Sea Shells

Question: What Mediterranean Island nation with no forests, mountains, or rivers was "the most heavily bombed place on Earth" during World War II?

Answer: Malta

Malta is a tiny archipelago in the Mediterranean situated midway between Sicily and Tunisia—a location that has been strategically important since ancient times. Because of this, empires and great powers have sought control of Malta for the past 2,500 years—everyone from the Carthaginians and the Romans to the Normans and the Arabs to the French and the British.

At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Malta was a British possession. And when Italy entered the war on the side of the Axis on June 10, 1940, just as France fell to the German invasion, Malta found itself right in the crosshairs. The airfields and naval facilities on the island were vital to British efforts to hold onto the Suez Canal and the Middle East—but for the Axis, Malta was an immediate threat to resupply ships for Italian forces and later, an even greater threat to resupply ships for Germany’s Afrika Corps.

So exactly one day after Italy entered the war, Mussolini’s air force—the Regia Aeronautica—began bombing the Maltese islands, focusing on the harbor of Valletta. Unfortunately for Malta, nothing much could be done about it. The British garrison was too small to offer serious resistance, and the planes were gone—either sent to Egypt or back to Great Britain, where the Battle of Britain was underway. As important as Malta was, the British were too busy fighting for their own lives, so for the time being, the tiny Mediterranean island would have to fend for itself.

When the German Luftwaffe arrived, the real trouble started. A relentless Italian and German bombing campaign ensued that would go on for more than two years. By 1942 Valletta would have the dubious distinction of being the "single most heavily bombed place on earth." To put it in perspective, the blitz over London lasted eight months, with German bombers carrying out 85 major bombing raids on the city. The air attacks on Malta lasted more than three times longer, with 3,343 German bombing raids, including one stretch of 154 consecutive days and nights.

As the months dragged on, the people of Malta were forced to live in a network of underground shelters. And with little to no supplies able to make it into Valetta Harbor, the population was on the brink of starvation (during one six-month period in 1942, only two out of 24 Allied ships with food and other supplies made it to Malta).

Everything changed in November of 1942, when the Germans and Italians were forced to abandon their "siege of Malta." The strategic importance of the tiny island became evident over the next six months, when Allied air and sea forces operating out of Maltese airfields and ports went on the offensive, sinking 230 Axis ships, the highest Allied rate of the entire war, and taking more than 230,000 German and Italian POWs. Malta would continue to serve as an important staging point for Allied landing operations in North Africa, Sicily, and the Italian mainland.

Malta emerged from the war victorious, but it came at a cost. About 1,500 Maltese civilians were killed, thousands more wounded, and some 30,000 buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged. In 1942, King George VI awarded the George Cross—the civilian equivalent of the Victoria Cross—to the "Island Fortress of Malta, to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history."

Early in 1941, when a German corps under the command of Erwin Rommel was sent to North Africa, he immediately recognized Malta’s importance. "Without Malta," he warned, "the Axis will end by losing control of North Africa." And he was right. As for the Italians, an official report after the war stated, "Malta was the rock on which our hopes in the Mediterranean foundered."

After 150 years as a British colony, Malta gained its independence in 1964, became a republic in 1974, and a member of the European Union in 2004. Malta’s national flag has the George Cross woven into its upper left-hand corner, which is clearly visible whenever the flag is proudly flown.

But there’s more to Malta than bombs—a lot more

The Germans and Italians may have failed to overrun Malta, but in its 7,000 years of human habitation there are plenty of Mediterranean powers that succeeded: the short list includes the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the French, and the British.

It is perhaps the islands' history with the Knights of the Order of St. John that is Malta’s most enduring legacy, however. More than 400 years before German bombs were dropping on the islands, the Knights of St. John, an international monastic order dating from 1048, made their appearance. The Knights had been based in Rhodes until an invasion by the Ottoman Turks under Süleyman the Magnificent left them homeless. But Charles V, Holy Roman emperor and head of the Spanish Empire, came to the rescue. He gave the islands of Malta and Gozo to the Knights as their new base for an annual tribute of one falcon (which, of course, gave birth to the legendary "Maltese falcon.")

Siege of Malta, the Prequel

When Voltaire said, "Nothing is better known than the siege of Malta," he wasn’t referring to the one in World War II (he couldn’t have been, of course, since he died in 1778). The Knights of Malta had hardly settled into their new base of operations in Malta when Süleyman came calling again. When a massive armada of 200 ships was spotted approaching Malta on May 18, 1565, it marked the beginning of the four-month "Siege of Malta," one of the great turning points in European history.

The siege force from across the Muslim world outnumbered the Christian defenders of Malta many times over. There were only about 500 Knights on the island, along with about 9,000 men, many untrained in combat battling against a trained army of well over 30,000. The fighting was bloody and brutal with numerous assaults and an estimated 130,000 cannonballs raining down on the defenders.

