Why The Luftwaffe Couldn't Explain How Malta's New Spitfires Were Already In The Air
British Command WW2
27,736 views
In May 1942 the RAF flew new Spitfires into besieged Malta and rewrote the air war in four minutes flat — the story of Operation Bowery.
Same fighter that had been lost on the ground in April. Opposite result in May. Here is why the Luftwaffe could not explain it.
Three weeks earlier the island's first Spitfire delivery was caught on the ground and torn apart within hours. So Malta built a system: numbered blast pens, five ground crew each, fuel and ammunition pre-positioned, drop tank off, and a rested veteran pilot already strapped in to take the aircraft the moment it was serviceable. Some were airborne again in four minutes. When the raid came to finish them off, it met them at altitude instead — and daylight attacks on the airfields were broken for good.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Why the April 1942 Spitfire delivery (Operation Calendar) failed
› The four-minute turnaround system built at Takali and Luqa
› Operation Bowery, 9 May 1942: 64 Spitfires off USS Wasp and HMS Eagle
› HMS Welshman's run to Malta disguised as a French destroyer, carrying 100 spare Merlin engines
› The Glorious 10th of May and how the air balance finally turned
› Jerry Smith, the RCAF pilot who landed a Spitfire back onto a carrier with no hook and no barrier
› Why Kesselring's high command kept reporting Malta as finished
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESEARCH & PRIMARY SOURCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. III (British official history)
› Imperial War Museum photographic and document collections
› University of Malta archive, The Epic Air Battle of Malta
› U.S. Naval Institute, Naval History Magazine
› spitfiresite.com and warhistory.org
› Wikipedia entries: Operation Bowery, Operation Calendar, HMS Welshman, Siege of Malta
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FURTHER READING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Christopher Shores & Brian Cull — Malta: The Spitfire Year 1942
› Anthony Rogers — Air Battle of Malta: Aircraft Losses and Crash Sites 1940–1942
› James Holland — Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940–1943
› Laddie Lucas — Malta: The Thorn in Rommel's Side
› Denis Barnham — One Man's Window (Malta Spitfire Pilot)
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ABOUT THE CHANNEL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
British Command WW2 tells the engineering, intelligence and doctrine stories of Britain's war — the ideas and the people that turned the odds, told in the sober voice of the archive.
If a relative served on Malta, in the RAF, the ground crews, the regiments, or the ships that ran the gauntlet, leave their name and unit in the comments. It is how the memory survives.
Subscribe for the next chapter, and like the video to keep these stories in front of a few more people.
Historical documentary for educational purposes. Archival material is presented in its historical context.
#Spitfire #Malta #WW2 #RAF #MilitaryHistory
12 Comments
Why The Luftwaffe Couldn't Explain How Malta's New Spitfires Were Already In The Air
British Command WW2
27,736 views
In May 1942 the RAF flew new Spitfires into besieged Malta and rewrote the air war in four minutes flat — the story of Operation Bowery.
Same fighter that had been lost on the ground in April. Opposite result in May. Here is why the Luftwaffe could not explain it.
Three weeks earlier the island's first Spitfire delivery was caught on the ground and torn apart within hours. So Malta built a system: numbered blast pens, five ground crew each, fuel and ammunition pre-positioned, drop tank off, and a rested veteran pilot already strapped in to take the aircraft the moment it was serviceable. Some were airborne again in four minutes. When the raid came to finish them off, it met them at altitude instead — and daylight attacks on the airfields were broken for good.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Why the April 1942 Spitfire delivery (Operation Calendar) failed
› The four-minute turnaround system built at Takali and Luqa
› Operation Bowery, 9 May 1942: 64 Spitfires off USS Wasp and HMS Eagle
› HMS Welshman's run to Malta disguised as a French destroyer, carrying 100 spare Merlin engines
› The Glorious 10th of May and how the air balance finally turned
› Jerry Smith, the RCAF pilot who landed a Spitfire back onto a carrier with no hook and no barrier
› Why Kesselring's high command kept reporting Malta as finished
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESEARCH & PRIMARY SOURCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Playfair et al., The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. III (British official history)
› Imperial War Museum photographic and document collections
› University of Malta archive, The Epic Air Battle of Malta
› U.S. Naval Institute, Naval History Magazine
› spitfiresite.com and warhistory.org
› Wikipedia entries: Operation Bowery, Operation Calendar, HMS Welshman, Siege of Malta
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FURTHER READING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
› Christopher Shores & Brian Cull — Malta: The Spitfire Year 1942
› Anthony Rogers — Air Battle of Malta: Aircraft Losses and Crash Sites 1940–1942
› James Holland — Fortress Malta: An Island Under Siege 1940–1943
› Laddie Lucas — Malta: The Thorn in Rommel's Side
› Denis Barnham — One Man's Window (Malta Spitfire Pilot)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABOUT THE CHANNEL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
British Command WW2 tells the engineering, intelligence and doctrine stories of Britain's war — the ideas and the people that turned the odds, told in the sober voice of the archive.
If a relative served on Malta, in the RAF, the ground crews, the regiments, or the ships that ran the gauntlet, leave their name and unit in the comments. It is how the memory survives.
Subscribe for the next chapter, and like the video to keep these stories in front of a few more people.
Historical documentary for educational purposes. Archival material is presented in its historical context.
#Spitfire #Malta #WW2 #RAF #MilitaryHistory