An appeal to Germany

Joe Galea's excellent model of the Royal Opera House (December 20) brought back memories of April 1942. Those were terrible and dangerous times indeed. When, on April 7, the news that the Royal Opera House had been destroyed by enemy action reached my gun position, we became even more frustrated but also more determined to continue with the fight.

The enemy seemed unbeatable; they dominated mainland Europe and had arrived at Moscow's doorstep. Rommel was chasing the British and Commonwealth forces back to Egypt - the last hurdle to the Middle East oils. German u-boats were causing havoc in the Atlantic and the Japanese were all over the Far East getting closer and closer to Burma and India.

In Malta, the RAF were in crisis. During the continuous heavy air-raids in April, they were hardly ever in a position to have more than four fighters airborne and, quite often, none at all, leaving the defence of Malta entirely to the artillery. AA guns were restricted to 16 rounds per gun per day to save ammunition. The Luftwaffe started, even more often, to single out gun positions as their target. Gibraltar was the nearest friendly land to the west and Egypt to the east, both close to a thousand miles away...Malta was indeed in dire straits.

There were a few sweeteners: King George VI assumed the Colonelcy-in-Chief of the Royal Malta Artillery on April 3 and awarded the George Cross to Malta on the 15th. The Times of Malta informed us, on its front page in early May, that over 100 enemy planes had been destroyed by AA fire during April. These were morale raisers but did not change the situation.

As one would expect, our attitude towards the enemy could not be described as friendly - we had become very callous. No tears were shed when we noticed the lower jaw of one of the crew among the debris as we were collecting the propeller of a Ju87b for our Battery war trophy; nor did I make any attempt - I am ashamed to say - to stop my men cheering as we watched, from our gun position at Targa Gap, a member of the crew spiralling to his death over Ta' Qali, attached by his parachute to the tail of the JU88.

Happily, all this is now history and all our enemies have become our friends. Lufthansa and many other German companies are helping our economy but the ruins of the Royal Opera House are still a sad reminder of that awful experience.

A thought passed through my mind as I looked at the details of Mr Galea's model. Would it not be a wonderful gesture if Angela Merkel were to offer to help financially with the rebuilding of that beautiful building? And, perhaps, also of the Vittoriosa historical tower? The people of Malta and especially those of Valletta and Cottonera - both very heavily bombed residential areas - would be very appreciative and Ms Merkel would finally bring to a close a very sad and terrible chapter in the relationship between Malta and Germany.