Book 1

“My World War Two” is a unique, controversial and true story. It took over ten years to write and has 816 pages of text, including 132 photographs, documents and maps.

My Father (David J Powis) survived the entire Siege of Malta, and was amongst the first assault waves to invade Sicily, Italy, and Normandy (D-Day). Each invasion was followed by intensive inland battles.

Dad, born 18th April 1919, lived briefly in Essex and mainly in London, England, where his Father ran a greengrocer business until failing eyesight forced him to retire in 1927. 15th November 1939 conscription took Dad into the Devonshire Regiment, Higher Barracks, Exeter, Devon. He along with many others had no interest in military life whatsoever and viewed the prospect of killing and destruction as savagery, repugnant and totally alien to their basic principals of life; even so, at that time they kept such feelings to themselves, obeyed the law and bravely accepted inevitable front line action as their duty. An added anxiety for Dad was that his Mother was too frail to guide his now totally blind Father outside the house so he became completely housebound within the London target zone of enemy bombers.

Before completion of basic training, January 1940, Dad became one of a draft to arrive in Malta. For the first few months the island experienced peacetime conditions. This dramatically changed around mid 1940 when Italy entered the war in support of Germany, the strategic importance of the island was then very evident. Every effort was made by the enemy to defeat Malta; it was one of the most heavily bombed areas of World War

Two, where concentrated aerial bombardment continued day and night throughout the siege years with little respite. British supply convoys could not get through, creating malnutrition and a shortage of essential supplies. The situation became desperate, eventually Malta was on the brink of collapse with little more than a week left before complete exhaustion of final reserves. Just in time, a minimal number of badly damaged ships managed to run the gauntlet and limp into Grand Harbour. The British Navy and Merchant Navy went through hell to reach the island. As vital supplies were being unloaded, enemy aerial bombardment ensued against huge final effort defence. The situation was so desperate that the military continued to unload the ships even though it seemed almost certain it would result in considerable loss of life. They managed to unload most of the cargo, giving the island strength to continue. Throughout the siege news of home rarely got through, but when it did, it was usually several months old. Many did not know if their families had been killed in the Blitz