Battlefield Mysteries | Episode 2 | The Siege At Malta: 1940-1942 | Norm Christie, Colin Fox

[Music] [Music] [Music] this is brand Harbor Malta and today it's a popular tourist resort but in the Second World War it was the most important Harbor on the eastern Mediterranean and it was so important that the Germans had to control it but they would lose the war in North Africa and to do that they employed siege techniques starve out the population and to bomb them into submission Malta became the most bomb place on earth we've come back to Malta to tell the story of the Great Siege one of the most important battles of the Second World War we want to look into the people who are here the civilians the gunners the Navy and the Merchant Navy and of course the legendary fighter pilots who won the siege of Malta [Music] [Music] this is Republic Street in Valletta and it's the most popular tourist destination the tourists come to Malta for a lot of reasons one is to buy stuff from the shops the great tourist trinkets the other is for the Sun and to party but Malta also has an incredible history that goes back over 6,000 years in fact there are wounds from 3600 BC this is a room from a more modern time this is not a Roman ruin this is what's left of the Valletta Opera House it was carpet bombed by the Germans in April 1942 and much of Malta was like this this was a beautiful building here you can see what's left of one of the columns from the Grand Opera House you can see where the bombs are shrapnel really fragments from the bomb would have taken off a piece of it and this is really a symbol of what happened to Malta during the Second World War the most severe raids took place in 1942 but the first one came over with the Italians on June 11th 1940 in the late spring of 1940 the tiny island of Malta is a quiet British outpost in the middle of the Mediterranean far on the war raging in Western Europe with the entry of Italy in its colonies into the conflict on June 10th Malta becomes a principal target for the Italian Air Force the island now lies at the heart of a vast access empire to the south some 250,000 Italian and colonial troops are within striking distance of the oil fields of the Middle East oil that could fuel the Axis war machine for years to come seeing Malta as a threat against their mediterranean supply lines italy unleashes its formidable air force in a bombing campaign against the island with only 4,000 troops and no fighter aircraft to speak of Multi is all but written off by Allied commanders now the islands last remaining hope lies with a small force of anti-aircraft Gunners [Music] I'm with major Morris a juice of the world Malta artillery and this is one of his gun emplacements during the great battle for Malta so I want you to explain to me how you laid out your battery yes well we had a command post I was there right and four guns starting from the number one on the left of the two gun I'm the three gun a number four gun here this is where the gun would have it that's right yes it used to be stuck to the ground by means of nuts and bolts it was a three point seven inch heavy attack gun the shell was 28 pounds 28 and a half pounds and the cartridge was about that high your objective was to shoot down this little ass that's right they used to come at 23,000 25,000 feet and never change direction number change height and ever change speed as soon as you see a sparkling if guy and you say but when they get too close and they saw a deeper dive then you can't find one and the appraisers Romeo who's the order barrage 6,000 feet [Music] position is given an area in the sky to shoot that this strategy known as the box barrage forces attacking bombers to ascend to higher altitudes of the Intendant hindering their ability to bomb accurately as planes approach anti-aircraft units unleashed sustained Burridge's at predetermined angles creating a box of withering fire and will blast any aircraft attempting to fly through from the sky and one plane is shot down another so and a second great company and okay no you know oh five shot down at the early months it was the Gunners who actually saved the defenders managed to hold out through the mid summer of 1940 hoping to capitalize on their success the Allies send 24 hurricane fighters to Malta along with experienced pilots from all over the Commonwealth who quickly chased the Italian bombers from the island of stars it's the first of two devastating setbacks for Italy in the latter half of 1940 in December the Italian 10th Army is defeated in Egypt by much smaller British force by the end of the year the axis is in real danger of losing its foothold in Africa the Allies are on the offensive at last but for Malta this new optimism will be short-lived after the initial attacks by the Italians in June 1940 things been pretty quiet in Malta a lot of the people returned to their homes and war didn't seem to be such a bad thing after all but in North Africa things were changing the Italians were failing miserably against the British and now the Germans were to step in so once again