Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1476751
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 AUGUST 2022 8 INTERVIEW Operation Pedestal teaches us that we Last Monday marked the 80th anniversary of Operation Ped- estal: the convoy that is cred- ited with sparing the island certain defeat in WWII. But 80 years also marks the span of a single human life: which means that none of the protagonists is still alive to tell the tale. Mean- while, a younger generation is rising, that has no reason to feel any connection with such distant historical events at all. Are you concerned, then, that the significance of Operation Pedestal may be increasingly undervalued, as time goes on? I'm very worried about it. In fact, a lot of the work I am involved with, is precisely to leave more wartime anecdotes – either in cyberspace, or in the printed media – so that hope- fully, Operation Pedestal does not get 'lost in translation'; and forgotten, over time. Because as you can imagine: when the primary sources die out, that is very likely to hap- pen. For instance: how many people, alive today, can tell you about Malta in World War I? Very, very few. Malta in World War II, on the other hand? There are a lot. Why? Because even though the protagonists are no longer with us; some of their children, and grandchil- dren, are still alive; and they would have been brought up on anecdotes from that period. Sadly, however, time has a very effective way of destroying memories. Because apart from the fact that the passage of time ravages those memories… you also get 'distortions'… Does that include our own perceptions of Operation Ped- estal? Do you think that our inherited memories of that event, may also have been 'distorted' in the re-telling? Let me put this way. Here in Malta, we tend to talk about Op- eration Pedestal as the mission that 'saved Malta from surren- der'. But was it really just that? What if I told you that there are two other major reasons – one of which was only born this year – why we should commemorate Operation Pedestal: apart from the fact that it saved Malta dur- ing the war? One of them is its impact on the outcome of World War II itself. How many people know, for instance, that the convoy indirectly shortened the war by as much as 18 months? Just imagine, then, how many tens of thousands of lives were [pre-emptively] 'saved', be- cause Rommel was stopped at Al Alamein… and could not venture into the Middle East, to complete Hitler's Final Solu- tion on the Jewish people's own home soil. (Not the State of Israel – because that was not established until 1948 – but the traditional homeland of the Jews.) It's a rhetorical question, nat- urally. God alone knows what would have happened, had Rommel succeeded… and Hit- ler managed to get his hands on the oil fields of the Middle East. We could discuss an en- tire alternative history, on that basis… and never finish. But we do know why Rom- mel was, in fact, stopped at El Alamein. It was partly because – within three weeks from Operation Pedestal – the Mal- ta-based submarines, and the Malta RAF, and the Royal Na- vy, sunk 100,000 tonnes of con- voys, destined for North Africa, that had sailed from Italy. So Rommel's advance was stalled, because he ran out of resources: fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and so on. In a nutshell, Operation Ped- estal turned Malta from the 'defensive', to the 'offensive'. Within a few months – by May 1943 – all the Italian and Ger- man forces in North Africa had surrendered. And what hap- pened after that? Almost in- stantly, Sicily was invaded. Or at least, that's what people say. But was it really just Sicily that was invaded? I'll tell you that it was the whole of 'Nazi-occu- pied Europe', that was invad- ed… through Sicily; and from Malta. And that accelerated the battle for Berlin. Within a year and a half, it became a three-pronged pincer movement: with the Al- lies advancing from Normandy in the West; the Russians, from the East; and the Allies also ad- vancing from the South, beyond Cassino. So ultimately, you can under- stand that Pedestal wasn't just about 'saving Malta'. It was a complex military operation, designed for multiple purpos- es: to defend the 'fortress' that was Malta; to defeat the Axis in North Africa, and eastwards; and to capitalise on Europe's weakest penetration-point, at the time… which was Sicily. Earlier you mentioned another reason to commemorate Oper- ation Pedestal: one which was 'born earlier this year'. Can you elaborate? If there's one thing the events of the past year has taught us, it is that we can never take our freedom for granted. Because now, we know that 'Fascism' is not something that belongs only to history books, or in our archives. We had a good run of 80 years, without it; but now it's back, on our continent. It's not 'Black Fascism'. It's 'Red Fascism'. But it's Fascism, nonetheless. It's still a case of: 'somebody invades you, be- cause things aren't the way he wants them to be.' So that per- son invades a sovereign territo- ry – a free people – because he wants to impose his own politi- cal views on others… And I think the younger gen- eration needs to know, that there was a time when their own country was… raped, es- sentially: as Ukraine is being raped today. We were blitzed; bombarded, relentlessly; and our own version of Mariupol, lasted three whole years…. not three months. No electricity. People living in holes, like rats. People go- ing hungry, and unable to go to hospital to get proper treat- ment… just look at how the world reacted, when we saw 90 days of this [in Mariupol]. Well, our grandparents' generation put up with three years of it, 80 years ago. So what I would really like younger people to understand, is that what we're actually cel- ebrating - when we commem- orate Operation Pedestal each year - is not just a distant his- toric event. It's also a warning, that we should not be 'putting our guard down'. Just look For historian and WWII researcher SIMON CUSENS, commemorating the 'Santa Marija Convoy' is about more than just preserving the memories of a past that in danger of being forgotten Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt