you don't understand the problems of servicing on arrival, refueling, ammunition, plus a long passage just flown, plus briefing and all these problems.

Speaker 7 To imagine we can have any more than 12 airborne at one time is just wishful thinking. Trimp can't believe his ears.

Speaker 7 And this sense of defeatism, which, okay, maybe is understandable after the shellacking they've had this month of April. But the defeatism is finding only problems rather than solutions.

Speaker 7 And this is just filtering down from the top. His friend in the REF is repeating what he's been told by his senior officers.
So Simpson is so incensed by this.

Speaker 7 And he goes straight to Vice Admiral Levam, who's the head of the Navy on Malta, and asks him to intervene with the AOC.

Speaker 7 He goes, please, sir, will you go and persuade the AOC to organise things so that all 48 can get up and fight? And Levam replies that it's not his place to interfere.

Speaker 7 And so Simpson then tries another friend at air headquarters and again is told this cannot be done. But of course it can.
It just needs planning and thought and coordination and above all leadership.

Speaker 7 Anyway, you know, Simpson's no longer going to be around to kind of stick his oar in because the 10th submarine flotilla is on the move. And, you know, at the end of April, they're sent to Alexandria.

Speaker 7 Temporarily, it has to be said. You know, the hope is the intention is it's only temporarily.

Speaker 7 But, you know, the other problem is it's not just preparing the aircraft, it's preparing the pilots as well. And they're just not prepared.

Speaker 7 And rhubarbs that they've been flying over the English Channel into northern France, they're offensive operations, but flying over Malta is a defensive operation and it requires completely different tactics.

Speaker 7 And there aren't really any tactics on Malta. I mean, you know,

Speaker 7 when Jumbo Gracie had been sent to Gibraltar to help the pilots reach Malta, part of that was to also brief them about what to expect, but he doesn't. He just says, what can I expect?

Speaker 7 And he goes, don't go chasing them to Sicily and you'll be outnumbered 40 or 50 to one. You know, it's not exactly helpful.

Speaker 7 And actually, Dennis has a conversation with a young pilot called Charles Graysmark.

Speaker 7 You know, they're waiting to fly and they're sat at the edge of Lucre Airfield on some sandbags and they get chatting. And this guy's only 20 years old.
He's just arrived.

Speaker 7 And Dennis starts chatting to him. It turns out this guy's only married two weeks earlier.
And he says, oh, you know, what's the form?

Speaker 7 So Dennis tries to talk him through it and says, you know, stick to me like glue. You can be my wingman on the first sortie that we go up.
You know, just don't do any, just stick to me.

Speaker 7 It's a bit overwhelming, but, you know, you have to remember you're defensive, you know, move in tight circles and you turn in and screw, you know, in a corkscrew downwards and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 7 And on the first flight, there's some cock-up over the takeoff and they get ordered back down. So Dennis lands again, which he thinks is really, really odd.
But the rest of the flight continue.

Speaker 7 So by the time he's taken off again and caught up, Charles Graysmark is at the end of the formation lagging behind, promptly gets shot down, bails out, gets picked up.

Speaker 7 But by the time he's picked up, he's dead. You know, and it's just, it's not good enough.
There's very little going on back home.

Speaker 7 There's no reason why people before they go to overseas postings can't be properly trained and briefed in the tactics. There's There's enough experience coming out of Malta now.

Speaker 1 The REF have left that behind, haven't they? Fighter Commander have left that behind because of the rhubarbs. And a whole new generation of people have come through because the churn is very high.

Speaker 1 They're taking heavy losses on the rhubarbs.

Speaker 1 There are all sorts of people getting shot down and they've basically detached themselves from the core of skill that knows how to fight defensively, haven't they?

Speaker 7 Yeah, and in their hubris and egoism, they have taken their eye off the ball.

Speaker 7 You know, there's so many reasons why one can sort of point a very, very sharp prong at Lee Mallory and Sholto Douglas, but that's just another of them.

Speaker 7 I mean, you know, it is, it's abject for someone, for two men that senior to be so kind of cavalier and so complacent about how they're fighting.

Speaker 7 The care that Park and Dowding showed to the to the men of Fighter Command in the summer of 1940 is not continued into 1941 and the early part of 1942.

Speaker 1 I mean, we will get round to an episode about the rhubarbs, but they are a big part of this picture, aren't they?

Speaker 1 And the channel dash also indicates how adept that RAF are at dealing with maritime issues, that they're completely malcoordinated and don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 1 And we will one day get around to a channel dash episode, although that will probably, you'll probably all know that that's happening because the light bulbs in your houses will be flickering as Jim's rage ascends to an all-new height at the

Speaker 1 chaos and fiasco that surrounds the channel dash.

Speaker 7 Let's move on.

Speaker 1 What's interesting is we're about, a big beast is about to arrive on the island, isn't he? Which indicates that actually the Chiefs of Staff, they know they need to shake up Malta.

Speaker 1 One of them is, I mean, he's a big beast and he's being rehabilitated, isn't he, with this job? So what's quite clear is the Ministry of Council is no longer working as a team.

Speaker 1 There's a blame culture as evidenced by what Shrimp's having to deal with. You've got criticism between Hugh Pugh Lloyd and Dobby.
And actually,

Speaker 1 they're listening to Lloyd, interestingly. And Air Marshal Tedder and the Minister of State Walter Moncton visit Malta on the 12th to 13th of April, which must have been a...