Malta was gonna be a target this time the German Luftwaffe you [Music] January 1941 a small british-led force on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta is held out against six months of attacks by Italian bombers with Malta skies clear the Allies begin using the island as a base to attack access supplies shipping bound for North Africa fearing a total loss of access holdings in North Africa the Germans dispatched General Erwin Rommel to regain control of the situation but if Rommel is to defeat the Allies of the desert axis supply routes across the Mediterranean must remain open in January the axis resumes its bombing of Malta this time under German command their mission is to bring Malta to its knees among the civilians seeking shelter from the bombardment is Joseph a tart I'll have to go down slowly go down slow dear my text so yeah tell me how things changed in January 1941 well yeah a good amount of the bombs dropped on this place here that was blown down to the ground this oldest building we had 40 people block down there trapped because there is decrypt down there and it was used as a shelter I came here and I went through the church and from there there was the beginning of the rubble but I couldn't get up today for a couple of days we could hear the morning there were of some of the [ __ ] still alive and tears coming to my eyes I was so close to them and yet so far do we found the baby which was still alive I pulled it out together with the others and that was the only person we saved from death the others were all dead those are the names of the people who were trapped and killed here they considered himself [Music] but most of them I know personally those people when I know for example let's miss her name gotcha teen Argentina no Chitina was a young girl of my own age he had very good looks I was carrying the baby I saved it was not my baby yes yet well I remember you [Music] through early 1941 the bombing campaign intensifies but in May Malta is granted a reprieve when the Luftwaffe force attacking the island is reassigned to the Eastern Front the Allies take full advantage sue mning their raids and access supply lines to North Africa at the end of 1941 they are inflicting eighty percent losses on access shipping but in December with Rommel in full retreat Luftwaffe is ordered back to the Mediterranean with orders to destroy Maltese Defense Force in advance of a planned invasion at this time the Germans have a new weapon the high speed me-109 F these new fighters easily outmatched the Allies hurricanes which are shot out of the sky alarming numbers this is the city of Rabat and a lot of the RAF pilots were billeted here and this is where they found their entertainments February and March 1942 were terrible months for the fighter pilots their Hurricanes were grossly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe and the me-109 F the modified fighter was just too much for the Hurricanes [Music] so [ __ ] McNair the Canadian ace decided to take some of the pilots of 249 squadron out for relaxation so in the night of March 21st 1942 they went down to the theater to watch a film in the middle of the film the air-raid siren went off they decided to leave and they had to come along this street hiding in each doorway just to be safe from the bombing when they finally got to this point they're gonna go over to the point of view which was the officers mess for a stiff drink and as they went through this door they started to approach it and all of a sudden bang the bomb went off when McNair awoke he was on the second floor and didn't know what happened and when he made his way down he found the bodies of his friends the building still shows a lot of damage from the one bomb you can see holes here all along the wall even on the ceiling in March in April 1942 no place was safe at Malta the Germans were literally neutralizing it they're bombing everywhere and everything in their preparations for the invasion [Music] the Germans attack the island day and night while in harbours airfields and civilian targets Malta's cities and towns are reduced to rubble forcing virtually the entire population to seek refuge underground [Music] this is one of the communal bomb shelters in Victoria so in Malta and this is where the whole population of Malta would live or at least they live underground you can see that this is all limestone and it's all hand chiseled to here the pic marks up here and the advantage to the Maltese is that their whole island is a limestone rock which is quite soft meant they could dig in so when the Germans bombed the whole population went underground [Music] [Music] this shelter is about a hundred and fifty feet underground because it's built into the REM parts of an old fort you can see here this is the sleeping quarters and you can imagine how cramped that conditions would be and how stale the air personally I don't like small places I don't know how long I'd last but I'd much rather be under here than having to face the bombs these little holes are very well-planned ventilation shafts