---
product_id: 312171874
title: "Siege: Malta, 1940-1943"
brand: "bradford"
price: "$U3485"
currency: UYU
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 5
url: https://www.desertcart.uy/products/312171874-siege-malta-1940-1943
store_origin: UY
region: Uruguay
---

# Siege: Malta, 1940-1943

**Brand:** bradford
**Price:** $U3485
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Siege: Malta, 1940-1943 by bradford
- **How much does it cost?** $U3485 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.uy](https://www.desertcart.uy/products/312171874-siege-malta-1940-1943)

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## Description

Siege: Malta, 1940-1943

## Images

![Siege: Malta, 1940-1943 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61xB2YhGW9L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ GREAT book, TERRIBLE Kindle implementation
*by J***N on July 4, 2014*

An excellent account of all aspects of the great siege of Malta during World War 2. Informative and entertaining to read, this book lends important insight into the strategic value of Malta in the Mediterranean theater of the war. That said, I must also point out that the Kindle edition is absolutely riddled with typographical errors. I really wish I had purchased the print edition. It is a really good book but a terrible Kindle implementation.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Gallant People Fight and Survive Hitler and Mussolini
*by R***K on March 10, 2014*

In January and February of 1942, an island fortress in the middle of the Mediterranean called Malta was attacked relentlessly by the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s air armada, and the Regis Aeronautica, Mussolini’s fighters and bombers. A relentless blitz with an average of eight airborne attacks a day, each attack employing over a hundred aircraft, over 150 in the last two weeks of January alone, pummeled the Maltese people and the British forces tasked with defending them on their tiny but strategic island. The story of these intrepid individuals and the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy engaged in the conflict is detailed in two books, one by Ernle Bradford, published in 1986, called Siege: Malta, 1940-1943, and the other by David Wragg, published originally in 2004, called Malta: The Last Great Siege 1940-1943.The Siege of Malta by Hitler and Mussolini, which lasted over two years from June 11, 1940, to November 20, 1942, was a pivotal victory for the Allies and an overwhelming one, but one gained at a great cost in terms of people killed, wounded, almost starved to death, and sickened from resulting diseases, and the destruction of the island’s infrastructure. To get an idea about the cost in blood and treasure for the enemy, here is an excerpt from the Wragg book:“On 26 May 1943, for the first time in almost three years, a convoy arrived in Gibraltar from Alexandria without losing a single ship. Italy had surrendered. The Mediterranean was no longer ‘Mare Nostrum’, ‘Our Sea’, to the Italians. The effort to make it so had cost Germany and Italy almost a million dead and wounded, as well as 8,000 aircraft, 1,500 of them shot down over Malta, 6,000 guns, 2,500 tanks and 70,000 motor vehicles, in addition to 2,400,000 tons of shipping. By contrast, the Allies had lost just two percent of the ships sent into the Mediterranean, with 70,000 men dead and wounded.”Malta was crucial to the British (when they stood alone against the Nazis) and subsequently to the Allies. On a secrecy level, it was critical in the intelligence war against the Axis powers as a listening post in the Allies Ultra network that intercepted enemy communications, and on a war strategy level, it was essential for the defeat of Nazi general Erwin Rommel in North Africa. The British and Maltese fighting teams saved their island fortress and were instrumental in halting Mussolini and Hitler’s race to capture the Suez Canal in North Africa. The canal was a short sea route between Britain and Middle East oil supplies. Rather than sailing around the southern tip of Africa, a route that was a much longer and prone to deadly U-boat attack, the Allies used the canal to ship troops, equipment, fuel, and raw materials around the world to where they were needed.My wife Catherine and I have been to Malta three times on various cruise vacations, and although we learned a bit about the bravery of the Maltese people during World War II, their valor in that war never came as vividly alive as in these books. Like their ancestors, who defeated the Ottoman Empire in 1565 thus saving Christianity and Europe from the Moslem Turks, the Maltese are gentle and God-loving people who become fierce and clever warriors when they have their backs against the wall. And they certainly had their backs against the wall from 1940 to 1943.If you only wanted to read one about the siege, I would recommend the Wragg book The Bradford book got four stars from me rather than five because of the following:• The author could have been less redundant.• The book could have had a better editor.• In the Kindle edition, maps and photos would have been helpful.Bradford does tell the stirring story of Malta’s defiance in the face of overwhelming odds comprehensively with some élan and with a definite respect for the Maltese and the British forces that fought on the ground, in the air, and on and under the waves. The Wragg book, which is just as comprehensive, is better organized, edited well, has a helpful chronology of events at the end, and has better stories about what happened on the island and how the Maltese coped, displaying that same awesome respect as in the Bradford book. In the last chapter of the Wragg book, called What Might Have Been, the author gives cogent arguments about the lack of military and civilian preparation regarding Malta before the start of the war. Those preparations might have made history a lot better for the island fortress and its inhabitants. For all these reasons, I gave the Wragg book five stars.Ultimately, saving Malta was significant in preventing Hitler’s dream of subjugating all of Europe. The Allies eventually launched their attacks into Sicily and the “soft underbelly” of the Axis powers using Malta as a jumping off location. As David Wragg concludes in his excellent book:“Without Malta, the Second World War would have taken much longer, certainly in Europe…Without the disruption of the Axis supply lines to North Africa inflicted by forces based in Malta, the Axis armies would almost certainly have had all of the material necessary to sweep eastwards to the Suez Canal. Without the defeat suffered by the Axis forces in North Africa…with their supplies hindered by Malta-based forces, the invasion of Sicily would have been immeasurably more difficult, and possibly the landings on mainland Italy and then in the South of France might not have taken place…meaning that everything would have depended on the Normandy landings. Without German preoccupation with the situation in Italy, and the loss of so much in North Africa, resistance in Normandy could have been much stronger…The consequences of defending Malta were grim indeed, and costly, but the consequences of not defending Malta would have been far worse.”On April 15, 1942, at the height of the siege, the Maltese people received the George Cross, the highest honor Britain can bestow on civilians, from King George VI in recognition of their extraordinary courage. Because of the war, the delivery of the cross to Malta and her people didn’t occur until September 13. Here is the citation that accompanied the award that says it all about the Maltese who fought totalitarianism and prevailed:“To honour her brave people, I award the George Cross to the Island Fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history.”

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great piece of WWII history
*by A***R on February 4, 2022*

A well written historical fact of WWII Malta. This little Island was so strategic to the Allies to win the battles of North Africa and the Mediterranean sea. Like to definitely visit Malta someday soon.

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*Product available on Desertcart Uruguay*
*Store origin: UY*
*Last updated: 2026-02-22*