The introduction of Italy into the Second World War on 10 June 1940
signaled the start of the siege of Malta, and for the next two and a
half years the Axis powers did all they could to batter the small island
into submission. Malta's defenses were initially verging on non-existent
but the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, could not give up on
the island. Laying at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, where the
supply route between Italy and the Axis armies in Libya crossed the
Allied sea route between Gibraltar and Alexandria, almost exactly at its
mid-point, Malta was strategically too important and held the key to the
door of the desert war being fought in North Africa.
If Malta could be held then it would allow British forces to maintain an
offensive capability in the Mediterranean and prevent Axis supplies from
reaching North Africa. But everything needed to fight a campaign -
people, food, fuel, ammunition, medical stores, aircraft and spares -
would have to be delivered to Malta in sufficient numbers and on a
regular basis. It would take a monumental air and maritime effort just
to survive, let alone hit back, and to manage both would require those
in command to carefully balance Malta's precious and limited resources.
Otherwise, it meant surrender and who knows what the outcome of the
Second World War might have been had the island fallen.
Here, the accomplished military author Peter Jacobs tells the
extraordinary story of the heroic defense and re-supply of the Fortress
Island of Malta during the longest siege in British history.
