Conducting both of my interviews this week and doing further research for my script, I was overflown with valuable information. My next step is to sort through my interviews and make a seamless story that flows from one point to the next. My great grandfather, what my podcast is about, has so many stories that I never knew about. So this week, I learned about my great grandfather’s WWII Maltese Convoy story:

The story begins when he joins the Merchant Navy at age 19 in 1939. He went all around the world delivering supplies, going from England to Halifax down to New York back that was part of the Atlantic route. Then he went out to Hong Kong, Suez Canal, China, Shanghai, India and eventually Malta.

For 27 months the Merchant Navy had to deliver Malta supplies under enemy attack. If they didn’t succeed in their endeavour, then they would have to surrender Malta to the Axis powers which would have a massive impact on the war efforts. At a constant threat of U-Boat, plane bombings and mines but if one of the other ships got bombed, they couldn’t have stopped for them.

5 ships made it to Malta but as they were offloading, a bomb was dropped onto their ship. It went directly through the ship but luckily didn’t detonate. If it had exploded then there would have been a good chance that he wouldn’t have survived (one of the 4 times, he was saved by luck). They had offloaded the supplies but they had to live on the island for probably a few weeks to repair their ship. When living in Malta they had had to live on very limited food and he had to respect the Maltese people for being so resilient. They likely then sailed to Alexandria in Africa, and then he continued their war efforts.