Speaker 1 They must have spluttered into their cornflakes

Speaker 1 on arrival. I mean, it's one way to get people to take things seriously is to come have a look, isn't it?

Speaker 1 And they meet with Leatham and Lloyd and General Beak and also Sir Edward Jackson, who's the lieutenant governor.

Speaker 1 And they see that they discover that the most of the pilots, they like Hugh Pugh Lloyd, who's visible at least.

Speaker 1 And although we had an example of his fighting talk in the last episode, which is is all you know the hun's useless and he has no idea what he's doing everyone knows this bull twang and um tedder's all right with lloyd but he and moncton recommend straight away dobby's got to go that i mean there's these layers and of baffle and delay because obviously the chiefs of staff have got an awful lot on their plate and this is this is post-singapore so they really are they really things are in free fall aren't they and things are things are difficult in the desert churchill only hears about this on the 20th of april so a week later essentially and mabel strickland in our newspapers also lobbying against Dobby.

Speaker 1 And I'm sorry, I've been reading a lot of Harry Potter lately with my daughter, Daisy. So every exactly, every time Dobby comes up, I think of this house elf in khaki, basically, with his droopy ears.

Speaker 7 Well, he sort of does look a bit like it. He's got slightly sort of sticky outty ears, hasn't he, Dobby?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's got a bit of a house elf vibe. Anyway, he's finally sacked on the 4th of May, and he's replaced by, come on, a big beast.

Speaker 7 Field Marshal, Lord Gort VC.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Obviously, we'll just skirt over, you know, Gort's campaign in the summer of 1940, but they're sending a big beast down, aren't they? And he's done very well in Gibraltar.

Speaker 1 He's a good appointment and people respect him. It's quite interesting, isn't it, that actually disaster in France hasn't sort of stuck to him particularly.

Speaker 7 Okay, so let's just think about this. He's a peer of the realm.
He's a field marshal and he's got a Victoria Cross.

Speaker 7 I mean, whatever happens in France, that's a lot more impressive than Lieutenant General Sir William Dobby from the Plymouth Brethren from Singapore. I mean, it just is.

Speaker 1 They've got a proper wizard in rather than ourselves now. Okay.
And he swaps. He arrives and swaps with Dobby discreetly at 9 in the evening on the 7th of May via flying boat in California Bay.

Speaker 1 The rest of the island find out two days later. So obviously he wanted a couple of days to sort of, you know, rearrange the desk, meet everyone, get eyes on the situation.

Speaker 7 Yeah, they just don't want to, you know, don't want to have a huge fuss. Just get on with it.

Speaker 1 Exactly. It's announced via the Red Effusion service and in the Times of Malta.
So, I mean, I think that's pretty pretty good, isn't it? We've got someone serious in charge now, Jim.

Speaker 7 Good. That's all I can say.
I mean, I don't have anything personally against Dobby. I just think he's a bit...
He's ineffectual. You know, he's C-list, isn't he? You know, that's the bottom line.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And in the meantime, Churchill has persuaded Roosevelt to lend the USS Wasp again. And this time it's going to be 64 Spitfires, another 17 from Eagle.
So the scene is set.

Speaker 7 To Last Chance Saloon.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're going to fly into Malta on the 9th of May. This is quite a story.

Speaker 1 And the idea is that a fast mine layer, the Welshman, is going to speed to Grand Harbour with fuel and ammunition at dawn on the 10th of May.

Speaker 1 And they're going to bring up more fuel and ammo on the Magic Carpet Service. So they now need a plan.

Speaker 7 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 It's having to say that out loud. They now need a plan to ensure that there's no more cock-ups, basically.
So what happens, Jim?

Speaker 7 Well, fortunately, Lloyd has got very little to do with it. And actually, it's Group Captain Woodhull and Butch Barton and Jumbo Gracie who grip this one.

Speaker 7 And Woodhull visits the Shara Shara Palace at the end of April and calls upon five pilots from 249 Squadron including our old friend Raul Daddo Longley and the Canadian pilot Buck McNair and he takes them to the balcony overlooking Tikali who still go onto this balcony to this day still there at the Shara Palace he gives them a drink and explains the new plan he tells them absolutely everything he says this is what we're planning new spits are coming in and he says I want you all to fly to Gibraltar and help fly on the new boys and also explain to them what it's like flying over here he says I don't have to tell you fellows what is at stake with this operation Everything will hang on it.

Speaker 7 It's make or break and it has just got to succeed. They're there to brief the new pilots as well as lead them back to the island.

Speaker 7 So they then fly out to Gibraltar where they have a week of eating steaks and drinking every night and, you know, regain their strength.

Speaker 7 You know, and Raoul has been one of the, you know, one of 16 pilots to arrive in February. And by this time, six have been killed in action, four have been wounded or invalidated out.

Speaker 7 There's only six left of the original 16.

