Re-writing history?

I must confess I was intrigued by the recent revelation made by a junior exponent of Heritage Malta in a leading news item on the national TV channel on September 8. The gentleman in question blatantly asserted that two original versions of the George Cross were sent to Malta way back in those dark days of April 1942, one carried by the incoming Governor, Lord Gort, and one by "sea mail", just in case the first one did not make it to the island on Lord Gort's aircraft. This is indeed news and Heritage Malta would do well to back up this assertion with documentation.

As far as my 40 years of research into Malta's wartime history have revealed so far, the only controversy about the actual arrival of the one and only medal arose when, some years back, Squadron Leader T. V. Betty, in his booklet Cross And Controversy - Malta 1942, claimed that the medal had not made it in time to Lord Gort's plane departing for Malta and that he was the pilot who actually flew it out on a later flight to Malta.

Mr Betty backs this claim by the fact that Lord Gort never showed the medal to Sir William Dobbie, the outgoing Governor, who met him for a few minutes at the sea plane base at Kalafrana before flying out to Gibraltar on the same aircraft. Lord Gort had tongue-in-cheek implied that the medal was in his pocket and Sir Dobbie apparently took his word for it and did not press the point.

Could Heritage Malta or the official who came up with this revelation quote chapter and verse as I shall be very interested in following this matter up. Till then perhaps the exhibition of the two "original" medals should be quietly and discreetly withdrawn.