Malta Dockyard

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The armed trawler HMS Coral being broken up in Dry Dock No 3 in Malta Dockyard during World War II

Malta Dockyard was an important naval base at Valetta in Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.

History

The dockyard, which was built in around 1800, benefited from its first dry dock in 1848.[1] It was an important supply base during the Crimean War in 1854 and then during World War I and World War II. In January 1941 sixty German dive bombers made a massed attack on the dockyard in an attempt to destroy the damaged British aircraft carrier Illustrious, but she received only one bomb hit. Incessant German and Italian bombing raids targeted Malta through March, opposed by only a handful of British fighters.[2] Then in April 1942 the Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard reported that due to German air attacks on Malta's naval base "practically no workshops were in action other than those underground; all docks were damaged; electric power, light and telephones were largely out of action."[3]

The dockyard was handed over to Baileys, a civilian firm of ship repairers and marine engineers, in 1959.[4] After Baileys were dispossessed by the Maltese Government[5] the dockyard was closed as a naval base and the Royal Navy withdrew completely in 1979.[6] It was then managed by a workers' council between 1987 and 1996 repairing civilian ships.[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Malta Harbour". Retrieved 12 October 2013. 
  2. ↑ Macintyre, p. 169
  3. ↑ Macintyre, p. 224
  4. ↑ "Malta's Royal Navy Dockyard handed over". ITN. 1959. Retrieved 12 October 2013. 
  5. ↑ "Malta: British Documents on End of Empire edited by Simon C. Smith". Stationery Office Books. 2006. p. 417. ISBN 978-0112905905. Retrieved 12 October 2013. 
  6. ↑ "Dockyard foreign ownership would take Malta to pre-1979 days - CNI". Times of Malta. 8 September 2008. Retrieved 12 October 2013. 
  7. ↑ "Requiem for a Dockyard". Malta Today. 7 April 2010. Retrieved 12 October 2013. 

Sources

  • Macintyre, Donald, The Naval War Against Hitler, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971
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