Early German Glider Bomb used 19th Jan 1941

[Larry]

According to Tony O'Toole's book 'No Place For Beginners' regarding the airwar over Malta in 1940-41, on 19th January 1941 the Germans deployed a Glider Bomb to attack HMS Illustrious in Grand Harbour, Valetta. The bomb failed to explode so was defused and sent to the UK for examination. This was some two and a half years before Fritz X was first used in anger, so what was this weapon, and do any photos exist.

[Andrei Demjanko]

Larry

Report of Verbindungsstab zur Italienischen Luftwaffe concerning activities of X. Fliegerkorps on this date says 42 500kg bombs (no type mentioned) were dropped in the morning by Ju 87's and 34 1000kg and 25 500kg bombs were dropped by Ju 88's in the afternoon (again no types of bombs mentioned, although hits on the dock with SC 500 and SC 1000 bombs reported). There is no mention in this document that some special ordnance was deployed

[Orwell1984]

I did some digging in the book UXB Malta: Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal 1940-1944 and found reference on page 33-4 to an account by Major R C M Parker GM Account of defuzing of a radio-conrolled bomb recovered from Vittoriosa or Cospicua January 1941 [1980] (National War Museum Association, Malta) . Parker likens the bomb to a PC 1400FX bomb, which is noted wasn't used until 1943. The author notes the actual physical description of the bomb Parker provides seems to indicate a 'G' mine (BM1000) or given that it is reported as sky blue a 1000 kg Easu or 1400 Fritz anti-armour bomb both of which were sky blue with aluminimum tails according to the book. It should be noted that Parker was involved in the recovery and report writing of the recovery of the first PC500 RS bomb in Malta in January 1 1942. [details attached] Given his account was written in 1980, it is possible the two incidents were conflated.

Here's a description of the January 1941 'unknown bomb incident' described by Parker a Lance Sergeant at the time:
https://maltagc70.wordpress.com/2016/01/page/2/

Sorry I wasn't able to provide anything definitive.