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00:00A beautiful and historic island in the heart of the Mediterranean, a Mecca for tourists
00:11from across the globe, and in World War II, the most bombed place on Earth, an entire
00:19country under siege.
00:22So how did tiny Malta hold back the might of the Axis war machine?
00:30World War II was fought on vast landscapes across the planet.
00:38Where we're going, we don't need roads.
00:42But the evidence of that war is disappearing fast.
00:48That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in the water.
00:52That's it.
00:53Congratulations.
00:53Now, technology expert Pete Kelsey and military historian Marty Morgan are using 21st century
01:07technology to strip away the present and reveal the buried secrets of World War II.
01:14This time, can deep sea wreckage reveal how Malta fought off the Luftwaffe?
01:23That's a Stuka.
01:24Will Pete unravel the mystery of how Malta's civilians survived constant bombing?
01:31I have got to scan this.
01:33Military historian Marty Morgan and tech expert Pete Kelsey are traveling straight into Malta's
02:01main harbors, past the huge fortifications of its capital, Valletta.
02:18Everything about this harbor says, don't even think about coming in here without permission.
02:23There's walls and cannons and stuff everywhere.
02:26And the presence of these fortifications testifies to the island's strategic importance.
02:32Fortress Malta.
02:34When World War II began, Malta had been held by the British for more than a century.
02:40Pete, look right there.
02:41That observation position was constructed during the Second World War.
02:45And there's another one, and there's another one behind it.
02:47So why did this apparently insignificant island, miles from any major front lines, end up at
02:55the heart of one of the bitterest campaigns of the war?
03:07Pete and Marty want to use 21st century technology to find out.
03:12To start their investigation, they are setting up their tech HQ inside Malta's wartime command
03:19center, the Las Caras War Rooms.
03:30Their first task is to see whether Malta's location affected its fate.
03:35A satellite map shows that Malta is situated at the very center of the Mediterranean, just
03:4360 miles from the Italian island of Sicily.
03:47This is starting to make sense to me.
03:50We've got up this map of the western Mediterranean, and it's helping me now to recognize the situation.
03:57In June 1940, as France and North Africa were falling to Hitler, Mussolini wanted to extend
04:06his own empire.
04:10Allied-held Malta suddenly found itself isolated, surrounded by the huge Axis war machine.
04:18So why did this tiny island in particular fall into Mussolini's crosshairs?
04:23Well, I have the LIDAR, and why don't we switch to that?
04:27There we go.
04:29Using geo-data gathered by the Maltese government, Pete has created a 3D LIDAR map of Malta's
04:35islands.
04:36He thinks he's found a promising lead.
04:39Wow.
04:40This is your best work.
04:42Look at this.
04:44It clearly shows the distinctive Valletta Peninsula flanked by Malta's main harbors.
04:49And one area shows particularly bad bomb damage.
04:54It's called Manuel Island.
04:58This is a pre-war picture that shows a building on Manuel Island known as the Lazzaretto.
05:05Built in the 17th century, it was originally a plague hospital.
05:11Now overgrown and deserted, it's hard to see what is decay and what is war damage.
05:16Contemporary accounts say it was a huge target for Axis bombs.
05:24But why?
05:27Records show that in World War II, these buildings were used by the British Royal Navy.
05:34Marty has secured special access to the dangerous ruins.
05:38He's looking for any remaining traces of the Royal Navy activity.
05:42Okay, just check your wings.
05:46Taking a different approach, Pete is joining a specialist dive team from the University of Malta.
05:52They want to show him something extraordinary in the waters beside the Lazzaretto and scan it.
05:58Gas is on.
05:593,000 pounds.
06:01Perfect.
06:01The divers are led by marine archaeologist Professor Timmy Gambine, who has spent decades diving the waters around the island.
06:09Come go.
06:12This is the perfect camera rig for doing underwater photogrammetry.
06:21What the heck is that?
06:23Photogrammetry allows anyone with any camera to take a series of pictures of anything, including things underwater,
06:30and create exceptional three-dimensional photorealistic models of that thing.