Speaker 7 But as Woodhall explains, detailed plans have been put in place for the spitfast so first of all the new arrivals are going to be split into three batches and between luca and takali so the first arrivals available to give cover for the second and third batches but that means getting them airborne again really really quickly so all have to be ready again to fly in no more than 30 minutes after touching down the guns have got to be harmonized before they arrive on the island so in the you know either back in britain or you know in the aircraft hangars whatever um radio sets have to be correctly tuned in beforehand and each aircraft has to be in the best possible condition so there's no more kind of sort of you know filling them with cigarettes in the in the gum pay they're already armed and loaded and good to go each spitfire is to be clearly numbered and on touchdown the station controller would shout out the number of the aircraft and a ground crew would run to the plane jump on the wing and direct it to the corresponding blast there five ground crew which would be supported by army helpers would be waiting with a stack of four gallon flimsies these are are fuel cans, to refuel and boxes of ammunition if needed for rearming.

Speaker 7 Specialist ground crew would also be on hand, i.e. electricians and fitters and riggers,

Speaker 7 to carry out any further servicing and review excess drop tanks that hadn't already been discarded, if they haven't been discarded.

Speaker 7 Anti-aircraft gunners are all going to be moved up to the two airfields to bolster the defenses of the airfields and the men kept on constant duty on rotation.

Speaker 7 And new pilots would be waiting in the blast pens to immediately take over from the pilots that have just arrived. So the pilot has just done 700 miles, jumps out, new one jumps in, ready to go.

Speaker 7 Any Spitfires damaged in the first sorties would then return not to their allotted plen, but to a newly prepared repair pen in the rear area away from the main airfield.

Speaker 7 And there were now 358 blast pens on and around the three airfields on Malta.

Speaker 1 Gosh, I mean, when you said people have been busy building blast pens, you weren't wrong. That's extraordinary.
Some of this sounds quite obvious, right?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 7 Quite a lot of it. Nearly all of it, I would say.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, you know, that you need new pilots waiting, that you need to make sure the guns are already harmonised.

Speaker 7 You know, got the right camo strip on them. Yeah.
You've got plenty of time in England to paint it on, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you haven't, who cares?

Speaker 7 I mean, anyway, this is all very exciting.

Speaker 7 The tension to Carly and Luca on the morning of the 9th of May, you could prick it with a pin, you know, and on dawn on the 9th of May, everything is ready. But, you know, they're all good to go.

Speaker 7 You know, the men are in their blast pens. The flimsies are all ready and waiting.
Ammunition Ammunition boxes are ready and waiting. Everyone's ready to jump onto Spitfires as soon as they arrive.

Speaker 7 You know, they're now holding their breath, waiting to see how this is all going to plan out.

Speaker 7 Everyone knows what is at stake here, that this is, you know, if they have another disaster where all of them are pretty much gone in 48 hours, they're toast.

Speaker 7 But if they can somehow kind of keep it all going, keep the show on the road and gee back air superiority, that's a different story. Everything is dependent on how the next sort of 72 hours play out.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so at 10.30 in the morning, the first 16 Spitfires touch down at Tikali.

Speaker 1 And obviously the 109s are straight in, but they hit a wall of intense flap because they've upped the flak defending the airfields.

Speaker 1 And all 16 land safely and all are ready to fly again in less than 10 minutes.

Speaker 7 Not 30, 10.

Speaker 1 See what you can do if you...

Speaker 7 You pull your finger out.

Speaker 1 So Jumbo Gracie, who's now the wing commander and station commander at Takali, he's ready to fly in six minutes. That is absolutely amazing.
I mean, given they flow, what is it, 700 miles?

Speaker 1 You know, how hot the engines will will be the battering the engines will have taken and the airframes would have taken but they're still ready to go in six minutes and luca's first batch arrives at half an hour later at 11.

Speaker 1 they're still circling the airfield when the next alert sounded 30 spitfires then from takali then take off the attacks on how far and all the luca spitfires touch down and dennis is in his new plane dennis barnum you know who we mentioned in early episodes Yeah, is in his blast pen waiting and he's in his plane in a matter of minutes.

Speaker 1 And he's sat there waiting to be scrambled. And he sits there through two more alerts, two more all clears, but there are no enemy bombers coming.

Speaker 1 So not only has all the reorganisation gone well, or brilliantly, in fact, the enemy have also missed a trick big time. And 61 of the 64 get to Malta in one piece.

Speaker 1 Four are lost during the day's fighting, but that's okay. That's a tolerable rate at the moment.
And there's still plenty of Spitfires for the following day, for the 10th of May.

Speaker 7 And then HMS Welshman, the fast mine layer, that turns up at 5.25am on the 10th of May, as planned. 6 a.m., the first enemy raids arrive in force.

Speaker 7 And Dennis Barnum has had a bout of Malta Dog overnight, so he can't fly. But Axis Air Forces are absolutely hammered that day in a series of intense,

Speaker 7 incredible, high-swirling dogfights and air battles over the island.

Speaker 7 And Dennis Barnum does watch it from a nearby hill and does this fantastic sketch of it all going on, which he incorporates in his diary. It's just absolutely amazing.

Speaker 7 The planes are swirling and zigzagging across the sky. There's puffs of flak everywhere.
There's two enemy planes are plummeting down, trailing thick smoke. A parachute opens opens and drifts down.

Speaker 7 Then a Stuka explodes. And Dennis is watching all of this.

Speaker 7 And the 10th of May becomes this sort of seminal moment in the Siege of Malta because it's the first time Malta's fighters meet the enemy with superior numbers.

Speaker 7 50 Spitfires meeting the biggest raid of the day, which is only 30 Ju-88s and Stukas in the mid-morning. And, you know, the Axis Air Force is like, what?

