Operational Zone Number of Operations Aircraft Sorties Bomb Tonnage
Great Britain 24 104 55.1
Gibraltar 11 17 23.4
Egypt (Alexandria) 63 162 113.7
Palestine 32 110 66.9
Bahrain 1 4 2.1
Cyprus 34 125 75.8
Source: IWM, Italian Series (Air Force), Box 25, ‘Relazione Statistica sull’attività Operativa dell’Aeronautica’, 13–16.
In addition a great many operations were undertaken against shipping convoys, against merchant and naval ships in port and against enemy targets in North Africa, but these can more properly be regarded as tactical raids in support of Italian operations in Greece, from October 1940, and in Libya throughout the period of Italian hostility against Britain.
Even the limited Mediterranean air offensive strained Italian resources to the limit. The number of pilots planned for training each year was 900, and a total of only 1,920 were trained throughout the period 1940–43. By the autumn of 1942, 2,293 pilots had become casualties (killed, wounded or prisoner of war), and a further 4,422 aircrew and navigators. Some 3,511 aircraft were lost, 37 per cent through accidents; this figure included 997 bombers, lost either on long-range missions or in the fighting in Greece and North Africa.35 By autumn 1942 the bomber arm had just 427 serviceable bombers, only half the number at the start of the war, and a fraction of the resources available to the Allies. The bomber units remained short of high-quality aircraft, sufficient fuel for training, effective onboard armament and radio communication between the attacking units. Tactical recommendations from the Germans were not welcomed and were introduced only slowly. Operational training units (Gruppi Complementari) were established only towards the end of 1941.36 The strain on Italian pilots from long periods in action with high losses was considerable. The commander of the 30th Stormo (Group) stationed in Sicily complained in August 1941 that his crew had had no relief for 14 months, during which they were sometimes asked to fly 8–10 hours daily. Pilots were invalided out from physical exhaustion or nervous breakdown; the rest, he continued, resisted collapse through sheer willpower.37 The effects of their efforts were also clearly limited for Italy’s war in Africa and the Mediterranean reached crisis point in 1941. An article in August 1941 in the major air force journal admitted that bombing was much more problematic than had been realized before the war: ‘experience teaches that the destructive effect sought is powerfully limited by the wide dispersion of the bombs’. The system of relying on the bomber pilots to fly in behind the squadron leader to drop bombs ‘in imitation’ magnified the statistical likelihood of hitting the target with only ‘the tiniest fraction of the bombs dropped’.38 The legacy of Douhet melted away under the harsh glare of operational reality.
MALTA: ‘THE MOST BOMBED PLACE ON EARTH’
The limitations of Italy’s aerial war effort, and indeed the limitations of a bombing offensive, were no more clearly demonstrated than in the strategic campaign waged for more than two years against the tiny island of Malta. Only 58 miles from the southern shore of Sicily, its strategic position as a British seabase and airbase was perilous once Italy had declared war. The island measures only 13 miles by 7, with the islet of Gozo at its northern tip; defending the area successfully against a determined invasion seemed in 1940 unlikely, even more so once German attention was turned to the Mediterranean in early 1941. Malta instead became ‘the most bombed place on earth’, attacked 3,302 times between 1940 and August 1944, when the last small German raid occurred.39 Under this continuous aerial assault, neither the British garrison nor the 260,000 inhabitants of the islands could be forced to abandon their resistance, an outcome that defied all the pre-war assumptions about the psychological fragility of heavily bombed populations.
Malta had been a British crown colony since the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Its population was predominantly Maltese, but there were a sizeable number of Italian descent. Italian was spoken among the Maltese elite and in the law courts and administration. It was this connection that attracted Mussolini to the idea that Malta was an outpost of an oppressed and ‘Italianized’ people, who should be liberated from British rule and given the dubious benefits of Italian Fascism. A Maltese Nationalist Party, led by Enrico Mizzi, agitated in the 1930s for Maltese autonomy and looked towards Mussolini’s Rome for support. Between 1932 and 1934 the British colonial administration banned Italian in Maltese primary schools, the administration and the courts, and declared English and Malti the official languages of the islands.40 The potential threat from Italy was well understood in Malta; Italian irredentism challenged the British authorities and raised the problem of a possible ‘fifth column’ if war broke out. From 1934 onwards the local authorities suppressed Italian and Fascist activity on the island, while preparing a civil defence programme against the possibility of Italian air attack.
