Southern Cross Over Malta: Australian Fighter Pilots in the Battle for the Mediterranean
Reading time: 10 minutes
For three long years, as Britain and her allies first clung to survival and then clawed victory out of the face of overwhelming odds, a single island held out hope in the Mediterranean. Malta, just 17 miles long and 9 miles wide, with its neighboring island of Gozo had long stood as a fortress in the sea for whoever could hold it. Over the centuries, Malta had withstood Moorish, Turkish, and French sieges and fallen under a variety of civilisations dating back thousands of years.