Speaker 7 I thought we got this sewn up. Where did all these Spitfires come from? You know, it's a real shock to the Axis.
And 65 Axis aircraft are lost or badly damaged in the day's fighting.

Speaker 7 You know, and with less than only 200 aircraft remaining on Sicily, this is a major blow. And the Times of Malta is absolutely crowing.
I mean, do you want to read this one?

Speaker 1 The last two days have seen a metamorphosis in the Battle of Malta.

Speaker 1 After two days of the fiercest aerial combat that has ever taken place over the island, the Luftwaffe, with its Italian lackeys, has taken the most formidable beating that has been known since the Battle of Britain.

Speaker 1 It has always been known that man for man and machine for machine, the RAF were infinitely superior to the Hun, and everybody looked forward to the day when he could be met on terms of parity.

Speaker 7 That day has arrived.

Speaker 1 The REF even had numerical superiority over its fighter opponents for the first time, and the results have excelled the most optimistic expectations.

Speaker 1 Our fighters have formed with the anti-aircraft artillery, a team which has dealt out appalling destruction on the enemy. I mean, huzzah, Jim!

Speaker 7 Hooray!

Speaker 1 Jim's in a good mood again, everyone.

Speaker 7 Man for man!

Speaker 7 Yes! Yeah, man, it's an

Speaker 1 actual man for man quote i mean this is good to know though isn't it that we now know that man for man rf pilots are better than the luftwaffe infinitely superior in fact um i mean infinitely superior infinitely superior i mean lord gort must be thinking brilliant i've had a may the 10th that's gone well finally when things have panned out for me Well,

Speaker 7 in future years, Al, I want to make sure that your birthday is a celebration of the great achievements on Malta, not the start of the Blitzkrieg.

Speaker 7 And I think in from now on, I think your birthday present should reflect this glorious day where man for man, RFIL has proves themselves to be infinitely superior to the Hun.

Speaker 1 There's that quote in that newspaper. You could pluck that out and bandy that about, couldn't you? People would think you were being silly.
It is interesting though, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Because Timing so often is so important to how things pan out. The Germans have taken their foot off the gas at the precise moment they shouldn't have done.

Speaker 1 And as a result, Malta is given that tiny bit of breathing space. And obviously, people are better organized.

Speaker 1 They have got their act together. If the Luftwaffe was still in Sicily in greater strength, that would have been a much stickier day.
But nevertheless, they're not. And so things are starting to tip.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's these tiny elements of timing and

Speaker 1 these increments of strategic misjudgment and the way they play out are absolutely fascinating in this story.

Speaker 7 Aren't they? It is incredible. And it underlines a point, I think, the Luftwaffe can't be everywhere.
Germany is never quite as strong as it sort of sometimes appears.

Speaker 7 You know, there is a finite number of aircraft. There's a finite limit to what they can actually achieve.
And

Speaker 7 if you want to be doing an offensive in North Africa at the same time, you can't also be doing a major offensive over Malta.

Speaker 7 It's constant choice. Unfortunately, invariably, kind of nine times out of ten, Hitler makes the wrong choice because he's the sort of master of it all.

Speaker 7 It's always going down to his decisions, which are invariably bad. So, you know, thank goodness.

Speaker 1 And which people say yes to, and there's no pushback.

Speaker 1 No one's saying, actually, that that's a bad idea because as we said in the last episode if we got malted then we solve the problem of the mediterranean so the ref are back baby they've got their mojo back um we're gonna take a quick break james he needs a lie down of a different kind now no he needs a moment to himself to contemplate success on the part of the royal air force we'll see in a moment

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Speaker 1 Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, our Marion James Holland, who's in a much better mood mood than he was at the start of the episode, and certainly than he was at the end of the last two episodes.

Speaker 1 So Field Marshal Lord Gort VC, he has other problems, though, aside from making sure the RAF are properly organised. There is a huge problem, actually, with supplies, isn't there?

Speaker 7 Yes, and I think the big worry is that people can put up with bombing because it's very obviously by the enemy. Where there is...

Speaker 7 Food shortages, there is a sort of sneaking suspicion it's because of inefficiency.

Speaker 7 And, you know, it's sort of it's somehow easier to blame your own own authority well why have they abandoned us well you know why are they bringing in more you know obviously it's not as straightforward as that but that is his fear and his fear is is that while the people have sort of put up with the bombing they've got past that but now they're having to confront starvation and extreme hunger and he knows about this because he's already decided that whatever the you know he's not going to pull any any rank you know he's going to stick strictly to the rations that are imposed and only move around the island by bicycle so he's going to live like that and you know he's hungry and feeling grumpy.

Speaker 7 So Dobby has rationed bread at the end of his time just down to 10.5 ounces per person per day. And pasta, rice and tomato paste had already been rationed.

Speaker 7 These are the absolute staples of the Maltese diet. And sugar and rice are then rationed further and kerosene, which is needed for cooking as much as anything else.

Speaker 7 And of course, lights, because electricity is down, so you need kerosene lamps. And coffee and soap are further cut.
You know, animals, of course, need fodder.

Speaker 7 So most animals are ordered to be slaughtered. All pigs and sheep and nearly all the goats are slaughtered.
You know, that pisses off the farmers.

Speaker 7 They don't want to have to, because that's their food source going down this morning, isn't it? Most horses are spared and a few goats and cows for milk, but that's it.

