LOCAL
WORDS MATTHEW CAMILLERI (TOUR GUIDE AT COLOUR MY TRAVEL)
O F F T H E B E A T E N T R A C K I L- W I D N A , M A G Ħ T A B
WHEN WALKING ALONG THE VICTORIA LINES, IN THE STRETCH BETWEEN NAXXAR GAP AND WIED ANĠLU, ONE CAN SEE ON THE LOW GROUND BENEATH, A PECULIAR, CONCAVE, CONCRETE STRUCTURE, SURROUNDED BY TELECOMMUNICATION ANTENNAS. ALTHOUGH THE ANTENNAS ARE MODERN, THE STRUCTURE ITSELF DATES BACK TO THE 1930s, AND WAS A PRECURSOR TO RADAR, INTENDED TO PROTECT MALTA FROM AIR ATTACKS. Throughout the 1930s, mounting tensions between Great Britain
system, known as a Parabolic Acoustic Mirror, or il-Widna (the ear),
and Italy, and fears that the Italians might launch a surprise
as the locals aptly called it.
invasion of Malta, led to a reassessment of the island’s defences. Pillboxes were constructed to defend key points, while barbed wire
The concept of acoustic mirrors was developed in the interwar
entanglements and other obstacles ringed Malta’s coastline. The
period. These concrete structures were intended to detect incoming
old coastal forts came alive again, as a programme of rearmament
enemy aircraft by listening for the sound of their engines. Over a
was launched.
dozen such structures were built along the south coast of England, the most famous of which still stand at Denge, on the Dungeness
Yet, whereas up to this point, the main threat to the Maltese
peninsula, and at Hythe in Kent.
Islands had always come from the sea, the fact that Sicily was only 30 minutes flying time away meant that the aerial threat was
Further acoustic mirrors were planned for the British outposts
now much more serious, and new measures had to be taken. One
of Malta, Gibraltar, and Singapore, although in the end, only
of these was the construction of an experimental early-warning
in Malta were a number of suitable sites identified. The first to
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