It was now that a real life struggle for survival was melded with myth and fantasy to form a Legend. It was said that the Gladiators were fortuitously ‘discovered’ following the first Italian air raid. This is sadly untrue, when the Gladiator was taken onboard Britain’s aircraft carriers, squadron size parcels were located around the Empire, to offer replacements wherever they may be needed. With typical military efficiency their locations were well known and well documented. The decision to uncrate and erect four aircraft was just a matter of bye-passing the mountain of paperwork required to allocate and take them on charge. Although there were four aircraft, only three were ever serviceable at any time, this coupled with the sight of them operating in the conventional ‘vic’ formation gave strength to the legend that there were only ever 3 Gladiators defending Malta. The formation was given a variety of names, some called them Freeman, Hardy and Willis, others recalled Churchill’s words “Blood, Sweat and Tears”. Those of a humorous inclination referred to Pip, Squeak and Wilfred- three strip-cartoon characters in the Daily Mail. However the names by which the Gladiators have become famous are those which seem appropriate for that time of trial, “Faith, Hope and Charity” appealed to the strong religious basis of Maltese life. It is pointless to try and determine to which aircraft each name was allocated as this never happened. It was a general and indivisible title, the aircraft did not even carry squadron codes, other than a letter R on N5519. The myth of the 3 Gladiators was further strengthened after N5519 was seriously damaged during the first days of the attack and N5520 was damaged the following week. Two more Gladiators, N5523 and N5529 had been erected and tested and so the triumvirate continued. With every flight a ‘scramble’ to combat and up to 4 sorties a day, the little fighters flew with the throttle permanently wide open, engines were short lived. Hard pressed ground crews worked on the defending aircraft regardless of the attentions of the enemy. They managed to keep 3 aircraft serviceable by salvaging parts from unassembled or unserviceable aircraft. However they quickly ran out of engines but such a small inconvenience could not stop them. Also at Kalafrana were a number of crated Blenheim bombers, these had Bristol Mercury XV engines as opposed to the Gladiators Mercury VIIIA. It was no straight swap, the Blenheims engine was designed to drive a wide variety of auxiliary services and large modifications demanded all the skill of the hard pressed ground crew. This effort saw N5519 return to action on June 22nd, it’s 840hp Mercury VIIIA replaced with a 920hp XV, driving a three blade Hamilton Standard, variable pitch propeller in place of it’s fixed pitch twin blade. However, with the practice of flying with the throttle ‘through the gate’, the engine was short lived and engine failure led to the loss of the fighter on June 24th. To this was added the loss of a further Gladiator on 26th June, two days before the first Hurricanes arrived to bolster Malta’s defence. For eleven days Faith, Hope and Charity were Malta’s only defence, with pilots using a combination of bluff and aggression to hold off superior forces, however it was unheard of for any of the little fighters to return with full ammunition trays. By the end of October the islands defence was firmly in the hands of modern interceptor fighters and the sole remaining Gladiator flying from Malta must have seemed an anachronism. So, more than a few eyebrows must have been raised when this stoic little aircraft was joined by a second Gladiator....to be continued.....