12 World War II Moments (That Hardly Anybody Ever Talks About)

Malta is a small island, 122 square miles in size, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. At the height of the war it was a British colony surrounded in every direction by hostile territory – Italy, Greece, Libya and Tunisia. Logically it should’ve been quickly conquered to give the Axis free reign over the strategically important sea. It never was.

The Mediterranean was always a headache for the Germans and their Italian allies given that its western entrance passed by Gibraltar (a small British colony at the foot of neutral Spain) and access to its eastern entrance involved traversing the Suez Canal.

Erwin Rommel, the commander of the Afrikakorps, was quick to identify the island’s importance as a base for British aircraft and submarines to wreak havoc upon his desert campaign, warning as early as 1941 that the Axis campaign would ultimately be unsuccessful if it wasn’t neutralised. The Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe therefore attempted to bomb and starve the island into submission over the course of two years, destroying the majority of its infrastructure and the shipments directed towards it.

It was close to collapse when food, fuel and ammunition became almost non-existent in 1942, when a last ditch attempt to resupply the island (after many previous attempts had been largely unsuccessful) succeeded at a heavy cost, letting the forces based there continue a campaign that at one point had sunk 60% of Axis shipping intended for Rommel’s overextended African supply lines. His warning proved correct.