From the outbreak of war in the Mediterranean during June 1940, Malta’s harbour and airfields came under Italian air attack. These strikes were mainly conducted in daylight, but increased in intensity after the arrival of Luftwaffe squadrons in Sicily at the end of the year. However, by the summer of 1941 most German units had been withdrawn to support the invasion of the Soviet Union, and to reduce their vulnerability the Italians began increasingly to mount night attacks. To counter these the AOC Malta decided to establish a dedicated night fighter flight from his existing fighter squadrons. At Ta’Qali on 30 July, the Malta Night Fighter Unit was formed under the command of 25-year-old Sqn Ldr George Powell-Shedden, initially leading a rather hand-to-mouth existence as its Hurricanes had to be borrowed from other squadrons.
The MNFU pilots began developing night tactics, helped by Malta’s radar sites — known under the cover name of Air Ministry Experimental Stations, or AMES — and searchlight batteries. Gradually the flight acquired its own aircraft, a mix of Hurricane IIbs and some cannon-armed MkIIcs, and saw its first action on the evening of 5 August when 15 Fiat BR20Ms of the Regia Ae…