Speaker 7 And what supplies have been arriving are invariably military. You know, it's fuel, ammo, aircraft spares.

Speaker 7 You know, and it's now getting to the point where rubber from disused cars are now used to repair the soles of shoes and curtains to make dresses and stuff. You know, there's just nothing.

Speaker 7 You know, the shops are all shut because there's nothing to sell. Bars are all shut.
shut. It's just miserable.
And queuing becomes a feature of everyday life.

Speaker 7 And obviously cooking a hot meal becomes very difficult because there's enough kerosene and there's no wood and there's nothing and there's no means of getting stuff around the island.

Speaker 7 So the victory kitchens are becoming a, you know, by June, have become an absolute staple of everyday life. They've actually been introduced back in January.
And they're just filth.

Speaker 7 I mean, you know, they're horrible. They're set up all over the place.
There's hundreds of them.

Speaker 1 And what they do is they provide one hot meal per day for sixpence or in return for ration coupons and and you know in january that had been a half decent bowl of stew but by june it's sort of thin gruel you know everyone loathes them because it tastes disgusting but it's got an element of humiliation hasn't it standing in a queue for a meal it's you know it's your autonomy has been taken away from you right you could really see why people would would not like that by june of 1942 you know most adult civilians they should be getting if they're lucky 1500 calories a day you know but that's half of what what an adult needs and sometimes they're on as little as 1,100 calories a day.

Speaker 1 So it's a dire situation.

Speaker 7 Yeah. And the medical supplies are really, really bad.
So this is really interesting. So this is something I discovered a bit more after I'd done my book all those years ago.

Speaker 7 There's a guy on the island called Simon Cousins, who's a historian. And he went to a flea market and he just picked up a massive wedge of papers.

Speaker 7 And they were all the chief medical officers' papers from the war. What? They were just in a flea market.

Speaker 7 So he picked them all up and they're fascinating because you start off seeing full scap and it's sort of, you know, just typed on one side.

Speaker 7 And then as it gets to the sort of, you you know, spring of 1942, they're typed on both sides. And then by June 1942, they're ripped in half.

Speaker 7 And so the memo on one side is turned upside down and they're writing on the other. It's because they're running out of paper.

Speaker 7 And there's orders which says from now on, you have to wash bandages and use them again.

Speaker 7 And saying things like, whatever you do, don't wash your hands. Don't wash your hands.
And don't flush the loo more than once a day. Do you haven't got enough water?

Speaker 7 You know, so the very basis of day-to-day hygiene is being thrown out the window.

Speaker 1 You know, and that's obviously going to bring greater risk of of other disease but that is considered a risk worth taking to try and preserve the the meagre water supplies of the island that's how bad it is yeah it's really bad and and as you say jim that the sort of fighting is one thing isn't it and you can shake your fist at the luffuffer can't you as it comes in to bomb you but this is different isn't it because this is the this is your government letting you down isn't it feels like it it's not really but it sort of well it was because of the march convoy yes it was that's the thing everyone's really really hungry aren't they so um for instance there's ken griffiths you remember him from the 32nd light anti-aircraft battery regiment yeah he's living off two number nine hard tap biscuits one piece of bacon piece of corned beef for lunch and for supper half a biscuit saved from earlier and a bit of jam that's his typical day i'd go to bed hungry wake up hungry and feel hungry all day and one day he's carefully rationed half of one of his biscuits for the next day hid it under a tin under his helmet but overnight it's gone it says a rat had somehow got underneath even with me lying there right beside it i felt soul destroyed.

Speaker 1 It was absolutely devastating.

Speaker 7 Yeah, even the rats are against you.

Speaker 1 Something's got to be done, though. And of course, this is the height of Bonnefellas.
So one of the issues here is the Germans know about this, these convoy plans.

Speaker 1 And the idea is there's going to be one from Alexandria, Convoy Vigorous, and one from Gibraltar, Harpoon. I prefer the Harpoon to Vigorous myself.

Speaker 1 And the idea is there's fewer Axis aircraft on Sicily. Here comes the convoy, and they've strengthened their air defense so they think they could take it on.

Speaker 1 On the eve of the 14th of June, Lloyd gives another briefing to all the 601 squadron pilots.

Speaker 1 Obviously, the enemy is a terrible bully and foolish is a foolish bully. The two convoys, he tells them, they're already on their way and that that it's being fiercely resisted.

Speaker 1 The one from Gibraltar has already lost some ships, one from Alex has had some heavy attention from Axis bombers.

Speaker 1 And of course, by the following morning, the naval escorts will have to turn back, leaving both parts of the convoy dangerously exposed.

Speaker 1 I mean, but the idea is that 70 miles from Malta, they're coming under the protection of the umbrella of Malta's aircraft.

Speaker 1 But Lloyd wants to extend this, so he's going to send 601 Squadron out with drop tanks. So, you know, that's more proactive, isn't it, than he has been?

Speaker 7 A bit, yeah. You know, hats off.
Credit where credit's due.

Speaker 7 But there's a big snag with this policy, which is that only four Spitfires could fly over at any one time. Four are flying to the convoy, four are flying back, four over the convoy.

Speaker 7 You know, it's a rule of thirds.

Speaker 7 If the convoys come under attack just as they're running low and about to turn back for home, they've got to stay and then ditch their aircraft and hope they get picked up.