06:40Pete follows the divers into the murky waters.
06:43The first thing he sees is yet more traces of the bombing.
06:59Whoa, look at all this rubble.
07:03Back inside the Lazzaretto, Marty is hunting for clues about what the Royal Navy were doing here.
07:09To help him navigate this deserted building, Marty is joined by conservation architect Edward Said.
07:18We've got this massive complex of buildings, the old quarantine establishment of Malta.
07:24And it served such a purpose right until the early 1940s when the war broke out.
07:31And in fact, there is quite an interesting labyrinth of spaces just behind here.
07:36Could we see them?
07:36Absolutely.
07:39Records show that these tunnels were carved into the bedrock by Royal Navy engineers.
07:48What are these chains for?
07:50These supported the beds.
07:53Oh, there were bunks in here?
07:54There were bunks in here.
08:01Hmm.
08:02So what's in here?
08:05Oh, my God.
08:06Now, there's something you don't see every day.
08:11What is it, Marty?
08:12We think it's a torpedo.
08:14It looks like the center section for a torpedo.
08:17It looks like there's a tank here.
08:18You've got these extra compressed air tanks for powering it.
08:23There are 12 of these, in fact, lying around.
08:25That's amazing to see it's still here after all these years.
08:34Pete's investigation in the waters just outside is also showing positive results.
08:40We should be coming up to the wreck any time now.
08:43Yeah, the visibility's not great, but I see something.
08:50Wow, it's big!
08:51It's sitting on this crazy 45-degree angle sort of slope.
08:55I want to show you something a bit further down, Pete.
09:02Follow me.
09:10You can clearly see big structural damage on this side here.
09:16Can you see these twisted pieces of metal right here?
09:20That's from a blast.
09:23That steel is peeled back.
09:27The rest of the structure's pretty intact.
09:32This is really going to be amazing in the photogrammetry model.
09:36Finally back on dry land in the Tech HQ,
09:47cutting-edge software is stitching together thousands of photos from the dive.
09:53Pete hopes they can reveal why the Lazzaretto was such a prime target for Axis bombers.
10:00Timmy, the dive we did the other day on the ship.
10:03Let's have a look.
10:03Oh, wow.
10:07I mean, during the dive, the visibility was pretty dismal.
10:11But at least now through this model, we can see the entire site.
10:15Clearly, something really bad happened right there.
10:21It looks to me as though it's a direct hit from a dive bomber.
10:24And the reports tell us that this must have happened sometime in the spring of 1942.
10:30The vessel is clearly not a warship.
10:35It has no guns or torpedo tubes.
10:38So why would the Luftwaffe have targeted it?
10:42What kind of vessel is this?
10:44It looks to me as though it's a supply barge.
10:47You can see that from the shape.
10:50The scan has identified the wreck as a fueling barge called the X-127.
10:56It was used by the Royal Navy for a critical purpose in World War II, supplying fuel for submarines.
11:04They needed vessels like this to supply oil, water, and whatever else the crew and the submarine needed to run.
11:14Added to the find of the torpedo in the subterranean tunnels, the presence of this barge points to one explanation.
11:21This was a Royal Navy submarine base.
11:27So it wasn't just the building, but also these vessels and this sort of marine complex that would also have been the target for the Germans.
11:36Pete has also used laser scanning technology to map the Lazzaretto's interiors.
11:41Now, for the first time ever, the team combined the scans with the underwater scanning.
11:49This is the first time that I'm able to see the entire base, because if I'm working from out at sea, I just see the arches.
11:59If I'm standing in the courtyard, I'm surrounded by four walls.
12:02But this is absolutely incredible.
12:04Well, the structure itself was incredible.
12:06All the essentials for a submarine base were in bomb-proof tunnels carved into the hill behind the Lazzaretto.
12:14So this warren was just a hive of activity.
12:18At first, the Germans didn't realize that this was a submarine base.
12:22But then they put two and two together.
