Soldier stories

WW2 People's War is an archive of World War 2 memories written by the public and gathered by the BBC. This piece tells the story of Henry Dickens in Malta:

..During this time my father met a local girl who come from Sliema, her name was Jessie and her father was the manager of the local Blue Label beer factory – was it the chance of free beer or her beauty that attracted him to her – I will never know as my father refuses to tell me but he still has a glint in his eye and a smile on his face when he talks of her now even though he is now aged 87(more later). As the year move into August so the blockade of the Island increased with the view that enemy would starve Malta into submission. How near it cam to achieving this is known now by only a few, but all who were there will never forget the grimness of the lean months, which followed the blitz. The loss of the convoys up to August were a bitter blow, fourteen ships had sailed from Gibraltar and fourteen had sailed from Alexandria, only two ships made it to the Island, with all the while the amount of air attacks and their frequency steadily increasing, the knock on effect was that men were suffering as well as the population who had their ration levels reduced again to quite severe levels...

List of Malta War Stories