Battle of Malta World war I

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During World war I, Battle of Malta, Royal Marine pilots in the Swordfish and Albacore squadrons based on the island at H.M.S. Falcon, played a notable part in attacking German and Italian shipping in the Mediterranean.

It was no innovation for them to fly with the Fleet Air Arm, for the Corps had provided the Fleet with a number of pilots since its inception of naval flying.

Lieutenant E.L. Gerrard, R.M.L.I., was one of the first four officers to be trained as a naval pilot at the Royal Aero Club's airfield at Eastchurch in 1911.

When the Royal Flying Corps was established in the following year more Royal Marine officers were trained for duty with the naval wing, and on the outbreak of war in 1914, by which time the Royal Naval Air Service was in being, twelve Royal Marines had qualified as pilots.

Many more joined during the war; some were not officers; others served as observers, and Royal Marine N.C.Os. assisted in training recruits in the elements of drill and discipline.

Lieutenant Gerrard won the D.S.O., and Captain R. Gordon, R.M.L.I., the second officer to qualify, distinguished himself in the destruction of Konigsberg in East Africa and at the Battle of Ctesiphon in Mescopotamia

He was awarded the C.G.M., and both he and Lieutenant Gerrard retired as Air Commodores in the Royal Air Force.

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Malta 1942

The Hard Months In Malta

Malta; Royal Marines have always been employed as guards and orderlies in naval bases, both at home and abroad. There has, for example, for many years been a detachment stationed at Malta, with its headquarters in H.M.S. St. Angelo (previously H.M.S. Egmont), one of the oldest forts in the island.

In peace time the detachment provides the Admiral's orderlies, also signallers, wardens at the detention barracks, and staff for the rifle ranges. After the outbreak of war it was given the duty of manning Lewis gun posts in the naval dockyard. Two of those in H.M.S. St. Angelo were also manned by Royal Marines.

High-level bombing began at 07:00 hours on 11th June 1940, the day Italy declared war, and the bombing continued intermittently for several months, But the Italians flew so high that they presented no targets for the Marines' close range weapons.

Enemy dive-bombers attack

It was not until January 1941, when the damaged aircraft-carrier H.M.S. Illustrious was in the harbour, that the island had its first experience of intensive dive-bombing from the Luftwaffe. The Royal Marines were then given two Bofors, guns, which were mounted on the Upper Barraca, one of the highest points in the Grand Harbour.

By collecting all of the available N.C.Os. and signallers, an officer's servant, a boy bugler, and one of the Admiral's orderlies, it was found possible to muster two guns' crews, and one for relief's and replacements. The men had never fired Bofors before, but learnt after one-weeks training under a Royal Malta Artillery instructor.

This self-constituted battery remained under the Senior Officer of the Royal Marine detachment, Captain F.F. Clark, and operated as an independent unit. The guns fired for the first time on the 4th February 1941.

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Bombing raids were unfailing

Usually it was not possible to estimate the success of an individual gun owing to the numbers firing from the concentrated harbour defences, but in the early hours of 28th February the battery claimed its first definite victim; a minelayer, believed to be a Junkers 88, was hit, and was last seen diving steeply and clearing the breakwater by only a few feet.

Throughout 1941 and until May 1942, the raids continued with varying intensity. April 1942, was the worst month , when there were three raids a day with unfailing regularity; at breakfast, at rum-time (the hour had to be altered for rum rations) and at 17:30 hours, delivered by sixty-bombers or more, escorted by swarms of enemy fighters.

These aircraft were nearly always German; when the Italians did the bombing runs the German fighters followed close behind, as if they were driving their allies into action.

The Royal Air Force were completely outnumbered, and in spite of their valiant efforts against overwhelming odds the main weight of the enemy's attack fell on the anti-aircraft batteries.

Nevertheless air superiority changed

"The gunners had to sit down and take it, as well as hand it out," wrote Captain Clark.

The last heavy raid was on 10th May 1942, by which there was an acute shortage of ammunition, so that instead of firing four-hundred rounds a day the Royal Marines could only use fifteen rounds; firing with only one gun, which nevertheless, shot down a Junkers 88, into the Dockyard Creek.

But on that day the island had air superiority for the first time; eighty-Spitfires, which destroyed sixteen enemy aircraft. One of those broke into so many pieces the the Royal Marines called it a 'Leaflet Raid'. "It was worth a couple of guineas a minute to watch," they said.

This was the turning point of Malta's long battle with the Luftwaffe and was the last occasion on which the Royal Marine anti-aircraft battery was in action. It could hardly have had a more successful Climax.

A Life on the Ocean Waves

With the coming of the Spitfires and the arrival of more ammunition, the raids decreased in violence, and on 20th May the Royal Marines turned over their Bofors guns to the Army.

A ceremonial parade was held, when Vice-Admiral Sir Ralph Leatham addressed them, and the guns' crews, who had provided the guard for the occasion, marched away to the strains of "A Life on the Ocean Waves," played by the band of the Royal Malta Artillery.

During those hard months of conflict the Royal Marines had had surprisingly few casualties, although their sergeants' mess was twice demolished, and the fort received over sixty-hits from bombs of all calibres. Near-misses in the adjacent creeks were too numerous to record, even in one day's activities; on one occasion a Bofors gun-pit, one-hundred and twenty feet above sea level, was put out of action by the mud and water rising from the bomb blast of the bomb which fell in the harbour.

In all, the Royal Marines battery destroyed or damaged over fifty enemy aircraft. Captain Clark was awarded the D.S.C. and bar; his battery won four D.S.Ms. and five mention in despatches.

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