On the island of Malta in the endless, hot and dusty summer of 1942, fighter pilots from the British Commonwealth fought and died to prevent the Nazis from bombing the Maltese into submission and to break a crippling siege blockade…

Leaning against the merchantman’s railing near the aft 4-inch gun emplacement, 23 year-old Sergeant Pilot Calvin Taylor and his travel mate were taking in the late spring ocean air and enjoying the sea voyage to Gibraltar…

When Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, they were not prepared, despite the astonishingly ominous war cloud that had been hanging over Europe…

Somewhere far off the unseen coast of North Africa, far to the east of Gibraltar, upon the open sea, David Rouleau was seeing his world in unbearable clarity. Everything he looked at held such sharpness and detail,…

At around 11 o’clock on the sunny morning of 3 June 1942, a dogfight erupted a few thousand feet over the Mediterranean Sea just to the west of Malta, near the island of Gozo. Nine pilots of unarmed…

In the summer of 1942, Malta, a small island just 80 kilometres south of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, was the most bombed place on earth. The strategic importance of the Allied-controlled island was magnified after the North…