Three Kings

The Island itself was commanded by a throwback from the First World War, Lieutenant GeneralDobbie. He had been ordered to retire, but made an appeal to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, EdmundIronside, who managed to get him a serving command as Governor of Malta. Old gladiators, in the air and on the ground, held the “fortress” in the early going, and little help had arrived by the end of 1940. It was going to take the heavenly intervention thatDobbie was counting on to stop the German attack. Malta had no more of a chance than the Rock of Gibraltar had, and it would not last long in spite of a dogged defense.

When the skies over the main island darkened with parachutes, the weary defenders saw the leading edge of what they would be up against. The planes had come in from airfields all over southern Italy and Sicily, Brindisi, Lecce, Foggia, Palermo, Comiso, and Trapani. The troops landing onGozo were those of the ItalianFolgore Parachute Division, who had claimed the honor of putting men on the ground first. They would secure Victoria and seize the small fishing port and ferry site atMgarr harbor on the southern tip of that island. Lightly defended, largely by local militias, Gozo would become a reserve staging area for supplies, and a place to get wounded off the main island where field hospitals would be established.

The main attack would be a German operation, and their first targets would be the airfields atTa’Qali, Luga, and Safi. There were several open areas where aircraft dispersal fields had been sited atMqabba andQrendi. They were not as heavily defended as the main fields, and made excellent landing sites for the Fallschirmjagers. TanteJu came in very low that morning, with the flights of Ju-52s at no more than 500 feet to achieve a tight concentration of troops on the target area. Student had been training his men for these low level “Sturm” jumps for months.

The troops were preceded by a company of Brandenburger commandos, the first lightning in the storm, just as they had been in the attack against Gibraltar. These men came in on agileStorch reconnaissance aircraft, capable of landing on very short airstrips, roads, or even fields. They would put down what amounted to a company of men, who would spread out to cut telephone and telegraph wires and sow discord all over the island. A platoon size force was able to seize one of the secondary airfields to silence the four AA batteries there, and the Ju-52s came in ten minutes later.

All the paratroops dropped with weapons, K98 rifles, MP40 MGs and extra ammunition in canisters that fell with the troops by parachute. They would be ready to fight the moment they hit the ground, though the low altitude jump saw many with sprained ankles and other injuries. Yet the bulk of the troops weathered the drop, and soon a regimental sized force was building up nearTa’Qali. A Luftwaffe forward air controller was assigned to every company to call in the lavish air support that was just fifty to sixty kilometers away in Sicily. Soon the morning skies would hear the scream of Stuka close support squadrons that were already in the air to loiter on call for the troops on the ground.

The entire 7thFleiger Division, three regiments, would be augmented by a special Sturm Regiment in the attack. The reserve force would be the 22nd Luftland Air Landing Division, flown in to Italian airfields from Romania in the days prior to the attack. A full regiment of German mountain infantry was also staged at Syracuse and Catania on Sicily, with all the assault shipping and transport that the Italians could provide. They would be sent only if the Italian Navy could first assure the Germans that they could achieve naval superiority.

Adding in theFolgore Regiment, the Axis forces available came to nine full regiments. Against this, the Malta Garrison at this time was no bigger than the one that had defended Gibraltar. Lieutenant GeneralDobbie commanded 2nd Battalion Devonshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion of the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment and the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers. The 8th Battalion Manchester Regiment had been the only reinforcement sent to the island after the outbreak of the war, making five British battalions in all, and one Maltese battalion. They would be outnumbered twelve battalions to six in the crucial first six hours of the assault, and if the Germans could quickly seize one of the key airfields, the 22nd Luftland could fly in directly there to rapidly build up troop strength on the ground.