and of course they'd have to drill them all the way through to the top to get some fresh air because the air down here would be totally stale even now with just a couple people around you can tell it wouldn't be very comfortable and they've had a whole bunch of people families hundreds of people here they probably couldn't wait to go upstairs but during April 1942 the Germans were bombing so often every few hours that they had to stay down here almost 24 hours a day I didn't realize it but the Germans had dubbed Malta the hornet's nest and now they're gonna smoke it out to do this they brought 600 aircraft including 300 fighters now the people could stay underground and they'd be protected from the bombs but that wouldn't save long vaulted means a new fighter they needed Spitfires [Music] you [Music] [Applause] you [Music] April 1942 the Mediterranean island of Malta is under constant attack by the Luftwaffe speedy me-109 f fighters have overwhelmed the islands force of hurricanes opening shipping lanes to resupply Rommels Afrika core allowing bombers to release their payloads on the island with little or no opposition for the few pilots still flying in multis defense death seems only a matter of time as the Luftwaffe hounds them relentlessly [Music] this is the callee airfield and during the Second World War this is one of the most important fighter bases for the defense of Malta and now the only Airport that this serves is for the model airplane guys and you can hear their engines going and flying around here this was the original base of the Hurricanes 249 squadron in May 1941 and this was the centerpiece for the defense of Malta and of course the Germans knew this and it was constantly strafed and bombed they come over six seven eight times a day with a hundred bombers and they just pound the hell out of this place and by the spring of 42 there's only half a dozen serviceable hurricanes in operation and they were no match for the mr. Schmidt's they had been upgraded so the only way Malta was going to survive was to bring in Spitfires and a lot of them but delivering the fighters to multiples is a significant problem Gibraltar the nearest British air base is 1,200 miles to the west well beyond the Spitfires range the solution is simple but risky the Allies load the fighters onto aircraft carriers and sail them to within 700 miles of water from their pilots take off and run a terrifying gauntlet of prowling me-109 hoping to reach multiple for running out of fuel I'm here with Ian McLennan who flew Spitfires in the defense of Malta he arrived in July 1942 and he shot down seven aircraft and was a Malta ace so within landing even in 24 hours you saw your first German airplanes oh when we were landing there were Germans all over the place of course it was being stripped and bought you just see I've never seen them I like before 109 is coming right at you with your guns firing bombs wrong I've never seen it like in my life it was a hectic time you know what I mean there is no time to be scared you just what you're doing get your Spitfire down and and then running someone with wave at you and you run and get down and in the cover so this was the old to Cali runway right and of course it would have been grasped no there was nothing like this it was just a grass grass dome and he came out was you always being mended because they were trying always to to kill the air fields the trick was to stay alive so once the Spitfires came in down here they'd be pulled off into a splinter pen they'd be refueled rearmed the pilot would get out a fresh pot would get in and go up and join the melee sure yeah I healed him get up to wrong 30,000 feet sleep hanging on your props waiting for the buff they're coming at you from Sicily and you're sitting in the Sun and they can't see you you see these tiny little specks and maybe there'd be 40 Junkers 88 and maybe 30 40 50 109 you made sure he gave you guys the best chance for the first bounce down we go we saw somebody in trouble somebody coming up the house would break and if you didn't know what it was you say break and everybody brought I remember once getting bounced so I just went into a spit and left my aircraft spit all the way down all these day I was shot down and then when I got right down the water and you're all the panels up there then I pulled it out [Music] see a play dead yeah oh yeah I can remember I remember the first time I did that think this is very bright cuz I got away with it he's a guy I'm sure he went back inside got this guy he went into the scene he's dead [Music] if the trick was to get up close give them a bit of a lead and if you were find right behind them [Music] 126 Spitfires that reach Malta have an immediate impact of the islands dire situation daylight bombing raids on the island are drastically reduced and despite being outnumbered nearly two to one the Spitfires down 270 enemy aircraft in their first two months of action Oh [Music] the aircraft that made the difference in the battle for Malta was the Spitfire and this is an example here most graceful and what