How bloody and brutal? When Ottoman shells destroyed a fort, Knights and local soldiers fought on in the rubble while hurling pots of Greek Fire (like napalm) into the packed ranks of advancing Turks. In an attempt to crush enemy morale, the Ottomans nailed decapitated bodies of defenders to mock crucifixes and then floated them into the harbor, hoping to terrify the local population. It didn’t, of course, and the Knights and local Maltese began returning fire using Turkish heads instead of cannonballs.

When a Christian relief force of 8,000 men finally arrived in September, it was over. The Malta defenders had managed to shatter the myth of Ottoman invincibility, and the victory in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean was no longer in doubt. The Knights could finally relax and focus less on bloody battling and more on activities in keeping with the Order’s official motto: tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum, which is "defense of the faith and assistance to the poor."

One more petite siege of Malta

Malta remained under the jurisdiction of the Order of the Knights of St. John until 1798, when the French fleet on its way to Egypt with more than 30,000 men under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte moored in Valetta. When Napoleon demanded the island’s surrender, the Knights resisted—setting off YET ANOTHER siege of Malta. But this one was brief, and the French occupation of Malta began. It was short-lived, however. Once the harsh realities of French rule sunk in, British troops returning from Egypt—with the help of Maltese rebels—ousted the French and Malta became a colony of Great Britain, which it remained until 1964.

10 fascinating (mostly) non-siege related facts about Malta:

• Malta plus four—The Republic of Malta is actually an archipelago comprising of three islands—Malta (the largest), Gozo (about a third as large as Malta), and Comino (eh, small)—and the two tiny, uninhabited islets of Comminotto and Filfla. The entire land mass of the Malta archipelago could fit into the United States 30,443 times.


• There’s old, and there’s Malta old—Archaeological evidence suggests that civilizations have been living in Malta since the early Neolithic period. Dating back some 6,000 years, the Ggantija Temples on Gozo pre-date Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids—and are thought to be the oldest free-standing monuments in the world.


• Water, water everywhere—There are no forests, mountains, or rivers in Malta. They must filter their drinking water straight from the sea, as it is their only source of freshwater. On the other hand, the hundreds of reefs, caves, and ancient shipwrecks in its surrounding crystal-clear waters have made it one of the world’s top diving locations.


• A capital achievement—Malta’s capital of Valletta is not just a stunning open-air museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site—it is Europe’s first planned city. Designed in 1565 on an innovative parallel rectangular grid to take advantage of the cooling Mediterranean breezes, while also incorporating massive fortifications to protect Malta from Turkish invasion, it was completed in just 15 years.


• Hey, what about me?—Valletta replaced Malta’s original capital city, Mdina, which became known as the "Silent City" after its residents fled during the 16th-century’s "Great Siege of Malta. The former capital, perched on a hilltop in the center of Malta, is no longer silent—but with a population of about 250 residents, it’s pretty darn quiet.


• I didn’t understand a word of that—Maltese may be the most difficult language in the world. It evolved from a dialect of Arabic after the Arab conquest of Malta in the ninth century, then took on influences from Italian, French, and English to become a uniquely complex national language that only the Maltese can understand. Thankfully, almost everyone in Malta also speaks English.


• Saints and children first—According to tradition, during the Apostle Paul’s journey to Rome in around 60 AD, he became shipwrecked on Malta, where he would go on to introduce Christianity to the island’s inhabitants. Sites on Malta associated with this biblical event are St. Paul’s Bay, St. Paul’s Grotto, and St. Paul’s Island. Today, one of Malta’s most important annual events is the Feast of St. Paul’s Shipwreck, which celebrates St. Paul’s lasting influence on Maltese religion and culture.


• A naughty Knight, then not a Knight—After Renaissance bad-boy Caravaggio killed a man in a duel, he left Rome and came to Malta. Since the Knights were in need of a court painter, Caravaggio was allowed to become a Knight of the Order and would soon create his largest and only signed work, The Beheading of St. John. While the painting remains on display at Valletta’s magnificent St. John’s Co-Cathedral, Caravaggio was gone before the ink dried. Within a year, the artist was arrested for what is assumed to be brawling, imprisoned, and expelled from the Order.


• Not all the bombs dropped on Malta were from planes—Dozens of Hollywood blockbusters have been filmed on Malta, including Gladiator, Captain Philips, Assassins Creed, Troy, The Da Vinci Code, World War Z, Games of Thrones (season one), Jurassic World Domination, and the list goes on. An entire village was purpose-built in Malta for the 1980 Robert Altman musical Popeye with Robin Williams as the spinach-eating sailor—which critics still can’t decide is one of the best or worst films ever made.


• Malta bene!—While there is no question that Malta was once part of the Roman Empire beginning in 218 BC, many geologists now theorize that 20,000 years ago, the Maltese Islands were physically connected to modern-day Sicily through a land bridge, now some 330 feet below sea level.

Visit the most heavily bombed place on Earth" on O.A.T.’s Undiscovered Adriatic: Eastern Italy, Venice, Puglia & Malta.