Fortress Malta

Fortress Malta PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1780225970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
The extraordinary drama of Malta's WWII victory against impossible odds told through the eyes of the people who were there. In March and April 1942, more explosives were dropped on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta - smaller than the Isle of Wight - than on the whole of Britain during the first year of the Blitz. Malta had become one of the most strategically important places in the world. From there, the Allies could attack Axis supply lines to North Africa; without it, Rommel would be able to march unchecked into Egypt, Suez and the Middle East. For the Allies this would have been catastrophic. As Churchill said, Malta had to be held 'at all costs'. FORTRESS MALTA follows the story through the eyes of those who were there: young men such as twenty-year-old fighter pilot Raoul Daddo-Langlois, anti-aircraft gunner Ken Griffiths, American Art Roscoe and submariner Tubby Crawford - who served on the most successful Allied submarine of the Second World War; cabaret dancer-turned RAF plotter Christina Ratcliffe, and her lover, the brilliant and irrepressible reconnaissance pilot, Adrian Warburton. Their stories and others provide extraordinary first-hand accounts of heroism, resilience, love, and loss, highlighting one of the most remarkable stories of World War II.

Fortress Malta

Fortress Malta PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1780225970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Get Book

Book Description
The extraordinary drama of Malta's WWII victory against impossible odds told through the eyes of the people who were there. In March and April 1942, more explosives were dropped on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta - smaller than the Isle of Wight - than on the whole of Britain during the first year of the Blitz. Malta had become one of the most strategically important places in the world. From there, the Allies could attack Axis supply lines to North Africa; without it, Rommel would be able to march unchecked into Egypt, Suez and the Middle East. For the Allies this would have been catastrophic. As Churchill said, Malta had to be held 'at all costs'. FORTRESS MALTA follows the story through the eyes of those who were there: young men such as twenty-year-old fighter pilot Raoul Daddo-Langlois, anti-aircraft gunner Ken Griffiths, American Art Roscoe and submariner Tubby Crawford - who served on the most successful Allied submarine of the Second World War; cabaret dancer-turned RAF plotter Christina Ratcliffe, and her lover, the brilliant and irrepressible reconnaissance pilot, Adrian Warburton. Their stories and others provide extraordinary first-hand accounts of heroism, resilience, love, and loss, highlighting one of the most remarkable stories of World War II.

The Great Siege, Malta 1565

The Great Siege, Malta 1565 PDF Author: Ernle Bradford
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497617308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
The indispensable account of the Ottoman Empire’s Siege of Malta from the author of Hannibal and Gibraltar. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was thought to be invincible. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan, had expanded his empire from western Asia to southeastern Europe and North Africa. To secure control of the Mediterranean between these territories and launch an offensive into western Europe, Suleiman needed the small but strategically crucial island of Malta. But Suleiman’s attempt to take the island from the Holy Roman Empire’s Knights of St. John would emerge as one of the most famous and brutal military defeats in history. Forty-two years earlier, Suleiman had been victorious against the Knights of St. John when he drove them out of their island fortress at Rhodes. Believing he would repeat this victory, the sultan sent an armada to Malta. When they captured Fort St. Elmo, the Ottoman forces ruthlessly took no prisoners. The Roman grand master La Vallette responded by having his Ottoman captives beheaded. Then the battle for Malta began in earnest: no quarter asked, none given. Ernle Bradford’s compelling and thoroughly researched account of the Great Siege of Malta recalls not just an epic battle, but a clash of civilizations unlike anything since the time of Alexander the Great. It is “a superior, readable treatment of an important but little-discussed epic from the Renaissance past . . . An astonishing tale” (Kirkus Reviews).

The Great Siege of Malta

The Great Siege of Malta PDF Author: Bruce Ware Allen
Publisher: University Press of New England
ISBN: 1611688434
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In the spring of 1565, a massive fleet of Ottoman ships descended on Malta, a small island centrally located between North Africa and Sicily, home and headquarters of the crusading Knights of St. John and their charismatic Grand Master, Jean de Valette. The Knights had been expelled from Rhodes by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and now stood as the last bastion against a Muslim invasion of Sicily, southern Italy, and beyond. The siege force of Turks, Arabs, and Barbary corsairs from across the Muslim world outnumbered the defenders of Malta many times over, and its arrival began a long hot summer of bloody combat, often hand to hand, embroiling knights and mercenaries, civilians and slaves, in a desperate struggle for this pivotal point in the Mediterranean. Bruce Ware Allen's The Great Siege of Malta describes the siege's geopolitical context, explains its strategies and tactics, and reveals how the all-too-human personalities of both Muslim and Christian leaders shaped the course of events. The siege of Malta was the Ottoman empire's high-water mark in the war between the Christian West and the Muslim East for control of the Mediterranean. Drawing on copious research and new source material, Allen stirringly recreates the two factions' heroism and chivalry, while simultaneously tracing the barbarism, severity, and indifference to suffering of sixteenth-century warfare. The Great Siege of Malta is a fresh, vivid retelling of one of the most famous battles of the early modern world - a battle whose echoes are still felt today.