Speaker 7 Dennis Barnum's listening to this, just thinking, oh my God, this is it. I can't possibly survive as the odds are against them.
But actually, there's very little action on the 15th of June.

Speaker 7 And one section does have some success. By the time it was Dennis' turn to fly a second time, the convoys are in range of Malta.
So it's like, phew, he's made it.

Speaker 7 And among those flying over and taking the strain from 601 squadron are our 249 squadron, including Raul Daddo-Longle.

Speaker 7 The Italian fleet does come out to try and stop the convoy, but it's relentlessly attacked, including from Beaufort's from Malta, which successfully torpedo an Italian cruiser and damage a battleship.

Speaker 7 But unfortunately, it's not enough to save the Alexandria convoy, Operation Harpoon. And late on the 15th of June, the decision is made to turn back.

Speaker 7 The convoy and escort only had, and this is because they don't have enough ammunition to see them through.

Speaker 7 You know, and obviously the closer they get to Malta, the kind of harder it is because they're closer to Sicily and southern Italy and so on. And they've only got 20% ammunition.

Speaker 7 They just don't think, you know, they just, what do you do? And so they send them back. So in fact, two of the merchant ships had already been destroyed and three destroyers already sunk.

Speaker 7 And the cruiser Hamani was also sunk on the return leg.

Speaker 7 So you can sort of, you can see why they're making that call but all the pilots of course are absolutely gutted because they've done this sort of you know this huge effort to try and get the convoys in and and they don't make it and only two out of the six merchant vessels from gibral reach grand harbor

Speaker 7 so this is swiftly unloaded this time under smoked screens going through the night as they should have done in march and with a protection of fighter cover because so you know proving that swift unloading can be done but only 25 000 tons are delivered and and that is something you know that puts back the target date target date being the date when which they can no longer function will have to surrender but it's not enough and on the evening of the 16th of june gort broadcasts to the island and he says i'm going to speak with complete frankness the truth never hurts and we are always at our best when we know the worst every effort will be made to replenish our stocks when a favourable opportunity presents itself meanwhile we must stand on our own resources and every one of us must do everything in his or her power to conserve our stocks and to ensure the best use is made of all the available resources that remain to us we have the sure conviction that our our cause is just, we have trust in ourselves, and we still have a greater belief, our faith in Almighty God, strong in faith.

Speaker 1 Let us all go forward together to victory.

Speaker 7 I think they should have an island day of national prayer, personally.

Speaker 1 Well, it worked.

Speaker 7 Worked on the 26th of May, didn't it, 1940?

Speaker 1 It worked. So why not?

Speaker 7 But isn't it amazing how when the chips are really, really down and everyone's staring down the barrel, the call is always to have faith in Almighty God.

Speaker 1 It always feels slightly as though calling on God is sort of the only thing you've got less to scrape out of the bottom of the tin a bit yes well i think you might be right james it is interesting though isn't it because when supplies come in that i assume that the ships don't just have one thing on them and that they're sort of devolved you know they don't make the the norway mistake you know of chucking all your eggs in one basket so if you get 25 000 tons there's that there's a bit of everything rather than oh no the grain ship's gone to the bottom and and we have no flour so 25 000 tons at this point is actually as we said is much better than March.

Speaker 1 It's five times better than March, but also you've had a couple of months of privations anyway.

Speaker 7 And you've got more Spitfires, which require more fuel.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So swings and roundabouts there.

Speaker 7 And talking of which, it's tough for everyone, but it is really, really tough for the pilots who are having to fly, which is incredibly physically and mentally draining.

Speaker 7 And then, you know, you're eating a number nine hard-tacked biscuit with a boiled sweet. It's not really cutting it.
And of course, it's now high summer. You know, June is giving way to July.

Speaker 7 It's absolutely scorchio. You know, you're being broiled every day.
There's not much shelter at Tikali or Luca anymore because they've all been destroyed.

Speaker 7 And Raul Dado Longley writes to his sister in June and he goes, I look forward immensely to coming home. I only hope it won't be too long now.
As you can imagine, our everyday life is pretty dreary.

Speaker 7 We've no company except other service types. I hope I'll have a beautiful girl all lined up for me when I come home.
One gets quite worked up over Dorothy Lemour at the flicks.

Speaker 7 What a desolate place to spend a birthday because he just turned 20. And then he goes on, he goes, I often stop for a moment and wonder what I shall do after the war.

Speaker 7 I'm afraid the prospect is rather blank at the moment. I think all my friends have disappeared all over the place.
A lot have been killed, judging by recent casualty lists.

Speaker 7 Don't think there's anything more to say at the moment. What can you say?

Speaker 7 You know, you can't tell her about the friend he's been circling over in the sea while waiting for the SE rescue launch or the dogfights or the time he shot up some Italians circling around their own colleague or being bounced by 109s or colliding with a 109 as he did.

Speaker 7 I mean, you know, they're all now walking to and from the Shara Palace to Kali.

Speaker 7 There's flies everywhere, everywhere, dispersal huts destroyed, so they're using chairs made from rocks and an aircraft wing as a table. I mean, it's pretty bleak, isn't it?

Speaker 7 You know, and there's no privileged status for being a pilot. You know, everyone's expected to pitch in.
Mail is obviously horribly inconsistent.

