One Man’s Window

"This book has just been re-released as Malta Spitfire Pilot , but I think One Man’s Window is a better title. I came across this book when I was doing my book on the siege of Malta. Denis Barnham was quite a sensitive fellow, with an artistic temperament. He was a member of the Royal Academy [of Arts, in London] and a fine artist, and when he went out to Malta he kept a very detailed diary, which some years later he made into a book. Like Geoff Wellum’s book, I like the immediacy of it – the absolute insanity of living and fighting on Malta. It was the height of the siege and the fighter pilots were getting more and more planes in slowly but surely. The island was starving. There was almost no food and almost no fuel. They were really up against it. It is a tiny island, smaller than the Isle of Wight. For them getting parts and spares – things you would take for granted in Britain – was very difficult. They no longer got three square meals a day or could go to the pub in the evening or have a day off a week. There was none of that, it was absolutely brutal. The heat was intense. Everyone was suffering from dysentery which everyone called Malta Dog. There was nothing to eat at all so stones of weight were just falling off them. They were being hammered by the German air force every single day. No other book that I have read captures that kind of madness and intensity of living and fighting that they were doing on Malta. The action accounts are second to none. I have never read a better account of air fighting than I have in that book."