Malta Story

Amazingly it seems of the speaking cast there was only one actual Maltese person, and all the others were actually English. Fooled me.

What was the “Phantom Squadron” business all about? Did they really fake radio transmissions of battles to confuse the Italians?

I was stationed in Malta during 1954/55. My unit, No. 40 Commando was in barracks at first St. Patricks Barracks then, St. Andrews Barracks just the other side of Spinola.

At the three airields with which I was familiar; Ta Kali or Ta Quali, Hal Far and Luqa could be seen plenty of WW2 aircraft looking the worse for wear apart from a few Spitfires and some Mosquitoes.

Each regiment/unit on the island took turns to perform garrison fatigues. When, came our turn we were given the job of attending the caves below the bridge near the town of Mosta to load vast quantities of 3.7 and 4.5 inch shells onto a narrow guage railway track and thence down to the sea for dumping.

I don’t know what quantity and type of a/c were dumped in the sea around Malta, if any. You’d be hard put to distinguish dumped a/c from shot down Axis machines of whom there were hundreds. I know that a favoured if accidental dumping spot would have been the sea bed directly under the cliffs where Hal Far’s main runway terminated.

Heavily loaded Wellingtons struggled to get airborne and sometimes depended on a gradual descent to the sea after leaving the end of the runway to gather a little extra speed to climb away. Rumour had it that this area of the sea bed was rich in unscheduled arrivals.

The Italian scrap metal merchants hauled stuff up out of the sea as fast as it was dumped off Halfar.

There are 30-40 wrecks know on the sea bed but these are crash’s,and some aircraft pushed off carriers including a Sea Fury and a Sky Raider both sat on their undercarriage.Most of the wrecks are around 80 -150 metres and include a B24 Liberator at around 100 metres. But the stuff is all best left there until someone has the facility and funds to get them up and do something with them its a pointless exercise otherwise.

I was stationed in Malta during 1954/55. My unit, No. 40 Commando was in barracks at first St. Patricks Barracks then, St. Andrews Barracks just the other side of Spinola.

At the three airields with which I was familiar; Ta Kali or Ta Quali, Hal Far and Luqa could be seen plenty of WW2 aircraft looking the worse for wear apart from a few Spitfires and some Mosquitoes.

Each regiment/unit on the island took turns to perform garrison fatigues. When, came our turn we were given the job of attending the caves below the bridge near the town of Mosta to load vast quantities of 3.7 and 4.5 inch shells onto a narrow guage railway track and thence down to the sea for dumping.

I don’t know what quantity and type of a/c were dumped in the sea around Malta, if any. You’d be hard put to distinguish dumped a/c from shot down Axis machines of whom there were hundreds. I know that a favoured if accidental dumping spot would have been the sea bed directly under the cliffs where Hal Far’s main runway terminated.

Heavily loaded Wellingtons struggled to get airborne and sometimes depended on a gradual descent to the sea after leaving the end of the runway to gather a little extra speed to climb away. Rumour had it that this area of the sea bed was rich in unscheduled arrivals.

The only Wellington we know of in Malta is in 120 metres of med over it. The fireflies have long gone as did their
engines that where at Halfar at one stage but many,many years ago.

Most of the yard shave gone with all the gems in. There where some marine griffons on the quay side at dry docks for a while but they probably have gone to the USA long ago.

They are also cleaning up the Island a lot and the washing machine walls are not as common as once where.

The very active guys at the Aviation Museum grab most of anything that turns up.

There is rumour of stuff buried in old quarries but new developments on top of them have precluded any excavations to find fact or fiction,

Funny, I watched that film the other day. I built a couple of 1/72 scale Spitfire XVIs in similar markings to the ones in the films, and while I painted them in desert camo (which I thought was right), the Spitfire Survivors book tells me they were green/brown….! 🙁

So, it’s not the one in the film then.

The Albacore is based on UK crash recoveries and has non-original wooden wings IIRC

http://www.fleetairarm.com/exhibit/fairey-albacore-n4389/2-4-10.aspx

Seeing the way they reutilise material out there I guess that after the war the fuselages would have been cut into sections, flattened and used as fencing. But over the years they would have been buttressed with old domestic appliances and bits of car. The fields are tiny, there are many thousands of miles of walls. Real needle in a haystack stuff if you want to go looking.

Moggy

So you reckon those fuselages will be still there, acting as fences?

Not in Malta – never.

They will be incorporated deep in field boundaries, but very hard to see because of the old fridges and washing machines that are currently used.

Moggy