12:25Records show that over a million tons of Axis shipping was sunk by the 26 Allied submarines, which operated from the base.
12:36This was the beating heart of the most concentrated submarine campaign in military history.
12:44Well, no wonder it was so heavily bombed.
12:48The Allies had turned Malta into a thorn in the side of Axis shipping, which stopped their domination of the Mediterranean.
12:57Hitler and Mussolini were desperate to destroy it.
13:01Over the next two years, they would drop 15,000 tons of bombs on the island.
13:11How could this tiny country fight back?
13:14Tech expert Pete Kelsey wants to know how the tiny island of Malta survived the most concentrated bombing campaign of World War II.
13:33He is trekking to a location that commands the entrance to Valletta's harbors.
13:37I love this bit of my job where all the signs say risk of injury or death.
13:48Brings out the adventure in it, and it's the perfect spot for a drone.
13:54Today, this area is completely overgrown and closed off to the public.
13:59In World War II, this spot guarded Valletta's harbors and submarine bases from Axis planes.
14:08Pete's searching for evidence of lost Allied air defenses.
14:12I've got the drone up in the air, and it's flying a photogrammetry mission.
14:28Now, that's a mouthful, but all it really means is we can make really rich 3D models from photographs.
14:35Within hours, Pete has a photogrammetry model of a huge area.
14:43And straightaway, Pete spots an array of concrete platforms, barely visible on the ground.
14:50He heads to the largest one.
14:57This is a gun emplacement.
15:05I bet everything I own, that's an anti-aircraft gun emplacement,
15:14because it's perfect for the entrance to the harbor.
15:18Because if I'm the Germans, I'm coming in this way, the entrance to the harbor,
15:23which means I've got to go right by that, which is going to be murder.
15:28The guns may have gone, but as an ex-U.S. artilleryman,
15:32Pete identifies traces of the air defenses everywhere.
15:48Yeah.
15:52We're on the high ground.
15:53You've got 360 view here, and here you would expect an ammunition elevator,
16:03meaning you keep the dangerous stuff, the shells and the powder somewhere safe,
16:08way down there.
16:10And now this is great.
16:13This is really great.
16:14So what you've got here are sectors.
16:17This sector is 206 degrees.
16:19That's sector D.
16:20Sector E to 10 degrees, fuse type, powder type.
16:24So how this would work, oh, my gosh, there's incoming Germans.
16:29Sector E.
16:30And they would know fuse, 8-4, charge, whatever,
16:35and could let fly in no time, because it's all about speed.
16:40Pete has found the sight of a massive 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun.
16:44Records show that, extraordinarily, it was just one of the 1,400 located across the island.
16:56But how effective were these defenses?
17:01To find out, the team are heading to one place where traces of the air war
17:05still lie undisturbed more than 70 years later.
17:09These waters are directly under the enemy flight path from Sicily.
17:21Just two miles from Malta's coast, Timmy has located an unexplored wreck.
17:28It's 350 feet below sea level, far deeper than any typical scuba diver can descend.
17:36So we're doing the new wreck.
17:40We're not sure what it is or how it's going to lie.
17:43Maximum depth is 104 meters.
17:46That is impossibly deep.
17:48I mean, these guys are technical divers, which means it's a bit dangerous.
17:53It is far beyond my capabilities as a scuba diver.
17:57Yeah.
17:58Because of the extreme depth, the divers have to carry an unusual amount of gear.
18:03The wreck is so far down, they use a line to guide them to it.
18:11This step, they might have 20 minutes, maybe.
18:15Tops.
18:15And then they have to come up.
18:18Ascending to the surface too quickly could be fatal for the divers.
18:22They will need at least two hours to decompress as they return.
18:27There he goes.
18:29Might as well be going to the moon.
18:30This team are one of the very few in the world with the skills to perform photogrammetry at this depth.
18:42It takes them over 20 minutes to descend to the site of the wreck.
18:50Very little light can penetrate this far down.
18:53But amazingly, out of the gloom, a tangled wreck emerges.
