The Grand Harbour, Malta

Family holidays often present an opportunity to follow through on my interest in military history. Earlier ths year my wife and I took a trip to Malta. The Grand Harbour was for many years the home of the British Mediterranean Fleet and I know from old documents held in my family archive that a relative of mine had been based on the island at the turn of the century.

Amongst Ernest's legacy of photographs and documents, I have a picture of HMS Commonwealth steaming into the Grand Harbour, Malta. Luckily for me, my wife was keen to go on a Harbour Cruise so I took the opportunity to take the photo shown below. Same location as the top photograph but with a 100 year time difference.

V Weapons on the Cotentin Peninsula (1944)

Had the V1 bases at La Sorellerie and L'Orion, near Cherbourg, become operational then the city of Bristol would have been within range of these terrifying weapons. The successful allied landings in Normandy from June 6th 1944 meant that this scenario never turned into reality. Both sites are complete though neither were actually used in anger.

The sites can be found, albeit with some difficulty, approximately five miles south of Cherbourg on the Contenin Peninsula. We had just about given up trying to find them - having found just a single hard structure for housing a mobile searchlight battery. Luckily a local farmer came to our rescue and we were able to visit most of the buildings that make up the L'Orion site - though frustratingly, we weren't able to find the primary 'ski' ramp.

The pictures above show (top to bottom) the main command bunker, a V1 storage tunnel (heavily camouflaged and impossible to find without local help), a gun pit on the site perimeter and a building housing two V1 maintenance bays. There is evidence of heavy bombing in the vicinity but these buildings have survived well - most probably because they are well protected by earthworks and are tucked away in a natural fold in the landscape.