Yorkshire Regiment War Graves, - Marsa Jewish Cemetery, Malta

Marsa Jewish Cemetery, Malta
Photo : Commonwealth War Graves Commission

From the spring of 1915, the hospitals and convalescent depots established on the islands of Malta and Gozo dealt with over 135,000 sick and wounded, chiefly from the campaigns in Gallipoli and Salonika, although increased submarine activity in the Mediterranean meant that fewer hospital ships were sent to the island from May 1917.

During the Second World War, Malta's position in the Mediterranean was of enormous Allied strategic importance. Heavily fortified, the island was never invaded, but was subjected to continual bombardment and blockade between Italy's entry into the war in June 1940 and the Axis defeat at El Alamein in November 1942. At the height of Axis attempts to break Malta's resistance in April 1942, the island and her people were awarded the George Cross by King George VI.

Malta's defence relied upon a combined operation in which the contributions made by the three branches of the armed forces and Merchant Navy were equally crucial. Although heavily pressed in defence, offensive raids launched from the island by air and sea had a crippling effect on the Axis lines of communication with North Africa, and played a vital part in the eventual Allied success there.

Marsa Jewish Cemetery contains one Commonwealth burial of the First World War and two from the Second World War. The Commission also cares for one non-war burial in the cemetery, and two war graves of other nationalities.

The earth is shallow on Malta and during both wars, many joint or collective burials were made as graves had to be cut into the underlying rock. During the Second World War, such work was particularly hazardous because of air raids. Most of these graves are marked by recumbent markers on which several inscriptions could be carved, and for the sake of uniformity, the same type of marker was used for single graves.

1 soldier who served with the Yorkshire Regiment is buried in this cemetery.

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2nd Lieutenant Owen Stirling Melhado. 5th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment, attached to 11th Battalion. Commissioned on the Field. Son of Reginald and Irene Melhado, of Devon House, Half Way Tree, Jamaica, British West Indies. Died 7 December 1915. Aged 23. **Lieutenant Melhado was one of 16 soldiers who served in the Yorkshire Regiment who are commemorated in the British Jewry Book of Honour. Of the 50,000 Jews who served with the British and Colonial Forces during the First World War, 2,324 lost their lives and are commemorated in this book. Photo : Eman Bonnici

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