Fortress Malta

Fortress Malta PDF Author: James Holland
Publisher: Miramax
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

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Book Description
A riveting account of one of the great, little-known stories of World War II--the siege of Malta. 16-page photo insert.

Fortress: Architecture and Military History in Malta

Fortress: Architecture and Military History in Malta PDF Author: Quentin Hughes
Publisher: Ben Uri Gallery & Museum
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Siege Malta 1940-1943

Siege Malta 1940-1943 PDF Author: Ernie Bradford
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1848845847
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Situated midway between Europe and Africa, Malta played a central role in the battles for the mastery of North Africa. The island was the vital supply base for British and Imperial troops in the to-and-fro desert campaigns against, first, Italy and then Germany and Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The three-year siege of Malta was one of the longest in history. In this thrilling account the author, who first came to know and love Malta whilst serving with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, paints a vivid picture of the suffering of the island and its population. He draws on personal accounts and reminiscences of the participants; he tells of the occasional despair that turned to joy when the convoys got through with much-needed supplies and of the bravery of both the civilians and the armed forces stationed there that uniquely won for Malta the George Cross. Ernle Bradford was born in Norfolk in 1922 and joined the Royal Navy at eighteen. He served with distinction throughout the Second World War. After the war he based himself in Malta, sailing the Mediterranean in a number of small boats and writing prolifically about its history. Among his other books are The Great Siege: Malta 1565, Ulysses Found, Mediterranean: Portrait of a Sea, Cleopatra, Hannibal, The Shield and the Sword and Christopher Columbus. He died in 1986.

Coleridge's Laws

Coleridge's Laws PDF Author: Barry Hough
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1906924120
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is best known as a great poet and literary theorist, but for one, quite short, period of his life he held real political power - acting as Public Secretary to the British Civil Commissioner in Malta in 1805. This was a formative experience for Coleridge which he later identified as being one of the most instructive in his entire life. In this volume Barry Hough and Howard Davis show how Coleridge's actions whilst in a position of power differ markedly from the idealism he had advocated before taking office - shedding new light on Coleridge's sense of political and legal morality.

Eight Pointed Cross /Marthese Fenech

Eight Pointed Cross /Marthese Fenech PDF Author: Marthese Fenech
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789995733087
Category : Brothers and sisters
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description


Fortress Colony

Fortress Colony PDF Author: Joseph M. Pirotta
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789993276739
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 992

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Book Description
In his four-volume study, Pirotta meticulously examines Malta's twenty-year transformation from Britain's foremost Mediterranean fortress colony to sovereign State. Acclaimed for its heroic resistance to fascism during the Second World War that ostensibly bound it closer to its imperial masters, the over-populated, physically wrecked Island bereft of resources, joined the ranks of independent states in 1964. To examine the why and the how of this transformation Pirotta delved through voluminous Maltese and British documents, local and foreign archives and interviewed numerous key personalities. Analysing the complicated power game played by party, Church and trade union leaders, Pirotta reveals much that went on behind the scenes. Volume III 1958-1961 documents the painful constitutional regression, the economic uncertainty and the social upheaval that resulted from them; the main parties' objective of independence; and the growing rift between the Malta Labour Party and the Church. All this took place under the watchful eye of British officials who often sought surreptitiously to direct events.

The Fortress of Rhodes 1309–1522

The Fortress of Rhodes 1309–1522 PDF Author: Konstantin Nossov
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782000038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
First besieged in 305 BC, the island of Rhodes became part of the Roman Empire and was later fortified in the Byzantine style. Due to its strategic position in the Mediterranean, Rhodes was also attacked and besieged for over a century by Islamic forces. This title details the development of these fascinating fortifications, as well as the sieges that sought to reduce them.