The first meetings of the island’s Air Raid Precautions Committee took place in December 1934 under the chairmanship of the lieutenant governor, General David Campbell.41 The decision to establish what was called the Passive Defence system was implemented slowly, inhibited by the absence of an immediate menace and the shortage of funds from London to set it up. Most effort was devoted to the anti-air defence of the Grand Harbour in the capital, Valletta, where some 70,000 Maltese lived and worked. Training in gas decontamination and first aid was set up and recruitment of a mixed British-Maltese Passive Defence Reserve was begun. But when war broke out in September 1939, the chief air protection officer on Malta complained that the Passive Defenders had never been more than a ‘force in embryo’: only 3 out of 14 Passive Defence centres had been fitted out with equipment, about one-fifth of the volunteers had had any training, and the male recruits were rapidly leaving to join the armed forces.42 By 1940 most air-raid wardens were women. The active defence of the island was poorly prepared. When Italy declared war on 10 June 1940 the air defence famously consisted of three naval Gloster Gladiator biplane fighters – christened Faith, Hope and Charity – supported by 32 heavy and 8 light anti-aircraft guns and 24 searchlights, clustered around the ports and the three RAF airbases then under construction at Luqa, Hal Far and Ta’Qali.43 Warning of air raids was poorly coordinated and the sirens (or ‘syrens’ as they were always known on Malta) were a recent innovation not fully understood by the local population. Malta’s fragile defence was masked in the summer of 1940 only by the looming presence of the British fleet in the Mediterranean, which acted as a major deterrent to Italian action until the advent of German forces.
The Italian campaign against Malta began at seven o’clock in the morning of 11 June, one day after the declaration of war. The blackout had begun the night before, but most Italian attacks were undertaken during daylight hours. Mussolini boasted that Malta would be Italian in a matter of hours, at the most three weeks. Although the capture of the island fitted with the propaganda of Malta as a stolen ‘Italian’ territory, there were important strategic considerations. Malta lay across the principal Italian supply routes to the Italian armies in North Africa, which were being prepared for an invasion of Egypt and the capture of the Suez Canal. The island became a base for British bombers in transit to the campaign in Africa, and for British submarines sent to interrupt Italian merchant traffic. It was also what the Italian Air Ministry called an ‘aerial springboard’ for the defence of Britain’s long communications route across the Mediterranean to the Middle East.44 The Italian High Command believed that the island could not easily be bombed into surrender or captured, so the principal but more limited objective became the neutralization of Malta’s capacity to damage the long Italian logistics chain. The bombing offensive in 1940 was continuous but so limited in scale that the islanders and the garrison soon began to abandon the rush to the shelters. The Italian Air Force account of the campaign produced in October 1942 identified three major air offensives against Malta, but did not include the bombing in 1940 among them. During the opening months of the campaign the air force sent small numbers of bombe
r aircraft, escorted by more numerous fighters, on attacks against military targets in and around the main harbour and the three airbases. Italian records show that in the first 10 months of the war the air force mounted 103 operations against Malta, but the average size of the attacking force was just five planes.45 The British authorities in Malta counted many more attacks, but it is likely that Italian aircraft sent from different bases arrived at different times over the island, and were classified as separate raids. The damage to military targets was slight and it was soon observed that with anti-aircraft and fighter defence – the Gladiators were soon joined by squadrons of Hurricanes – Italian bombers often failed to press home their attacks. In numerous raid reports, there was no damage and no casualties. The raids seldom lasted more than 20–30 minutes. The small numbers and operational caution meant that Italian losses remained low. In the first 10 months only 25 fighters and bombers were lost; the effects of the campaign were correspondingly meagre.46
