Malta G.C.

Abstract

At the outbreak of war with Germany in September 1939, responsibility for the Mediterranean was divided between the British and French forces; the British in the east at Alexandria and west at Gibraltar and France, with bases at Bizerta, Algiers and Oran, covering the centre. The strategic importance of Malta in the centre of the Mediterranean, a British naval base since 1814, was acknowledged, but also appreciated were the problems of supply and defence as only sixty miles of sea separated it from Italian-held Sicily. In the summer of 1939, the Committee of Imperial Defence had approved a long-term air defence programme for the island consisting of four squadrons of fighters and 172 anti-aircraft guns. This programme had not yet been put into operation when Air Commodore F. H. M. Maynard arrived on the island in January 1940 as the new Air Officer Commanding RAF Mediterranean. During the following months, Air Commodore Maynard and Admiral Cunningham, Naval Commander-in-Chief, based at Lascaris barracks in Valletta, realised that if Italy entered the war, they would be at the mercy of Italian bombers. With the German blitzkreig successes of May 1940, Mussolini's attitude changed. His navy was greater than the British Naval forces available in the Mediterranean. His Regia Aeronautica, with bases on both sides of the Mediterranean , could cover, as Mussolini proudly boasted, the whole of the ancient Roman Empire. On the day the German armies crossed the River Seine in France, June 10, 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France.