A troubled past

The story of Malta in WWII brings me perhaps closer to that awful event than I have ever been. Only 20 minutes away by Sicilian bomber bases and of high strategic importance to the Brits and their allies, the island was blitzed and almost had to give up under siege in the early 1940s.

Massive casualty lists and written reminders of how little food and fuel got through the blockade serve as sickening reminders of yet another arena where the war could easily have gone the other way. But it didn’t – and that is partly and quite amazingly due to three tiny planes, Faith, Hope and Charity that somehow managed to defend the island against vastly superior numbers. The Maltese are justifiably proud of their resilience record.


Of course, WWII was not the first occasion for major defense efforts by these tiny, historic islands. The legacy of the Knights of St John battling ‘marauding Turks' after their arrival in the 16th century is visible everywhere in the enduring fortifications and fabulous baroque churches and palaces. Those wars are old and remote enough to have assumed a cloak of historical romance - a richly embroidered one at that.



Restoration of the bombs, the wrecked planes and other remnants for the island’s many tourist attractions is a labour of love for those who remember and those who can. There is at least a lifetime worth of work in that, and many more in the effort to make sure this kind of awful destruction of fellow human civilization and its fabulous artifacts doesn’t happen again. Its amazing so much of the history survived.