The British chiefs of staff had at first assumed that the costs of trying to hold Malta would outweigh the advantages, but Churchill was an enthusiast for holding onto the island in case a base in the central Mediterranean became essential, as it did once France was defeated in June 1940.47 Over the course of 1940 and 1941 the air force and anti-aircraft resources on the island were strengthened, though the limited effort expended by the Italian Air Force meant that reinforcement was treated with less urgency than was necessary. The Italian invasion of Greece, on 28 October 1940, encouraged the RAF to think of using Malta as a staging post for bomber aircraft destined for Egypt, in order to begin a counter-offensive against Italian ports. A force of eight Wellington bombers was sent out to Malta en route to Egypt. It was ordered to bomb Naples and Rome, but the Italian capital was taken off the list and replaced with orders to attack southern Italian ports at Brindisi and Taranto, and if possible Albanian ports where Italian resources and troops were being disembarked.48 The raids were carried out by a handful of bombers and were little more effective than Italian attacks. Heavily loaded Wellingtons could not take off easily from the short runway at the Luqa base (two crashed with their bombloads) and urgent orders were sent to begin lengthening the runway as soon as possible. In November and December the RAF commander in Malta was ordered to undertake leaflet drops on Italian towns as long as the contents of the propaganda made them ‘more effective than bombs’.49 The drops began in late November with leaflets titled ‘Goodbye Mare Nostrum’ and ‘Mussolini Is Always Right?’ In January a new leaflet appeared under the slogan ‘THIS IS WAR! Bombs, Death, Destruction’, threatening more bombs until Mussolini was overthrown.50 It was to be a long time before this threat could be redeemed, but a few weeks before, Portal had directed that even though Italian aircraft continued to aim for military targets, British bombers should bomb ‘in centres of Italian population’ if a primary target could not be located.51
The population on Malta soon adjusted to the strain of repeated small raids. When the bombing began, immediate steps were taken to evacuate women and children from the main towns. Since Malta was so small, evacuation meant moving a few miles to a village or small town in the north or west of the island, where there were fewer inviting targets. Houses were subject to inspection and under-utilized households were subject to compulsory billeting (though the governor’s residence, the palace of the Archbishop of Malta and convents were formally exempted).52 The policy was to keep families together as far as possible to avoid affecting morale and although evacuation was not legally compulsory, thousands made the short journey by bus or on foot away from the main ports and airbases, taking with them as many possessions as they could, despite the regulation to take only items that were portable and indispensable. The British families were taken to the village of Naxxar, where they slept in large dormitories in three-tier bunks set up in a prominent Maltese palace.53 One of the few natural advantages Malta enjoyed was the large number of caves, tunnels and cellars carved into the island’s rocky core. These were used at once as shelters. The British Home Office had already conducted experiments in 1937 to test what depth of rock on the island would withstand a bomb and recommended at least 60 feet, but in most cases the depth was less than this, and occasional bomb hits above ground sent shock waves capable of bringing down tunnel sides or ceilings.54 Some of the population spent the first nights after the outbreak of war in uncomfortable and unsanitary quarters. A large disused railway tunnel outside Valletta housed hundreds from the town, sleeping on mattresses or in deckchairs. Images of the Virgin Mary or the Sacred Heart of Jesus were hastily put up on the tunnel walls alongside small placards printed with words in Malti, Ikun Imbierek Alla (‘Blessed be God’).55 As the bombing continued, the government took more responsibility for converting the rock shelters into permanent dormitories with the necessary equipment and facilities, but with the Italian preference for daylight bombing (in all bombing operations from 1940 to 1942 daylight attacks outnumbered night attacks by 3 to 1), many on the island took to ignoring the threat and sleeping in their own beds.56
The growing confidence of the population after the first anxious days was in contrast to the fears of the authorities that the Maltese population would not cope with air attack. The regulations applied to civilians reflected the British view of the Maltese as a colonial people. Italian nationalists were interned, and a strict curfew and censorship regime was imposed on the rest of the island. District Commissioners and Regional Protection Officers were appointed to cover the whole area so that close watch could be kept on the popular mood.57 The idea was suggested of barricading bombed villages to prevent the panicked population from leaving and infecting others with their demoralization, and although the suggestion went no further, roadblocks and checkpoints were set up around the island to monitor closely the movement of civilians. Regulations in July allowed for air-raid wardens to be arrested if found outside after curfew hours, except when an alarm had sounded. One 18-year-old Passive Defender, caught riding his bicycle between villages after curfew, was arrested, fined and dismissed from the volunteer force.58 A campaign against spreading rumours was begun at once, prompted partly by an unhelpful story begun two days after the start of the war that the Italian government had surrendered. Instructions sent out by the government Information Office on 14 June warned of the insidious effects of rumour and asked leading citizens to ‘discourage the babbler’. To give force to the recommendation Sir William Dobbie, the new lieutenant governor, used a radio broadcast to announce the introduction of strengthened legislation and the punishment of the first culprits.59
