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Many Maltese civilians were injured as a result of the Axis bombings. There were, however, relatively few fatalities. Medical supplies ran low. Incredibly given the intensity of the bombing, only 1,300 civilians were killed. People in Valletta and 'the three cities' were evacuated. Malta is a good example as just what an inefficient way bombing is in killing people. This was true that civilian populations had many ways of avoiding the bombing,especially with effective civil defense systems. . In addition, bombing was a hugely expensive way of killing people. Bombers and the substantial infrastructure needed to support them were not only enormously expensive, but exposed the attacking force to a range of deadly effective air defenses. We watch documentary after World War II documentary that goes on and on about the deaths attributable to bombing along with extensive film footage of Allied bombing. This is a very false impression. Tens of millions of civilians were killed in World War II, but the vast majority were killed by the Axis powers who found far more lethal and less expensive ways of killing people than bombing. Notice that despite a huge effort by the Germans and Italians, only 1,300 civilians were killed. And Malta began the War without a single bomb shelter or any form of air defense. The Axis bombing during World War II was very effective at destroying buildings and infrastructure, but there were many far more effective ways of killing people. Bombing lethality was just not what many authors expected or reported after the War. The American bombing of Japan was more lethal than that of Germany, but even so it was a small fraction of civilian deaths in Asia.
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