19:10It's almost unrecognizable, but the team spot a propeller.
19:15A tail fin is also clearly visible.
19:31Having completed their scans, the team will return to the surface.
19:36But two hours later, they are still underwater.
19:40Marty Morgan and Pete Kelsey want to know how Malta defended itself against two years of daily bombing raids.
20:09Having processed the data from the sunken wreck, they hope the first ever virtual model will provide some clues.
20:18Timmy, considering this aircraft wreck is so deep, look at the fidelity of this model.
20:24It's just great.
20:30Marty recognizes it instantly.
20:32That's a Stuka.
20:33That's a J-U-87 Stuka.
20:35That's a J-U-87 Stuka.
20:36Look, the horizontal stabilizer.
20:39That's very distinctive square, boxy shape.
20:41That's a Stuka.
20:49The Stuka was one of the Luftwaffe's most infamous planes.
20:54Diving at almost 400 miles an hour, it delivered a bomb with deadly precision.
20:59It even had what was called a Jericho trumpet, which emitted a terrifying howl as it dived.
21:10But can the scan reveal why this one crashed?
21:14One of the incredible things that we can tell from this crash site is it's got no bombs.
21:20The Stuka carried a single easily identified bomb, measuring almost seven feet, and slung under its fuselage.
21:30The scan shows that the plane had delivered its payload.
21:34So this means that the bombs were dropped over the harbor area, and this thing was, this pilot was trying to get home.
21:45Something dramatic happened because this plane clearly hit the water at terminal velocity.
21:52How can you tell?
21:52Well, one of the key indicators is this propeller here.
21:57You can see that it's bent back, which means that this propeller was spinning, and the plane hit the sea out of control.
22:04One can only assume that either the pilot bailed out or was dead inside the cockpit.
22:10The fact that the plane crashed, having dropped its bomb, leads Marty to one conclusion.
22:17He's pulling out at low altitude where his speed had been chopped.
22:21He's the most vulnerable.
22:22He's trying to simultaneously gather speed and altitude while passing through one of the most heavily defended air defense zones in the entire war,
22:33the area over the Grand Harbor at Malta.
22:36As Pete's scan revealed, Malta was bristling with anti-aircraft guns.
22:46Mapping this Stuka alongside other Axis wrecks he's located,
22:51Timmy has shown that they could be deadly effective against the enemy.
22:55No wonder Luftwaffe pilots called the island the Hornet's Nest.
23:00Although Malta was heavily bombed, this is evidence that the island did fight back.
23:08Yeah, this was a tough target, and this cracked up JU-87 as proof of that.
23:14Even so, this Stuka had managed to deliver its payload.
23:20In 1942 alone, the island was bombed for more than 150 days straight.
23:26Yet Malta survived with relatively few civilian casualties.
23:36Marty wants to find out how they evaded the relentless Axis bombing.
23:41He's tracked down local World War II expert Mario Ferruja.
23:45Yeah, here we've got a unique document which was made by a London-based engineering firm
23:53which specialized in mining as a plan to provide the island with an extensive underground air raid shelter system
24:02which would have offered protection for nothing less than 140,000 people.
24:08Mario's plan is from early 1940.
24:11It shows the British authorities were already planning for the attack.
24:19So these red lines are the tunnels that they proposed?
24:22Yes, they are.
24:23If you happen to be around the main gate of the city and there was a raid on,
24:28you could rush down into one of the exits.
24:31But was this unbelievably ambitious plan ever realized?
24:36Was there time before the bombing began?
24:38Using the plan, Marty and Pete locate one entrance in the heart of Valletta.
24:46How much lies beneath?
24:56They are guided by local engineer Mark Zimmerman.
24:59Well, we're going into that?
25:05Yeah, now I know what the boots are for.
25:08Directly under the bustling streets of Valletta,
25:10the team discover long-forgotten tunnels,
25:13virtually sealed off since the war.
25:19Oh, God, look at that.
25:21That would have been one of the typical tools of the time.