In reality, the population reacted to the first months of bombing with an evident sangfroid. People were killed watching the aerial battles, or standing at shelter entrances despite the warnings, but casualties and damage were both too limited to disrupt the continuation of a more normal life. A familiar bedroom was preferred to a hard wooden shelter bunk. Tamara Marks, wife of a British serviceman, abandoned the evacuation station at Naxxar after a few weeks to return to a room in the bombed capital some fifty yards from the sea, where she swam and read. ‘One bathed off the rocks,’ she later wrote. ‘Undressing was easy; one just slipped one’s frock off and appeared in a bathing costume.’ After just a matter of weeks she and her companions treated the raids as an irritating diversion rather than a menace.60 It was commonly understood that Italian airmen flew high, seldom accepted combat, and dropped small quantities of bombs. Italian operational reports reflected this reality: poor weather, the failure to rendezvous with fighter escort, the heights compelled by anti-aircraft fire, the tiny number of bombs dropped, are characteristic features.61 All of this changed on 16 January 1941, when the first major raid was made by the German Air Force against the British aircraft carrier Illustrious, which had limped into the Grand Harbour after enduring regular dive-bombing attacks through the western Mediterranean.62 Repeated attacks by Ju87 and Ju88 aircraft failed to sink the ship, but for the first time showed how much damage a heavy raid could do to
the surrounding port and housing. Tamara Marks visited the wrecked area the following day, stumbling over mountains of rubble full of the ‘pitiful remnants of frocks, shoes and hats’ and remains of goats brought earlier into the city for the sale of milk. The war, she thought, ‘had started in earnest’. All that could be found of her best friend after a raid a few weeks later was her handbag.63
The presence of the German Air Force marked a profound change in the nature of the Italian war effort. From offers of military assistance to Hitler in July 1940 in what was called a ‘parallel war’ (la guerra parallela) fought by the two Axis states, the Italian leadership had to accept German reinforcement to avoid complete defeat in Greece and Libya. Although the Italian armed forces wanted their reliance on Germany to be an expression of mutual assistance, it was difficult to disguise the onset of what has come to be called the ‘subaltern war’ (la guerra subalterna).64 The German Air Force was large enough and well-organized enough to fight a parallel ‘Blitz’ against Malta while most German aircraft were engaged in the offensive against the British Isles. While a handful of Italian aircraft in Belgium gave token help to the Germans, a large force of high-quality German aircraft were sent south to bases in Sicily and southern Italy following Hitler’s decision in late November 1940 to make the Mediterranean ‘the grave of the English fleet’.65 Air Corps X (Fliegerkorps X), commanded by the anti-shipping expert, General Hans Geisler, arrived at eight bases in Sicily in January 1941 with around 350 Ju88 and He111 bombers, Me110 heavy fighters, Ju87 dive-bombers and Me109 fighters.66 In the absence of effective Italian defences, the German force brought its own anti-aircraft equipment, consisting of 20 batteries spread between Catania, Palermo, Trapani and Reggio Calabria. The Italians christened the force the German Air Corps (Corpo Aereo Tedesco) in an endeavour to match the title of the Italian corps sent to Belgium, but its performance far outdistanced the Italian contribution further north.67 Malta was not yet a principal German objective, though it was bombed heavily in order to secure the sea route to North Africa, where in February 1941 a German army corps was sent under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to help prevent an Italian collapse in Libya. Air Corps X was directed to attack British naval vessels and merchant ships, and in the three months of intensive attack, German aircraft sank three times the volume of shipping sunk by the Italian Air Force. Against Malta, the Air Corps directed 53 raids between January and April, flying almost 50 per cent more sorties than Italian aircraft, at an average strength per operation almost three times the Italian one.68
The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 Page 68