all most beautiful aircraft isn't it really yes it's a wonderful design well these are the things that did the greatest damage this is a 20 millimeter and a sappy ammunition semi armor-piercing incendiary explosive so it would go through steel first everything these are the things that blew things apart machine guns didn't do as much damage but mind you it could kill 20 seconds 30 seconds fire so that means you learn to nurse it because once you're out of ammunition you're very vulnerable not obviously but still it's you didn't have to get out of the fight these are 20 millimeter shells and it is armor-piercing and it's explosive so it's a very deadly weapon going into another aircraft whereas machine guns just go through and yet you're dead or if it hit something vital yeah but these things do a lot of damage blow controls away and all that sort of thing the wing will come off the tail will come off devastating Hey look at you guys chocks away looks familiar really familiar well this is the joystick this is the firing machine this is your clutch that to get machine guns press that you get everything cannons and machine guns there's one thing here which is for emergency if you're facing death you can't get away from some guy and you need power you take this thing and you push it hard and it adds water to the gas and gives this engine tremendous power and boost you have to look over this boost lean there it is and you couldn't leave it on for more than a few seconds or the engine would burst to simply I remember in several times looking at it flirting with the idea I'm going to use this bloody boost if I don't get out of this fairly quickly and I think I did it once but you really didn't want to do it and I think if I did I probably did that and then did that and I caught away [Music] are you proud to have served on Malta have fought of Malta from I guess so yes okay I'm not ashamed but you know yeah yeah well there were a lot of guy he's like you know despite the best efforts of the newly arrived pilots Malta's fate still hangs in the balance in June to supply convoys set out for the island but access forces still control the surrounding sea and skies even with heavy escort only two Allied ships manage to arrive safely by mid-summer with no further relief on the horizon the island is on the brink of capitulation the population is down to its last rations and will not be able to hold out through fall the pilots too are feeling the strain plagued by poor food an extreme lack of sleep they were stressful tiring times you get up at three or four o'clock in the morning you on service to two till dark that might go on for three or four days exhausted I think everybody was hungry all the time somehow and the Maltese people were practically starving and every now and then you'd get ill you'd have a malted dog or they call dysentery and that kind of stuff everything would seem to be long do you know what I mean rubble was everywhere you're cleaning up the rubble and people are walking through and it stays that way perhaps for months so it was walking through a beleaguered City full of wrong [Music] and there were air-raid shelters down underneath that all this limestone stairs and everything going down and I remember on one occasion I started for it and then I saw a woman sort of running towards it and I fell I didn't like feeling either thing she was terrified I thought she's going to hurt herself so I started to try to cut her off to reassure her and slow her down but I missed her and Dawn she went and when I went down she was dead distressing very distress this was happening all over multi yeah no yeah everyday just with a bad time you you August 1942 the war for North Africa enters its climactic phase the Allies have stopped the advance of llamas Africa Corps at the First Battle of Eylau made a victory due in great part to multibeast attacks on axis supply ships for the Germans the situation is now clear if they hope for a victory in North Africa it is imperative they eliminate the threat from Malta once and for all in the late summer of 1942 dog fights between Spitfires and me-109 rage over the island as the Luftwaffe attempts to wear down the outnumbered allied defenders this is the chera palace in medina and now it's a five-star hotel but in 1942 it was an officer's mess for 249 squadron as well as one or two other fighter squadrons that served at the cali airfield and of course from this position you can see - cali airfield just over here and the pilots weren't flying could get an excellent view of the dogfights it would go on so you'd watch the dogfight so on your day off from time to time yes you know you can imagine that there were way up there there a high and and it's fascinating he's like a small opera but you can't tell who's who really but it can change suddenly dogfights varied there could be six Spitfires going after the three 109 is stated right in front of you under 2,000 feet almost you can touch it the skirt guns are blazing for our love to blaze so it's quite dangerous here the bangs in the crash malte had a