25:26So all of this is hand dug then?
25:29Almost all of it is hand dug.
25:32Was this amazing tunnel network big enough to save Malta's civilians?
25:37Marty and Pete descend deeper underground to find out.
25:40Under Malta's capital, Valletta,
25:52Marty Morgan and Pete Kelsey are exploring tunnels
25:55that have been sealed off to the public for more than 70 years.
26:00They want to discover the real extent of these underground air raid shelters.
26:05Over time, the limestone has become unstable.
26:13And sometimes the bedrock just doesn't hold up.
26:17Their guide through these dangerous caverns is engineer Mark Zimmerman.
26:23My God, this place just goes on and on and on, doesn't it?
26:25Because these tunnels are so unsafe to access,
26:35they're also a time capsule, virtually untouched.
26:50Wow, this looks like a crossroads.
26:53One of the major intersections here that matches the roads above.
26:59Wow, is that the same name as the street?
27:03It is, exactly.
27:04Santa Lucia Street.
27:06So you have Merchant Street heading in this direction,
27:09and there's Santa Lucia Street here.
27:11Lined up the same way over our heads.
27:14Exactly, a city under the city following the street above.
27:18Coming off these underground streets are dozens of small cubicles.
27:23And just like now, there's very limited lighting.
27:29So in 1941, 1942, there wouldn't have been electricity in these shelters.
27:34So it would have been kerosene lamps, some candles,
27:37maybe just an empty tin with oil and a wick.
27:39One cubicle in particular grabs Pete's attention.
27:47Whoa, look at that.
27:50It's quite amazing, really.
27:52These tiny cubicles would have been made much more homely and comfortable by individual families living in there.
27:58I want to see, I want to see.
28:05It's amazing that, you know, such a small dash of color would just give people a bit more hope
28:10and tell them, you know, this is where we live,
28:13when we have to shelter from the incessant air raids.
28:16Well, if you've got time to make your home beautiful,
28:19that suggests you're going to be down here a while.
28:21For some time, air raids were so incessant and so intense,
28:25people had barely time to get up top to breathe before they had to dash down again
28:30and often spend the night in these shelters.
28:36But not all of this subterranean city was dug during World War II.
28:44Wow!
28:44Oh my God, look at this thing.
28:51This is like a Gothic cathedral.
28:55These 40-foot-high water cisterns date from the late 1500s.
29:03But in the war, they were incorporated into the shelters.
29:08Picture a time when these air raids were at their most intense.
29:14People leaning against the walls, sitting here in small groups, children crying.
29:20Some people trying to find some respite and sleep.
29:23Prayer going on.
29:27I have got to scan this.
29:29Yeah, that's for sure.
29:31This is right out of a movie.
29:32Pete has been granted exclusive permission to produce a high-resolution scan of these tunnels,
29:47the first ever of its kind.
29:49Using a handheld LIDAR scanner, he can instantly generate a 3D model of the shelter complex.
30:04The data in Pete's scans reveals an extraordinary underground network.
30:09The medieval cisterns are connected to passages, which perfectly mirror Valletta's street grid.
30:21Coming off the streets are 80 9-by-5-foot cubicles.
30:25These were numbered individually, so every family would have its own designated space.
30:32There are six entry and exit points, some to the street, some even into government buildings.
30:39The data reveals that these shelters measured well over 5,000 square feet, enough space for countless families.
30:49And this was just one shelter in Valletta.
30:52Across the whole country, the people of Malta dug in wherever they could.
31:04Railway tunnels were turned into air raid shelters.
31:08Caves carved into the cliffs.
31:10Malta was honeycombed with tunnels.
31:1430,000 buildings were destroyed, whilst Malta's people huddled underground.
31:22But air raids weren't the only threat to their survival.
31:27The Germans were hell-bent on starving islanders into submission.
31:40Between 1940 and 1942, Malta was under siege.
31:47Dependent on convoys to bring in food, fuel, and munitions.
31:52Allied ships crossing the Mediterranean were relentlessly attacked by the Axis.