Speaker 7 So that great arbiter of morale, you know, everyone makes every effort they possibly can to get mail to the island, and it comes on the magic carpet service.

Speaker 7 But even so, you know, when you're besieged and you're on island, it's not as frequent as normal, you know, so it's really hard. And And of course, Malta dog is a perennial problem.

Speaker 7 This is dysentery, which is brought on by stomach cramps, temperatures, diarrhea.

Speaker 7 And obviously, people are getting more likely to get ill because they're underfed, they're not getting enough nutrients. There's lots of jokes about it.

Speaker 7 So the controller would be, you know, he would know which pilots have been suffering a little bit.

Speaker 7 So there was always a sort of nervousness about sending people up having had Malta dog or about to come down with Malta Dog. So the controller would go, How's the dog up there? Not too bad.

Speaker 7 But is he barking? Not so far if necessary get him down to the kennel roger

Speaker 1 it's a bit of fun boys and girls

Speaker 1 you know you've got to have some alleviate it somehow haven't you amongst all this bleakness and boiled sweets and number nine hard-tacked biscuits anyway after a bout of of dog yeah i mean if you can fart without danger you're in the clear right interestingly though in june they do realize that the they recognize that it's too tough for the pilots so they reduce the tour from six months to three months quite dramatic isn't it a dramatic uh drop that.

Speaker 1 And 601 squadron are posted out to Egypt following the fall of Tobruk on the 21st of June because they're needed for the Desert Air Force.

Speaker 1 So paradoxically, German success elsewhere is leading to a change in the British air effort. There's a butt here.
And Dennis Barnum, who we've been following, he's sent home. He's flown 20 times.

Speaker 1 That's probably

Speaker 1 enough for anybody, isn't it?

Speaker 7 In about 10 weeks. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a shocking thing.

Speaker 1 Just a reminder, that memoir, One Man's Window, is up on our Patreon still. It's still there.

Speaker 1 So if you want to listen to Dennis Barnum's incredible story of fighting in Mortimer, you really must check it out.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's just superb. You know, but Bolta Spiffers are doing pretty well.
And they're now mainly against the Reger Aeronautica and just a handful of Luftwaffe units.

Speaker 7 I mean, the days of Muncherberg's one staffel getting 42-0, those days are over. In the first two weeks of July, they shoot down 100 enemy.
I mean, that's a lot, isn't it?

Speaker 7 And, you know, these are losses that the Axis by this point in the high summer of 1942 simply can't afford. And there's also an amazing new ace on the scene.

Speaker 7 This is a Canadian Sergeant George Burling, known as Screwball. We should do a whole episode on him.
I mean, you know,

Speaker 7 he's an extraordinary guy.

Speaker 7 He decides to join the REF and takes a ship all the way over to Scotland. When they get there, they go, Where's your passport? And he goes, Oh, I haven't got one.

Speaker 7 So he goes and he goes back again, goes and gets it, and then comes back to England.

Speaker 7 Anyway, he's very odd, incredible eyesight, an incredible ability to judge distance and space and speed. And so he can do deflection shooting.

Speaker 7 And he is just one of the very best pilots of the Second World War. You know, in his time in Malta, he shoots down 27 aircraft.

Speaker 7 When you consider that the highest Allied scoring ace of the entire Second World War is Johnny Johnson with 38.5 over the duration of the entire war, 27 in his brief time in Malta is absolutely extraordinary.

Speaker 1 That's amazing.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, he's absolutely amazing.

Speaker 7 And on Monday, the 6th of July, he's climbing into the sky with seven others to incept three Italian bombers and 30 fighters heading for Lucca and he's ordered to attack the bombers first and so he does and Berling singles out one and peppers it with bullets killing the pilot.

Speaker 7 Moments later he attacks a Mackie 202 which is a kind of you know a Daimler-Benz-powered fighter play Italian fighter and Berling wrote a memoir of this and he goes A one second burst smacked into him into his engine and Glycock tank.

Speaker 7 He burst into flames and went down like a plummet. And he then spots another Mackie on the tail of a Spitfire.

Speaker 7 So after a quick climbing turn, he opens fire again, brief burst, and second Mackie goes down into the sea.

Speaker 7 And two further patrols that day without seeing anything, but then scrambled again with Raldado Longle in the evening to intercept seven Junkers 88s and 109s. He hits one 109 at 800 yards.

Speaker 7 And it's a deflection shot. I mean, 800 yards is that's absurd.
I mean, that's so far. It's not true.
And he follows it down, sees it burst into flames and crash into the sea. So that's four in a day.

Speaker 7 Four days later, he shoots down two more. And then the day after, another three.

Speaker 7 three and raldado longley is also on his way out um he he shoots down his last meme 109 he's an ace on the island on the 11th of july and then is finally posted home thank goodness why have people not heard of george burling i think lots of people have to be fair he's pretty famous screwball burling is he though no he's not barda famous or johnny johnson famous is he maybe maybe because he was in malta maybe just no one could train him he he kept going off on his own and not a bit like barda and not doing what he was told so he he sort of got got hustled off to malta to sort of get rid of him, really.

Speaker 7 But he was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 7 He used to do, he used to practice some, he used to practice workout angles and stuff while he was waiting to fly.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 That's very good. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now, of course, one of the big beasts of 1940 is already on the island, Field Marshal Lord Gore, VC, and it's let's party like it's 1940 all over again with the arrival, my friends, of Keith Park.