lot of great fighter aces and of course George Burling was at the top of the list what made him different well that he was phenomenal fighter pilot oh yeah didn't didn't argue about it the guy was coming down the kills all the time nobody else could match it nobody and there was some great fighter pilots in Malta a Burling had great eyesight you know if the beetle specs okay against that my whole life at that time was little specs every time you went up and you were called look towards accessory for the little specs I scrambled to take on to junker 88s escorted by about twenty me-109 two Emmys got the drop on me I did a quick wing over and got under one's tail he saw me coming and tried to climb away I figured he must have been about eight hundred yards away from me when I got him into my sights at this distance Burling is engaged in a war of invisible numbers his Spitfires traveling at 250 miles per hour well the me-109 is climbing at a rate of over 50 feet per second the equation grows even more complicated when he factors in the velocity of his weapons in essence Burling must not shoot directly at his enemy rather at a point in space where his enemy and his fire will precisely meet I gave him a three-second bursts smack onto his starboard flank and got him in the tank it was a full deflection shot he was a pilot who was better than anybody else he would have been difficult to handle in the squadron because he's so bloody bright and knows what he's got to be doing he he's better at her than anybody else on this quadrant and he knows they know it which is not it like an endearing trait to be better than everybody else you didn't have the freedom he needed he was frustrated that problem and that made him a troubled guy and the trouble to anybody who had to have them I'm sure but he could have been handled if somebody took mine to say look we've got ourselves an ace here my August Burling was already a legend in Malta he had 15 kills he had at least half a dozen probables and damaged was number one fighter pilot bought Malta when every pilot knew at some point his number could come up on August 8th 1942 burling's number came up a bunch of yellow gnomes Debbie 109s been waiting for us and every mother's son of McStay to fight I quickly turned to get under one of them and gave him a two and a half second burst I hadn't any more than begun to die when I got mine we're trying to find buzz burling's crash site of August 8th 1942 the passage of time makes examining any battlefield difficult of course specifically exactly where it took place in the field well that's another story then you need an eyewitness [Music] this is the village of gujja and this near Luqa Airport and we think we found somebody who witnessed the Burling crash this is quite amazing considering how few people would have seen it the first place so I'm going to talk to him [Music] hello Joseph hi I came to find out about the buzz Burling crash site you're the eyewitness we're looking for so Giuseppe what did you see when the Spitfire came down come ahead so well he's maneuverable and he's coming into the ground close together but so much a gentleman I just saw a lot they very well or they're both so uh oh my GPA they will prove what on it and the risk of discovery l they provide about my role as I refer don't know where did the plane crash yeah the trend mode booyah yeah village enter here [Music] we're just on the outskirts of gujja and we're gonna try to find out where Berlin came down in his famous and very lucky crash on August 8 1942 they were chasing after a gaggle of Germans over in this area they were going after Grand Harbor and just somewhere to the east over there in the sky a dogfight developed Burling had already had 15 kills he went in it was some very fine deflection shooting he had a 60 Jimmy 109 went down the problem was somebody got him and he got hitting the engine and his engine cut out and died and he's stuck in the middle of a dogfight with no engine the old Merlin wouldn't give me any more than a hundred and sixty miles an hour and was heating up fast his spit was sinking slowly begun to look like a failing job by the time he gets us harness all set he's down to 200 feet he's got to be going about a hundred miles an hour he came down gradually by that church over there right ahead I can see a nice plowed field about an acre in size surrounded by low stone walls now the danger here is all these stone walls if a Spitfire hits 100 miles an hour you're a dead man I slid it along cutting the glide fine but not to find it's damned easy to clip these spits and spit in gotta try to keep that nose high burling's spitfire came across this field makes a belly landing and just as it's about to hit the wall he tips the wing down [Music] it stops cold climbs out of the cockpit inspects the plane he had nothing but a cut he'd escaped his first dangerous clash with death live to fight another day [Music] but struggle as they may fighters alone cannot save malta the island is nearly out of food fuel and ammunition in August the Allies launch one last effort