Engaging wartime stories

Anthony Rogers: Air Battle of Malta – Aircraft Losses and Crash Sites 1940-42. 2017, Green Hill Books. “Those airmen died nobly for their country … even though they be our enemies, whatever their crimes, that fact we should acknowledge.” This extract from the diary of Pilot Officer ‘Sonny’ Ormrod sets the tone for this wartime reference and anecdotal book. Making use of several official and historical documents, while referring official visits and eyewitness reports from Malta, England and Italy, the book is much more than a clinical catalogue of the more than 200 air-craft crashes on and along the coast of Malta during World War II, between 1940 and 1942. Author Anthony Rogers – himself an ex Royal Marine commando in Malta and later a photojournalist who covered numerous wars – compiles previously unpublished, personal accounts of surviving ex-military personnel and civilians. The book focuses on the aircraft that was destroyed on Maltese territory and, through these personal accounts and other documents, Rogers manages to make sense of inconsistent stories and conflicting reports in an engaging manner. The book splits the war into a number of time periods, giving the book not...