I was invited to take part in a staff ride/battlefield tour to Malta from Lyneham. It is an excellent venue to talk about proper joint operations as all three Services contributed to the island's defence in a truly coordinated fashion.
The experience of the locals need some investigation as well. They were living in the most perilous conditions and the strength of character showed was incredible. We went into some of the tunnels they dug by hand under Mosta. The entrance was in from the basement of a great little cafe. Mosta Dome is a beautiful church with a patch in the ceiling where, legend has it, a German bomb penetrated during a service, hit the floor, failed to detonate and skidded down the aisle and out into the street.
We stayed in the Intercontinental, St George's Bay. A MOD Central Hotel Booking Service error which lost the original booking for the entirely suitable 3-star meant they had to take whatever was available at short notice. My room was about 20 paces from the roof-top pool.
The hotel is round the corner from the bars and clubs of Placeville and a seemingly endless supply of Scandinavian English-language students