31:59By summer 1942, the island was close to surrender.
32:05But the Germans weren't just using planes and ships to blockade Malta's ports.
32:10Pete Kelsey has found evidence of how the Nazis deployed one of the war's most feared naval weapons.
32:18Here is a German chart of minefields that we've actually overlaid over a terrain model of Malta that shows all these minefields right offshore.
32:29Yeah, they've turned the sea lanes approaching Valletta into a very inhospitable place.
32:34Absolutely. There's a massive, massive concentration of minefields which focus on the entrance to the two main harbors, the Grand Harbour and Marsamshet Harbour.
32:47But Marty and Pete have already discovered that the harbour was bristling with Allied defences.
32:55How could the Germans have laid mines so close to the shore?
32:59The team are heading to a new wreck site that may hold an answer.
33:05The site's about a nautical mile northeast.
33:10And as you can see, the shipwreck is actually very close to the coast.
33:15With sonar locating the site, Timmy's team prepare to descend over 200 feet.
33:24They'll use deep-sea photogrammetry to scan the wreck.
33:33In clear Mediterranean waters, they make their way to an eerie shipwreck.
33:38It must have had a wooden hull, which has now disappeared, leaving a metal skeleton.
33:55The divers identify a distinctive feature, a set of torpedo tubes, one of which, amazingly, is still loaded.
34:08There's even a depth charge on the deck.
34:19Too dangerous to approach closely, they scan the 115-foot hulk.
34:38Back at the HQ, the team start to piece together a virtual model of the wreck.
34:50Oh, my gosh!
34:51You can clearly see that she's broken and with, you know, evidence for a catastrophic explosion right here in the middle.
35:01But what cost?
35:03If you look at the deck and superstructure that have actually been separated,
35:09you can perceive this powerful explosion coming up from the sea and exactly breaking the ship upwards before she sunk to the seabed.
35:19To me, everything points towards a sea mine.
35:23This is a victim of the German sea mines.
35:27But confusingly, this is a German ship.
35:30Marty and Pete have identified it as a schnell boat, or speed boat, capable of traveling at speeds of over 40 miles per hour.
35:44Records show that the wreck was known as S-31 and sunk in the early hours of May 10th, 1942.
35:51And now they can see exactly where.
35:54The S-31 sunk right here in this minefield or in this area, right, right here.
36:03That's right in the thick of it.
36:05The only conclusion is that this lightly armored torpedo boat must have been laying mines.
36:11Does that mean it would have hit its own mine, a German mine?
36:17Or one of the mines of her fellow ships?
36:20That's bad luck.
36:22And that can happen maneuvering in a mine-laying operation in the pre-dawn darkness.
36:26S-31 was a speed boat designated for hit-and-run attacks.
36:37But in a desperate move, the Germans were using it to offensively deploy sea mines.
36:42For two years, the Allies had clung onto this tiny rock, desperately holding off the Axis onslaught.
36:52As the siege drove Malta to the brink of surrender, the United States came to the rescue.
37:01In August 1942, a severely damaged American ship, the SS Ohio, maneuvered through the minefield to Malta.
37:10The blockade was over.
37:13Now, with American help, it was time for Malta to go on the offensive.
37:25Summer, 1943.
37:28America's entry into the Mediterranean was turning the tide of war.
37:32Now the Allies wanted to take the fight to the Axis in Italy, the soft underbelly of Europe.
37:39That July, Malta would be the launch pad for the biggest amphibious assault of the war so far, Operation Husky and the invasion of Sicily.
37:49The Allied armies desperately needed air cover for a mammoth invasion force of 2,700 ships.
38:00But where on Malta's rocky and crowded terrain could the U.S. Army possibly build an airfield?
38:06Marty has found one clue inside Malta's National Library.
38:16It's a 1961 recording of none other than General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
38:22The Americans needed a new fighter field right close by.
38:29The only spot that was possible to use was an island, an island, I think it was named Gozo.
38:37This was nothing but a mountain.
