Put this one on your summer reading list. I found it quietly gathering dust on our library's shelves:
The Gun Garden, by Paul Stanton, (1965).
From the dust jacket:
"Malta 1942 - a thousand miles from friends, isolated, beseiged, blitzed, bombed, desperately short of oil, ammunition, ships, aircraft, fuel, slowly being starved into surrender...
"Into that hopeless situation, token of the British attitude that attack is the best defense, fly two Wellington aircraft equipped with secret long-range radar. Their role is to find enemy convoys proceeeding at night from Italy to Africa, and to lead a tiny naval force of cruiser and destroyer through the darkness on to the unsuspecting target. One is captained by a dedicated RAF pilot, the other by a typical twenty-one year old.
"Hastily trained, carefree, unwarlike, Peter Forrester is unwillingly pitchforked into this island of heroes - and heroines, for it is here that he meets Miranda Blake, daughter of a naval captain and a plotter in Barracca HQ...
"Far from being the usual tight-lipped RAF story, this novel is delicately balanced between love and war, between humor and sadness, between guns and gardens. And since it was inspired by Paul Stanton's own experiences there. the book brings vividly back to life the exciting story of the Second Seige of Malta"
Look for it at your local public library.
