We got on this carrier and it seemed
like a short, well we had about an
8 knot breeze and the carrier could do
22 knots and so with 30 knots we could get
airborne just before we got to the end.
As soon as we got airborne,
we just climbed up a little and we could
see the Atlas Mountains to the south of Africa.
That’s all we could see and we headed
towards getting closer to the
African Coast and we crossed,
I think it was Bizerte or some place and
passed right over the town of Tunis.
We were up about 20,000 feet or something,
right over Tunis Town, all white and
then we turned a little bit left pointing for
Malta and a beautiful day as I say and
we carried right on and then finally
we arrived over Malta.
And I sort of envisioned a little
Mediterranean Island with
palm trees or something, you know, and
shepherds and goats around or
something or other. Hell, here it was a city
with a quarter of a million people on it and
it was 17 miles long and 9 miles wide.
And, of course, I knew Valletta was
the big harbor there and so on.
But the countryside, you know,
there was lots of little towns over it and
three aerodromes on it and it was
pockmarked with bombs just like
craters on the moon, a bomb hole,
you know, bomb craters everywhere,
particularly around the aerodromes.