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 George Cross Medal and The Island of Malta
George Cross Award
This was the worst period for the Allies during the Second World War (1939-1945) as Britain's enemies clearly appeared to have the upper hand. German planes were striking Malta - night and day - with an unimaginable amount of deadly arsenal in an attempt to annihilate this British military base that was constantly getting in the way of their naval attempts to supply Rommel's North African campaign. Malta's geographic position, wedged as it is between Italy and North Africa, as well as dividing the Mediterranean basin into east and west, put the Islands at the top of Hitler's hit-list.
Malta-based British aircraft could reach as far as Tripoli in Libya to the south, Tunisia to the west and right over German bases in Italy; on Pantelleria, Sicily and even as far as the port of Naples farther to the north. Thus, standing right on the route of Italian convoys supplying Rommel's Afrika Korps, Malta had to be demolished, if the war in the Med was to be won by the Axis powers.
At this time, military resources and food rations in Malta were practically finished. Fuel was restricted to military action and heavily rationed, the population was on the brim of starvation, and even ammunition was running out, so much that Anti-Aircraft (AA) guns could only fire a few rounds per day, then wait like sitting ducks as the enemy unleashed its fiercest on the Islands.
Italian battleships (of the Regia Marina) out-gunned the British, yet the Royal Navy was far from out-classed. The German airforce (the Luftwaffe) had superior aircraft until late in the day, when Spitfires were finally sent to Malta, and German pilots were the best ever seen in the skies, with their unnecessary daring and brute determination, but British figher pilots had no intention of yielding one bit. In fact, so important was this little colony for Great Britain and her allies that so many gallant servicemen and brave civilians from all over the Commonwealth lost their lives in the defence of these islands and running convoys to save this prime military base. Malta served as Britain's vital link between Gibraltar and Alexandria. Without Malta, the British garrison in Egypt would have been isolated and stood little chance of survival.
Also at this time, German and Italian stragegists were planning 'Operation Hercules', a sea and air invasion of the Maltese Islands, which fortunately is said to have been called off by Hitler himself - until it was too late, because the Maltese Islands finally received their vital supply of fuel, food and fire-power.
On August 15th 1942, on the feast of Santa Maria, a convoy of Royal and Merchant naval ships made port at Valletta's Grand Harbour, after completing one of the more heroic maritime episodes in recent history. To-date, this event remains commemorated in Malta in remembrance of that gift from heaven, the Convoy of S. Maria, and all the men who lived and died in this and previous attempts to bring supplies to Malta.
This event also coincided with the turning point of World War Two in favour of the allied forces.
Four months prior to the arrival of the famed Santa Maria Convoy, in his letter addressed to the British Governor of Malta, on April 15th 1942, from Buckingham Palace and in his own hand, King George VI wrote:
"To honour her brave people
I award the George Cross
to the Island Fortress of Malta
to bear witness
to a heroism and devotion
that will long be famous in history."
To this day, the 'George Cross' files proudly on the Maltese flag, lest we forget the patrimony of bravery, brotherhood and glory handed down to us by our forefathers.
Steve Farrugia  
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On the 15th of April 1942, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the Maltese Islands the 'George Cross'; an award that is bestowed on civilians for demonstrations of bravery.
 The citation read by President Roosevelt |
MALTA UNDER SIEGE - WORLD WAR 2
By the summer of 1942, the small Mediterranean island of Malta had been under Axis siege for two years. That April and May, more bombs fell on Malta than fell on London during the Battle of Britain. Like ants, the Maltese moved by the thousands into man-made caves and tunnels in the island’s limestone, some remaining from the Great Siege in 1565, when the Ottoman Turks attacked the Knights of Malta—Muslims vs. Christians, an earlier round.
Flying from airfields in nearby Sicily, the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica made relentless bombing runs in synchronized waves, flying steady Savoia-Marchetti 79s, versatile Ju 88s, and fearsome Ju 87 Stukas. There were nine thousand sorties in April alone. Gallant pilots of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm engaged them, struggling to take off from the island’s dirt airstrips, riddled with craters and littered with planes that had been destroyed on the ground or crash-landed after being hit. Maltese boys perched on rooftops like crows and watched the dogfights as spectator sport, cheering for the home team, which was often outnumbered by ten or more to one.
Lacking a river, forests, or rich soil, Malta could provide little of its own food or fuel. Supplies from Gibraltar, 999 miles to the west, and Alexandria, 866 miles east, had been stopped by the German and Italian air forces and navies. Small amounts of cargo came in over the “magic carpet”—a slim trail of fast minesweepers and mine-laying submarines from Alexandria—but not nearly enough to sustain the island.
By June, it had been nine months since a convoy had made it to Valletta. Eight cargo ships had trickled through in that time, but that was not enough. The RAF was running on empty. Spitfires lacked rivets to patch shot-up skins. The few remaining submarines of the 10th Flotilla had been sent to Alexandria for lack of diesel fuel. Antiaircraft guns of the Royal Malta Artillery were rationed to fifteen shells per day. Soldiers hid in trees with Browning machine guns to defend against enemy aircraft.
Malta’s days seemed numbered, literally. “By July 1, we calculated, we should be out of business,” said the RAF commander, Air Marshal Hugh Lloyd.
Yet Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed that Malta had to survive for the war to be won. “Its effective action against the enemy communications with Libya and Egypt is essential to the whole strategic position in the Middle East,” he told the House of Commons.
“The Navy had always regarded the island as the keystone of victory in the Mediterranean, and considered it should be held at all costs,” wrote Adm. Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean and Britain’s greatest admiral since Horatio Nelson.
“Malta must be held at all costs,” said her military governor, Lt. Gen. William G. S. Dobbie. “Its loss would obviously open the door to disasters of the first magnitude, the outcome of which was not good to contemplate.”
It was all about oil, as usual. Oil from the fields in Iraq and Iran (then Persia) powered the Allies’ effort. Churchill called Malta the “windlass of the tourniquet” on the supply lines of Gen. Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, and Rommel was moving across North Africa in pursuit of the Mideast oil. If Hitler got the oil, it would all be over—before the United States even had a chance to get there.
Churchill didn’t believe that the British Eighth Army would be able to stop Rommel without Malta’s support. Axis convoys from Italy to North Africa kept Rommel in supplies, and submarines and bombers from Malta attacked those convoys. Bombers from Malta also flew sorties over North Africa, striking truck convoys. General Dobbie’s “disaster of the first magnitude” would be the Luftwaffe and Italian navy moving in where the RAF and Royal Navy now held out.
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