38:38From the time the equipment reached there, 13 days later, our first fighter flew on and off the field.
38:47Okay, this is incredible.
38:52Here we have the former President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
38:56the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II.
39:00And he's talking about the construction of an airfield to support the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.
39:08The Army needed more fighter strips, and so they built one on an island near Malta called Gozo.
39:14I wonder if there's anything left of that airfield today.
39:18Marty and Pete head four miles northwest from the mainland to the island of Gozo.
39:24They're on the hunt for Eisenhower's airfield built by the Americans in just 13 days.
39:31So where do you put an airfield on an island like this?
39:34That's a good question.
39:36Because if you want to fly high-performance fighters, you're going to need at least 5,000 feet.
39:40A flat runway.
39:42Yeah.
39:42That's not flat.
39:43Where on Gozo could the U.S. Army possibly build an operational airfield in less than two weeks?
39:53Marty can't find any Allied film or aerial photographs of the airfield.
39:57But in the winding streets of Gozo's capital, Victoria, he's meeting a historian called Charles Bezina.
40:08Here is the projected plan of the airfield in Gozo.
40:18So these were two airfields of 4,000 feet by 200 feet.
40:26The two runways were just earth, and records show that the U.S. Air Force flew 75 Spitfires from here for just five weeks.
40:35So was the airfield built just to support Operation Husky?
40:40That's all.
40:41On the 6th of August, 1943, the airfield was abandoned.
40:49So there's nothing left, not a trace?
40:51Nothing.
40:52It will be a challenge finding an airfield that was never tarmacked and which was only operational for five weeks in 1943.
41:01They'll have to rely on local knowledge.
41:04This is the back over here, behind my house.
41:10Over here, behind my house.
41:13All that's visible today are ordinary fields and a few buildings.
41:22But by using modern remote sensing technology, Pete hopes to peel back nearly 80 years of history and discover if this really is the site.
41:34He combines his scans of Gozo with LiDAR data gathered by the European Union and the Maltese government.
41:51As the data is processed, Pete creates a digital terrain model.
41:58But what will it reveal?
42:05You remember, we went to Gozo trying to find this mysterious airfield.
42:12What we need is proof.
42:13And I've got this Cheshire Cat grin on my face because here it is.
42:18That is irrefutable evidence.
42:24You can still see it.
42:25Look at that.
42:26For two runways.
42:28One there.
42:29There's no doubt that that is man-made earthworks going in this axis and one in this axis.
42:36That's grating and earth moving from 1943 that's still only visible to technology in the 21st century.
42:42I have to say, this feels good because this is actual discovery.
42:48You found the missing runway.
42:50Look at that.
42:51We did.
42:53For the first time in almost 80 years, the LiDAR has revealed the footprint of Gozo Airfield's two lost runways.
43:02From here, in 1943, American fighters provided vital air support for the successful invasion of Italy.
43:10Three years after Mussolini dropped the first bomb on Malta, his fate was sealed by an operation launched from the very same island.
43:23It was the beginning of the end for the axis.
43:26In July 1943, 75 British Spitfires flown by American pilots took off from this airfield to be a part of the air support for the invasion of Sicily,
43:43which opened the road to Rome, which opened the road to Berlin, and brought about the final collapse of the Third Reich.
43:53Malta fought a war on all fronts.
43:56On land, in the air, on water, and even underground.
44:01Its people had been tested like nowhere else.
44:06What I love about the story of Malta in World War II is that this tiny little island nation stopped the German juggernaut in its tracks.
44:17You know, what a great testament to the spirit of these people who just refused to give up.
44:26Patrimon with the truth was just because is that the biggest thing, the mind, what the cause of the island in Germany would be a very good one.
44:30What there are a lot of wet people that do?
44:32What dogs to keep in the drawing of the earth on the party of Malcolm Mourke?
44:36By the 혼in unterwegs for the people of the other organizations, the world of theube, the general animals were 35,000quinades, were surfing the aircraft.
44:39Samir kentz