at resupply this convoy must reach mortar or all Evers to defend the tiny island have been in vain [Music] you you [Music] by the end of July 1942 Malta was in dire straits the Spitfires had alleviated the attacks on the island but it was simply rubble they had bombed everything into oblivion and now the people were starving they had no ammunition and their fuel was low they knew that the only way to survive was a do-or-die convoy and it was codenamed Operation pedestal and at left England in early August 1942 [Music] tensions run high on both sides as the convoy enters the Mediterranean the Germans know that if they are to conquered North Africa they must force Malta to surrender the intercept force lies in wait until the allied convoy enters the Strait between Tunisia and Sicily there they attack [Music] one by one the ships of operation pedestal are sent to the bottom but the ultimate prize for access Gunners is the tanker Ohio barring precious fuel for Maltese aircraft the lightly armed ship struggles forward under murderous fire [Music] within a week we would have surrendered definitely we were in our last days before extinction everybody knew who had no rations no ammunition that Rowland had almost finished no fighters could go up would have better if there is no tanker we shall be lost did any important one was it anger so really this is the end that was definitely the end there was a week just a week supplies [Music] we were just hoping that something comes down from heaven that's why we call the arrival of the convoy of the Santa Maria global as a miracle they were trained in churches to Santa Maria to do something to let something to save Malta we held a fire when when it was attacked near Cicely there was a warning sounded a red warning and the people some of them from the shelter [Music] but there were those who remain still here that appeared between two lighthouses they're being created on two cables held by two destroyers [Music] [Music] and cuz there was discipline structure or mangled with the bombs and the torpedo then everybody followed Ohio till it wonder they started immediately I can do result it was joy round clapping [Music] it was move I think it was the most move excites and whole well in the war after the Ohio things quieten down in Malta in fact the Germans didn't come back until October 10th that's when they brought all their bombers back and they were going to punish Malta once again but this time his fits were waiting for them and they shot them down what it doesn't in five days Burling added eight was total [Music] but of course that was his last battle of the war he was shot down injured he never flew again over Malta Eden McClendon added five to his tally including two Junkers in one day [Music] but the real changes were taking place in North Africa on October 23rd the 8th army attacked Rommels Afrika Corps and started driving them back towards Tunisia in November Americans landed in North Africa and he started a pincer movement and basically the war North Africa was over it was just a matter of time after two and a half years of aerial bombardments the siege of Malta was over [Music] this is kept Latini Naval Cemetery south of Grand Harbor it was used by the British for more than a hundred years there are 700 Second World War burials here you can see how they're laid out that the men are buried in crypts and really a collective grave in a crypt and a large slab is put over top and the details of the burials on top with the cap badge of the associated unit it also is in many ways the history of the Malta campaign buried in this crypt there are four of the men killed at the bombing at Pont of view and you can see here Baker Garin the Australian Paulus Hallett and water-filled were all killed in the doorway of the hotel [Music] this one here pilot officer Doug Lego was shot down on the 20th of March 1942 and in his situation is quite infamous he actually parachuted out of his plane [Music] the German went over and machine-gunners canopy so the parachute collapsed and Lego fell to his death [Music] 7,000 people died in the defense of Malta and by second world war standards that's a small number for such a decisive victory all great campaigns are made up of a few mistakes a few myths and a few miracles and Malta was no different but really it was the courage and tenacity of all the people who were here that saved the day whether they be civilians dock workers Gunners Merchant Navy Royal Navy or Air Force and its really to these people that we should remember that they changed the course of the Second World War [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Breakthrough Entertainment

Views: 5,131

Keywords: Battlefield Mysteries, Episode 2, The Siege At Malta: 1940-1942, Breakthrough Entertainment, Battlefield Mysteries Series, Reality, Lifestyle, TV Show, Battlefield Mysteries Full Episodes, Battlefield Mysteries Trailer, Drama, Entertainment, TV, Norm Christie, Colin Fox, Daniel Taylor

Id: GnxQoB39QXg

Length: 47min 27sec (2847 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020