The Air Battle of Malta: The Official Account of the R. A. F. in Malta, June 1940 to November 1942Beskriver RAF luftoperationer over Malta under 2. verdenskrig |
Common terms and phrases
African Afrika Korps air attack air force air power airfields airmen Alamein Albacores Alexandria Amud armour Army assault battle fleet battleship Beaufighters Beauforts Benghazi Bir Hakeim Bostons British Cairo coast road command convoy Crete cruiser Cyrenaica Daba damaged dawn Derna Desert Air Force destroyed destroyers dived dusk dust Egypt enemy aircraft enemy fighters engines escort feet fighter squadrons fighter-bombers fighting fire flew flying formation fought four Gambut Gazala ground crews gunners guns Hakeim harbour heavy Hurricanes Italian fleet June Kittyhawks landing grounds Liberators light bombers lorry Luftwaffe Malta Matruh Mediterranean merchant vessels Mersa Matruh Messerschmitts Middle East miles night organisation petrol pilots port Qattara Depression reached reconnaissance retreat Rommel's route shot Sidi Barrani smoke Sollum sorties Spitfires spring of 1942 strafing Stukas submarines tanker tanks target tents Tobruk torpedo Tripoli troops trucks vehicles warships Wellingtons Western Desert whole
Popular passages
Page 11 - Down the Flights each ruddy morning Sitting waiting for a clue, Same old notice on the Flight board, Maximum effort — guess where to. Chorus : Seventy squadron, seventy squadron, Though we say it with a sigh, We must do the ruddy mail run Every night until we die. ''Have you lost us, navigator ? Come up here and have a lookiomeone's shot our starboard wing off." "We're all right then, that's Tobruk.
Page 7 - CKUCCEEDED in returning to his Squadron, on foot or by other means, long after his Estimated Time of Arrival. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO COME BACK An example of the Late Arrivals Club certificate.
Page 51 - As we came in to drop our first stick the vehicles careered madly off the road. It looked absolutely crazy. I saw one overturn as it went over the bank. We could see troops leaping out and running away like cockroaches. They were colliding and jumping head first into patches of scrub or any hole they could find.
Page 52 - The Axis forces in the Western Desert, after twelve days and nights of ceaseless attacks by our land and air forces, are now in full retreat. Their disordered columns are being relentlessly attacked by our land forces and by the Allied air force by day and night.
Page 49 - They dropped 80 tons of bombs in an area measuring some three miles by two. Pattern after pattern of bomb bursts spread from all directions across this area of concentration. Six times the German tank crews broke hastily and scattered across the desert; six times they re-formed. The seventh time they did not re-form. There was no counter-attack by the Afrika Korps.
Page 49 - They left behind them each day a trail of smoking and overturned lorries, a heap of shell-torn bodies, a running pool of burning petrol, a schooner down by the bows with a drift of smoke from her stern, the wreck of a couple of transport aircraft, a line of riddled seaplanes at their moorings at Bomba. Each time they flew, some further necessity of battle was denied to the enemy.
Page 19 - It was done, largely by men of that one squadron, with a little help from other engineers, on a sandy airfield in the Canal zone. The engineering side of it alone meant many changes in the Wellington, for when two torpedoes were hung on it the whole balance of the aircraft was upset. Very soon however the squadron produced a torpedo-carrying aircraft that would fly.