This is an atmospheric book that gives a good feel for the horrors of the long aerial siege of Malta, and how this remarkable group of Maltese and British women worked under intense pressure in the RAF control room to help organise the defence of the island.

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History of War

Article: Love affair on besieged Med island words by Tracey Allen

RAF News, 26th February 2021

When Gimli, the fierce dwarf in The Lord of the Rings, wields his battle axe, you pay attention.

When Gimli aka John Rhys-Davies tells you to read a book, you should probably also pay attention.



This is that book. As an actor, Rhys-Davies has an eye for plot and an ear for words, and he is right, this is a story worth knowing. Why it ever came to matter to him is a story in itself. If you think of the book’s first chapter, fittingly titled “Connections,” as one big circle drawn on the page, at its end it will have turned into a Venn diagram of quite enormous complexity. Kudos to author Paul McDonald, who definitely is in one of those overlapping circles, to have had the presence of mind to say at some point during his RAF recce missions, “Wait a minute . . . who? when? why?”

Yes, of course, a book about Malta in World War II involves Spitfires and the Royal Air Force and all sorts of events and people a student of that era will recognize and be interested in. “The most valuable pilot in the RAF” features prominently here, but in a context that is surely not all that widely known. A quick caveat: this is not the first book to deal with the subject, not even McDonald’s first.

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Speedreaders

"A highly recommended tale of a group of extraordinary, cheery, hard working ladies in very dangerous circumstances."

Review by

Military History Society

Article: 'The West End dancer who became a heroine in the Second World War' as featured by

The Stage, 4th July 2019

As featured in

The Bookseller 26/4/19

This is one of those books that deserves a very wide readership because it is a human story of a society at war and the young women who learned to plot the aircraft during the daily raids. It will of course appeal to military history enthusiasts and professionals because it is such an important untold story, but it should be read by a wider audience as an untold story of courage and determination with its
unique picture of life under the most intense bombing ever conducted, its part in victory in the Mediterranean and eventually in Europe.

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Firetrench

This account of the life of an interesting lady and acquaintances set against the backdrop of the Second World War siege of Malta is a ‘good read’: all that an author may expect. The thread of the story, Christina Ratcliffe, is interesting in itself but superimposed on the well-researched situation of Malta at war it creates a tale of the indomitable spirit of the population.

The story of a young girl, perhaps a little feckless but strong in character, travelling so widely in the 1930s would be interesting enough. This story shows how she develops into a charismatic lady under very difficult conditions who helped create an entertainment group in the early part of the war and became a watch supervisor in the plotting room of the wartime Air Headquarters of the most bombed area in the world.
Her romantic involvement with an RAF pilot and the dangerous life he led is well recorded without being mawkish. Her commitment to Warburton is shown to be complete making the decline of her later years more poignant and touching.

To complete the story, creating a real feel for the time, the recollections of various characters living in Malta makes for a complete picture of how people of different callings were affected by the privations of a siege that lasted for over two years.

I would recommend this book to anybody who enjoys a good factual human story set against a fascinating account of a crucial period of history.

Review by Michael Longyear

This is a most curious and multi-facetted little volume... This volume may be of interest to those looking for a ‘War story’ with a difference and those with an interest in military aviation, the Royal Air Force, the ‘Battle of Malta’, World War II and the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations.

Keith Rimmer, NZ Crown Mines

Author interviewed by

Talk Radio Europe, 8th January 2019

As featured in

RAF News 2/11/18

As mentioned in The Oldie newsletter

The Oldie

As featured in

Mail Online 14/9/18