大象传媒

This story has been submitted by Peter Winstanley aged 85.

I was called up on Boxing Day 1939. I served with the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. In November 1940, I was posted to Malta, where I served throughout the German and Italian siege which lasted until the defeat of Axis forces in North Africa in July 1943. During this period the island was subjected to constant air raids and a naval blockade. Supplies of food and fuel were desperately low and the civilian population suffered great hardships.

After arriving in Malta we were firstly taken to St. Andrew鈥檚 Barracks and, after some drills and training, were sent to man concrete bunkers on the coast. These bunkers were equipped with machine guns and small searchlights which we used to watch out to sea at night. During December there were a few air raids by Italian bombers. They came over in twos and threes but at very high altitude, out of range of the artillery. From the ground they looked just like little black dots in the sky. From the middle of January 1941, the Germans started to raid the island. We saw the Hurricanes take off from the aerodrome to meet them. There were only about eight planes at that time. Also in January, HMS Illustrious, an aircraft carrier, came into the Grand Harbour, badly damaged. Soon after it docked, troops from several regiments, including about forty of us were sent down to help unload the ship and bring off the casualties. The planes kept trying to bomb the ship but it was anchored under an overhanging rock which gave it some protection. The dockyard workers did a temporary repair and after about twelve days the ship slipped out of harbour at night time to go on to Alexandria for further work.

We got a few more raids in February with Stuka 87 dive bombers. This continued through till March. Valletta and the dockyards on the other side of the harbour were the main targets. The damage was dreadful. Fortunately there were good ready made shelters in the caves and catacombs which helped to reduce the casualties. The air raids got much heavier towards the end of 1941 and in 1942 we had four or five raids a day starting at first light through to 6.00pm, or even later. The planes came in waves of fifty or sixty at a time, first heavy bombers, then Stukas, then Me 109s, machine-gunning. I was with one of my pals near to the Regency Picture House in Valletta on 15th February 1942 when it was hit. We were lucky because we had already seen the film, 鈥淣orth West Mounted Police.鈥� We felt the blast though and were hit by bits of debris and covered in dust. We went to help several people who had been hit by shrapnel. One was a RAF lad but we couldn鈥檛 do anything for him and he died. We went along the street helping who we could. A young boy died in my arms. His legs had been terribly injured. A priest came along and blessed him with holy water and said some prayers. We then went to the picture house to help dig out any survivors. We pulled out some of our own officers who had been buried in the rubble. Then we had to report to the Red Caps to explain why we werw not back at our barracks.

During another raid in April, one of our heavy artillery batteries was attacked. All hell broke loose, it was a right to do! We emptied magazine after magazine until we saw about twenty-five 87s coming down on our position. We decided it was time to get into the slit trenches since we had no ammunition left. When things went quiet we came out to find the whole gun sight flattened. The place looked like a slaughter house. Many of the men had been blown to pieces and all we could do was watch the medical and service corps clear away the mess. After this raid we were moved inland.

On 9th April, during an air raid on Ta鈥橯ali Airfield, three bombs fell on Mosta village. One went straight through the dome of the church without exploding. It was a miracle no one was hurt because there were over 300 people in the church at the time. Since ours was the nearest post, we were sent to help out. We passed another unexploded bomb across the street. The people in the church were stunned but not hurt so we helped them to safety whilst the Royal Engineers dealt with the bomb. The Maltese people must have said some very strong prayers.

All through April it was really bad. We spent most of the time filling in craters on the aerodrome runway. We had little time for meals or for sleeping.

A couple of months later we were back in a beach post near a barracks at St George鈥檚 Bay. This wasn鈥檛 so bad because we could go to the NAAFI for a cup of tea and cakes. If you didn鈥檛 get them on the day they were made though, they went really hard so we called them 鈥渞ock cakes!鈥� One day, one of the regular soldiers came back from a day in the village slightly drunk and in a happy mood. He came into the post carrying an Italian 500lb bomb which had been dropped a few days earlier. He put it down on the table in front of us. We did our best to get him to take it back outside and dump it in the sea but our efforts did not work so we had to call the bomb disposal men.

A few weeks later I was transferred to HQ Company where I drove a truck taking meals to the aerodrome. I lost one truck one day when it was hit during a raid. All the food was destroyed with the truck. After a while I was given the job of chauffeuring the Commanding Officer. I used to be on call at all times.

During June the air raids became more and more frequent. It was as if the Germans were running a shuttle service. Some days we were in the slit trenches from breakfast until midday. It was also in June or July that we got a delivery of over a hundred spitfires. They flew off the aircraft carrier, HMS Eagle. They were put in pens made out of empty petrol tins and large stones salvaged from bombed out houses. The stones were just stacked on top of each other up to about eight feet high but they prevented the planes from being damaged by shrapnel during the raids. Not long after, the Eagle was sunk along with many other ships bringing in vital supplies.

It was not until July 1943 that the air raids eased off and soon after that we got orders to pack our kit and leave for Alexandria in Egypt. We moved around quite a bit then went to Palestine and then Cyprus. In November 1943 we were part of a force sent to defend the small Dodecanese island of Leros. The island was very rugged. We had no proper billets and no tents so we had to use our blankets for shelter.

On 12th November a combined sea and airborne force of elite German troops invaded the island. The RAF was unable to provide air cover and supplies and ammunition could only be brought in under cover of darkness. After five days the British commander was forced to surrender. I was wounded in the knee and taken prisoner. I was taken to Greece and eventually held in Stalag XIA at Altengrabow, in Northern Germany. The regular German troops treated us well but not so the Hitler Youth regiments. In April 1945, me and several other prisoners escaped by climbing over the barbed wire fence during an air raid. I was free for four days before being picked up by advancing American troops.

May 2005

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