The small Mediterranean island of Malta had been British since 1814 but was 1,000 miles from the nearest British territory -- Gibralter to the west and Egypt to the east. The population was mostly Italian and that was the lingua franca. In Italy, only a few miles to the north, dictator Benito Mussolini watched as Hitler's war machine drove the British out of continental Europe and decided he'd bet on Britain's withdrawal from the war. So feeling, he declared war on Britain, attacked in Egypt, and bombed Malta. His judgment was rather like mine when playing poker, pretty poor. The English and colonial troops repelled him in Africa and drove him back into Italian territory. Malta stood firm. The Italian bombers were only half-hearted anyway. They
