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Those known to have fought in Siege of Malta during the Second World War 1939-1945. The names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
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The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website.
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Want to know more about Siege of Malta? There are:509 items tagged Siege of Malta available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Second World War. |
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Gnr. Thomas Hardisty 74 Light Anti Aircraft Regiment, 186 Bty, H Troop. Royal Artillery (d.15th Sep 1944) My father, Tom Hardisty served with H. Troop. 74 Lt A.A. Regt, in Malta between October 1941 and July 1943, he then moved to Sicily on the 14th of July and the 28th of August 1944. The photograph would have been taken in either Malta or Sicily. I hope that someone may recognize others on the photograph with my father. I would hope for some feedback as to who the others may be. I'm sure they would have been close friends in those hard and sad times. Father sadly died in Sept 1944. I was too young at that time to be able to get to know him, before he died just aged 39yrs old.
I would appreciate any information received.
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F/Lt. Micky Ogden 236 Squadron Hi
My father, then F/Lt Micky Ogden served there very briefly in 1942 with 236 Squadron as it is recorded in his logbook 18-1-42. He flew Beaufighter "F" to St Eval and back with F/lt Cairns and Sgt Thomas for 1 hour 30 minutes and then Beaufighter "M" for airtest for 15 minutes.
Two weeks later on 2-2-42 he flew a new Beaufighter from Filton to Portreath on route to Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt,
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Fus. Maurice McMulkin 2nd Btn. Royal Irish Fusiliers Maurice McMulkin served on Malta, during the siege 1940 to 1943. After Malta, the battalion was redeployed to Leros, in the Dodecanese Islands. On 12th of November 1943, the island was invaded by German forces. Five days of heavy fighting was followed by the island defenders succumbing to superior enemy forces.
Maurice was captured and after an arduous train journey across four countries lasting some two weeks, he ended up in Stalag XIA at Altengrabow. Being only a fusilier, he was put to work and spent most of his time at a work camp near to Halberstadt. He was liberated in April 1945 and according to his army records was repatriated to England on 23rd of April 1945. Including his pre-war service time from January 1938, he had been overseas continuously for over seven years.
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Pte. John William Fisher 1st Btn. Cheshire Regiment This was my father, who was born on the 26th May 1921. He was from Cheshire and enlisted in the 1st Cheshire Regiment in 1938, I believe. I am his eldest daughter.
He served in North Africa under Field Marshal Montgomery. I remember him telling me a story about how he hid under a petrol tank he was driving for three days whilst the Germans were bombing his Army unit. He told me about Egypt and the camels there. He was also in Malta for 3 years, surrounded by Germans u-boats and under bombardment by the Italians. I am led to believe that he returned to Britain for a few months in 1944, when he met my mother. He was then sent to Germany to serve as an Army scout on a motorbike, a lookout for the Cheshire Regiment. He found German villagers to be quite friendly. His horror story was that he was with the 1st Cheshires when they helped liberate the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. I know he was there – he told me so – but he wouldn’t talk of the horrors he witnessed.
My father was a cruel man to me as a child, using the buckle strap on me regularly. He was also very cruel to animals. My mother told me that he suffered from shell-shock and could not help how he was with me with his vile temper. As a child, and also as an adult, I was afraid of him. Now that I’m older and have researched and read about my father’s war I forgive him and realise that he went through a lot of horror. I now not only forgive him, I am also very proud of him and his service with the 1st Cheshires during the war. God bless all who served in that war.
I know that my father came out of the Army in 1945, sooner than he was supposed to have done, but he wanted to marry my mother. So he had a choice to work on the farm or in the coal mines. He chose farm life. This was the only specification he had on leaving the Army early: he had no choice in his job. Mrs. Jacqueline Ann Chamberlain (nee Fisher)
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Cpl. William Harry Wallett No. 21 Squadron (d.28th Dec 1941) My grandfather, John Wallett, kept the following letter regarding his son Harry Wallett, tucked away in his belongings and never spoke about it. Only recently have I discovered the letter during searches about my family history:
Hairmyers Hospital, Lanarkshire, June 5th.
Dear Mr. Wallett, I have been meaning to write to you for a long time. I did write to you from Gibraltar, but I have reason to believe that the letter never reached England, owing to the ship being sunk. I was the pilot of your son’s plane. When we hit the sea near the rock, Harry came up alongside of me when I was floating in the water, and I tried to keep his head above the water, but I was forced to leave go of him when the plane sank a minute or two later, and I rather think he must have been caught up in the under-carriage, but all this can interest you better now. What I really want to say is that Harry was a splendid mechanic and took such a tremendous interest in his work, that I took special care to see that only he looked after my plane. I am quite sure that if only he had vetted the plane at Gibraltar instead of the Gibraltar mechanic, we would never have had the engine trouble and failure, and crash, but he was not allowed to, and somebody else did the engine check-up, and we had engine trouble about five minutes after taking off.
My choice of him as a mechanic was a terrible one for him, because he lost his life as a result, but I thought I must write and tell you how very much he was appreciated.
The ground mechanics at an RAF station get very little credit from the public, but they do a tremendous lot of work and your son, especially, was the best man at his job that I ever met. I wish I knew a tenth as much about a plane as he did.
I am still in hospital after getting a broken leg in the crash. I was ten weeks in bed at Gibraltar, but I am up on crutches now and hope to be flying again in a few months. It’s nice to be back in Scotland again after Gibraltar. The rest of the squadron had a very bad time of it in Malta, only six crews were left after two months of operations.
With deepest sympathy, yours sincerely, A.D. Tanered
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Pte. Leslie Reginald Clifford 2nd Btn. Royal West Kent Regiment My father, Leslie Clifford served in Palestine 1938-1939, then was posted to Malta 1939-1942. His battalion transferred to the Dodecanese Islands, moving to Samos in 1943 and later to Leros, where the battalion surrendered. He was taken prisoner and held in Stalag XI-A in Altengrabow.
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Andrew John Mitchell 624 Squadron (d.1944) My mother's cousin, Andrew Mitchell, served in 624 Squadron during WW2. Andrew, who came from Aberdeen, was an only son. Sadly he lost his life, aged 19, when his plane went down in 1944. His name is listed on the Malta Memorial.
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Pte. David Thomas Christian Allan 4th Btn. Royal East Kent Regiment (d.16th Nov 1943) My father David Allan died on 16th of November 1943 on the Greek island of Leros, having served in Malta during the siege.
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AB Alex Main "Sandy" Robertson HMS Glasgow My father, Alex Robertson served on the HMS Glasgow, and the Mine sweeper Felixstowe. Later he became one of the first frogmen of the British Navy.
He was born in Clive, Alberta, Canada. In 1921 his father was gassed at Vimy Ridge, died a year later. His mother returned to Scotland and he attended Donaldson's school. Later he attended HMS Ganges and was known to sit at the top of the mast there.
Alex saw service in Gibraltar. He worked at clearing every beach before the Normandy invasion. When asked at the 50th anniversary of D-day, which beaches he was on he replied all of them. Later I found a story of him and another sailor eating a chicken. He was at the siege of Gibraltar, the raid on Normandy. Prior to this raid he and others got caught swimming nude in the Firth of Forth and got sent to Scapa Flow.
He was in Malta when the Exodus came in and was the officer who threw the Captain overboard when he reached under his lapel.
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Wren. Patricia May Walker Patricia Underhill (nee Walker) served as a WRNS secretary on HMS Drake in Plymouth and HMS St. Angelo in Malta. At the end of World War 2, she married Captain Bernard John Underhill, 2/10th Gurkha Rifles.
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Recomended Reading.Available at discounted prices.
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Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940-1943James Holland
the story of Malta's war from the moment Italy entered the war in the summer of 1940 to the summer of 1943 by which time Rommell had been defeated in North Africa and the Allies were preparing to invade Sicily.
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