The Siege Of Malta: Starving (Part 5)
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Goalhanger Podcasts
4.8 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com slash we have ways. |
| 0:35.4 | The tempo of life here is just incredible. |
| 0:37.5 | The morale of all is magnificent pilots, |
| 0:42.1 | Crown Cruze and Army, but it certainly is tough. The bombing is continuous on and off all day. |
| 0:46.0 | One lives here only to destroy the Hun and to hold him at bay. Everything else, living addition, sleep, food and all the ordinary standards of living have gone by the board. |
| 0:49.6 | It all makes the Battle of Britain and fighter sweeps seem like child's play in comparison. |
| 0:54.7 | And that was pilot officer Herbert Mitchell of 603's quadrant. |
| 0:58.1 | And he was shot down two days later after saying this on the 12th of May, |
| 1:02.1 | 1942. And he was heard to tell the fighter controller Woody Woodall as he went down, |
| 1:06.4 | by Woody, I've had it. |
| 1:08.1 | Then he crashed into the sea at 350 miles an hour and his body was never |
| 1:12.0 | found. Welcome to We have ways of making you talk with Miao Murray and James Holland and the Sieger Malta, Jim, is at its dramatic height. Is it not? Yes, we left it at the end of April, didn't we? The thing is, though, James, every episode of the story of the Siege of Malta, there's more drama, you think, well, we got through that. |
| 1:27.7 | Can't ramp it up the ante any further. |
| 1:29.6 | I mean, if this were a TV miniseries, they blew the budget on special effects in the first episode. You know, you know when they run out of money on a show, and they end up with lots of scenes which are obviously interiors where they're in a set. We're way, we're way past out with the siege of Malta, aren't we? It's truly incredible. |
| 1:45.0 | As Herbert Mitchell says, it makes the Battle of Britain |
| 1:47.2 | Fighter Sweeps seem like child's playing comparison. We have kind of made that point already, haven't we? It's just the conditions, the toughness, the intensity at all. I mean, even if you're only flying, you know, six times in one month rather than six times a day, everything about it is just so hard and tough and brutal and you're short of everything and |
| 2:04.1 | there's nothing to do when you're not flying apart from, you know, build more blast pens and, |
| 2:07.9 | you know, there's a sandfly fever and multer dog and, you know, it's mosquitoes galore and |
| 2:13.9 | it's just, it's just absolutely miserable. |
| 2:16.4 | Yeah. |
| 2:16.9 | But there is a final chance for the Spitfires. |
| 2:21.5 | After the last episode's extraordinary cock-ups. |
... |
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