This work provides an account of the struggle for possession of Malta, a fight to the death which lasted two-and-a-half years, during which time 14 000 tons of bombs were dropped on a defiant population. It is based largely on the diaries of Lord David Douglas-Hamilton, the author's uncle, who was sent out to Malta as a Spitfire Squadron Leader at a time when the island was sustaining heavier bombing than London at the height of the Blitz, and the Axis forces were preparing for invasion. The author's scrupulous research, combined with his uncle's authoritative viewpoint, recreates the period, the comradeship and the grimness of life on the beleagured island.