Speaker 7 Yes, get in there.

Speaker 1 Finally, a professional is showing up. Hugh Pugh Lloyd.
He's done his job. He's made sure that the fighter defense of Malta is working, Jim.
So he's handing it over to someone else.

Speaker 7 Kinda, yeah. And the arrival of Park

Speaker 7 is like a highly charged electrical bolt into the energy of Malta's air defensives. You know, no defensive flying for him.
He's all about the offensive.

Speaker 7 This goes to show just how brilliant he is, because in 1940, he's got to fight a defensive battle, and that's what he fights. 1942 on Malta, it's an offensive battle.

Speaker 7 You know, under Lloyd, the Spitfires have still been acting very defensively.

Speaker 7 They've been taking off, generally heading south again to gain height, and then returning to intercept the bombers and enemy fighters over the island. Park just thinks this is insane.
He's like, what?

Speaker 7 What are you doing this for? And instead, he orders his pilots to always try and intercept before they reach the island and not after.

Speaker 7 The idea is not only to shoot them down, but also break up their formations and encourage them to turn back or drop their bomb loads into the sea before they reach it.

Speaker 7 You know, the island's radar system has been improved considerably. So Park also also insists on a much quicker takeoff time, no more than three minutes, and working in three squadrons.

Speaker 7 Interception is therefore much easier. And he gives very, very clear roles to the three squadrons.

Speaker 7 The first squadron, that's going to climb into the sun and turn with it behind them to attack the enemy high cover.

Speaker 7 The second squadron intercepts a bombers close fighter escort or un-escorted the bomber straight away and the third squadron would also make head-on attacks on the bombers as they approach ideally around 10 miles north of the island and even if the bombers aren't hit hit, it's vital to try and break up the formation.

Speaker 7 And he also insisted that there was a total overhaul of the process by which they do air-sea rescue with more launches and crews on standby at all times and ready to go all around the island.

Speaker 7 Not just stick to the California sea base. They're dotted around all around the island, right? Go with the suitable telephone systems on hand and all the rest of it.

Speaker 7 And he issues his forward interception plan on the 25th of July. And the results are completely immediate.
I mean, it is just incredible.

Speaker 7 So by the end of that, literally, with just a week, the Axis has given up daylight bombing. Stukas are kicked into long grass.

Speaker 1 Stukas no longer being used is a sure sign that Keith Park's in charge, right? That's one of the things the Luffuffer gives up. Keith Park's in town.
Let's ditch the Stukas.

Speaker 1 They ain't going to work no more. I mean, I think what's really interesting about this is essentially he's taken, yes, they're working in three squadrons, but they're all doing different things.
So

Speaker 1 they're not working as a big wing. They're not forming up to work as three squadrons.
They've each their appointed task, haven't they?

Speaker 7 Yes, but they're not fighting in flights. They're not fighting in squadrons.
They're operating together. It's not a big wing.

Speaker 1 You're right. Exactly.
It's basically a refinement of what he was doing over Kent.

Speaker 7 It's horses for courses, which is what it should be. Constantly refine your tactics to the situation in which you find yourself.

Speaker 1 What's interesting about this is the other hallmark of Keith Park being in charge is that the enemy fighter cover goes higher because it gets higher and higher during the Battle of Britain.

Speaker 1 And what they do in response to this top cover attack is they start flying even higher.

Speaker 1 And that obviously takes them longer, which means they're sat on your radar that little bit longer on your RDF so you can get a clearer picture of what's coming, which gives you more time to intercept.

Speaker 1 So he's forcing the enemy through his change in tactics into doing what he wants them to do. And that's how you win, isn't it?

Speaker 1 You know, even though he's telling his pilots not to go higher than 20,000 feet.

Speaker 7 Well, and they're a bit pissed off about that, but he goes, no, no. He says, no, do not go above 20,000 feet.
You haven't got the time to go above 20,000 feet.

Speaker 1 You know, crane your necks, watch out for the hun in the sun and all the rest of it and just your job is to stop the bombers reaching malta yeah couldn't be clearer yeah and here's another hallmark of the battle of britain offensive bombing operations are also getting underway again which is after all a sign that fighter command as it were are kind of on top again isn't it which is what we have in the battle of britain so he's playing all the hits isn't he jim big time Got his white suit on and he's playing the hits and the crowd love it.

Speaker 1 And we come to the end of that episode with James Holland in a far, far better mood than he was yesterday. We hope you've enjoyed this fifth episode of the preposterous drama on Malta.

Speaker 1 And obviously, with one drama yet to play out.

Speaker 7 Oh, my goodness me. Can I just say, people, it's all to come.

Speaker 7 I mean, I know that seems fantastical when you consider the immense drama that has already been played out on the island fortress of Malta. But there is more yet to come in episode six.

Speaker 1 Our season finale. And, you know, this is, you think the way things like Game of Thrones ends in some sort of grand climax is, you know, often over the top.
Well, you brace for our next episode.

Speaker 1 And of course, if you want that episode right now, you can become a patron, watch our live casts, other stuff like, for instance, One Man's Window, which is there to be listened to.

Speaker 1 The Dennis Barnum memoir, which is which I read beautifully read. I read it beautifully, Jim.
There's no two ways about it. We will see you in our next episode for our season finale.
Cheerio.

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