The Malta At War Museum

Last week I had a few days off and my son and I paid a visit to the Malta At War Museum. The Malta At War Museum is located in Birgu's Couvre Porte (countergaurd), which forms part of the line of defence on the landward side of town and was built in 1722. The impressive 18th century fortifications were designed by military engineer Charles de Mondion and are worth exploring for their own merit (but preferably on a day when it doesn't feel like you're walking around in a furnace).

The Malta At War museum is dedicated to what I think of as the war on the home front. It is pretty compact and isn't very big on exhibits and artefacts. But there is a wealth of information about life in Malta during WW2 and the daily trials and tribulations of a population that was under constant bombardment from June 1940 until November 1942 and intermittently until the surrender of Italy on September 8th 1943. Coincidentally, Malta had emerged victorious against the armies of Emperor Sulieman on the very same day in 1565. Henceforth, this day became known as Victory Day and is still celebrated as a national holiday.

Many people wonder why such a small island with a total area that is less than 100 square miles was the target of a combined effort by the Regia Aeronautica and the Luftwaffe to bomb or starve it into submission. The answer lies in Malta's strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean and its proximity to North Africa. From Malta the British air and sea forces could disrupt Axis supplies to North Africa. In fact, the brilliant German general, Erwin Rommel, had warned Hitler that without Malta the Axis powers would lose control of North Africa. It is for this reason that between 16 000 to 17 000 tonnes of bombs were liberally dropped on the island, its inhabitants and its defenders.

But apart from the facts about the battles, the casualties and the military strategies, what I found equally interesting was the information about the daily life of the Maltese: the rations allotted to each person, the diseases they battled, their fear at the sound of an air raid siren and their frantic rush to get to an air raid shelter on time.

During the worse of the bombardments, between 1940 and 1942, the Maltese passed a lot of their time underground in air raid shelters hewn out of the limestone. At the Malta At War Museum there is a large communal air raid shelter situated several metres underground. Although it felt eerie to be walking in the deserted passageways and through the tiny 'rooms' (each one could not be bigger than 6'x6'x6') where people huddled for shelter, I have to say that this was the highlight of my visit to the museum as I had never been inside an air-raid shelter before. I can only imagine how claustrophobic it must have felt for hundreds of people to be sheltered underground, sometimes for hours on end. 

These underground shelters existed in all the major towns of Malta and there was usually an air-raid warden dedicated to each one. Most people used the communal passageways to shelter in but those that cold afford it dug their own little rooms for more privacy - although doors were not allowed so people installed slatted wooden gates instead. In the one we visited at Birgu the air-raid warden and the parish priest had their own little area and there was even a special area that was designated as the 'birthing room'. I couldn't imagine what it must have felt like for women to give birth under such circumstances and I immediately thought of my two grandmothers who both had two babies each during this time (although, thankfully, they were able to give birth at home). 

For anybody interested in WW2 both the Malta At War Museum and the National War Museum in Valletta are definitely worth a visit.  

I had written about the National War Museum on my old blog here. 

Please check each museum's website for the current opening hours.