Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1941. GALLANT DEFIANCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 190, 14 July 1941, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1941. GALLANT DEFIANCE.

When the history of the second world war is written there will emerge countless examples of courage and defiance in the presence of apparently overwhelming’ odds, but none of them is likely to excel the story of Malta s gallant stand against the legions of the Luftwaffe and Italian air force. Not a week passes, and scarcely a day, but records some fresh exploit by the defences of this most exposed position in the British Empire in driving off would be invaders and adding their toll of enemy machines. Situated at the intersection of the British route from Gibraltar to Alexandria with the enemy’s route from the Italian ports to Tripoli, it carries a responsibility perhaps unequalled by any other Imperial outpost. Its capture would be of incalculable value to the Axis, who, however, find their plans frustrated by an unremitting zeal. A mere GO miles away from the airfields of .Sicily, and precluded by its small area from maintaining a defensive force comparable with the numbers of its potential assailants, it presents enormous opportunities for harassing action. Indeed, the Maltese have for more than a year been living in a state of siege from the sky, and their constancy under a con tiuuous ordeal has won welldeserved commendation.

Fascist propaganda lias laboured for years to persuade tlie Maltese to believe themselves to be Italians, but these people, who voluntarily joined the British Empire in 1814, are steadfastly loyal. Malta was conquered by the Normans at about the same period as the conquest of England, and it remained under the rule of the monarch of Aragon until it was granted by the Emperor Charles Y in 1530 to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which had been expelled by the infidel from its stronghold in ithodes. Before the Order was firmly established it had to withstand a tremendous siege by the Turks in 1565, but the infidel was beaten off j by the devotion of the Grand I Master de la Vallette and his! knights, and the island remained j under quasi-ecclesiastical sway until Napoleon, on his way to! Egypt in 1798, brought this to! an end. La Yallette built thebeautiful city of Valletta, andi the galley harbour of the knights! is now His Majesty’s dockyard. The Maltese have never been sub ject to the Italians. When it was proposed in 1814 to place I the island under the Crown of Sicily the people demanded to be; admitted to the British Empire, | and under the British flag they have enjoyed a freedom valued so highly that a fortress which with- , stood the might of Suleiman the Magnificent can indefinitely defy a mere Mussolini. In spite of r its disadvantages, including density of population, Malta is not

devoid of natural advantages. The usual method of building a house is to excavate the cellar and so obtain the materials required, the coralline limestone being easily shaped. It follows that the construction of air raid shelters is simple and effective—as the island almost daily proclaims.