Most of the internees exiled to Uganda by the British during World War II were up early 64 years ago today, preparing to welcome 1944 with a day of sombre religious celebrations in their camp in Bombo.

Predictably, they had staunchly, or stubornly some might say, clung to their beliefs throughout their ordeal, apparently keeping alive not only their zeal for the Catholic faith but also the Italianità that had landed them there in the first place.

"The homily was given in Italian, which is the language of the Maltese group," a fellow Hungarian exile Fr Patrick Perjes wrote about the day in his diary.

He had stepped in as their spiritual director, instead of Mgr Albert Pantalleresco, who had opted to live with the former Chief Justice, Sir Arturo Mercieca and his family, in the bungalo they had been assigned, not too far but separated from the rest of the internees.

There were 43 Maltese exiles in all and they had been in Bombo since April that year.

Sir Arturo and his family had received something like preferential treatment, unlike other high profile exiles such as Nationalist Party leader Nerik Mizzi who, as Fr Perjes describes later on in his diary, were often ordered to carry out the most undignified of tasks. This not to mention the about 20 Dockyard workers who were at times snubbed by their fellow exiles.

"Native servants," he noted in a characteristically colonialist comment, "stand surprised and confused... they have never seen white people doing lowly functions of this kind."

However, their sojourn in Bombo, the first of three camps the Maltese stayed in when in Uganda, was overall not too unpleasent, save for the bouts of malaria which spread around shortly after they arrived.

It certainly marked an improvement over the harrowing journey through the Middle East and Sudan before they got there and was better still than the camps they were eventually transferred to in Sorotti and Entebbe.

Some 40 kilometres west of the capital Kampala, much has changed in the camp today, now the headquarters of the Ugandan army. Yet, amazingly, there is a very great probability that the Merciecas' bungalo is still standing, largely as it was then.

I visited the place last month with several other Maltese journalists, when covering the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

One of the structures in the old part of the barracks, where the buildings date back to the 1920s, looks almost exactly like that featured in a period picture of Sir Arturo's bungalo taken in 1942.

Max Farrugia, the author of the latest book on L-Internament u L-Eziju, says he is convinced the place is the same.

Historian Henry Frendo, who also wrote extensively about the subject, would not go that far but concedes the place may well be an upgraded version of the same edifice.

The house has had the roof replaced but it still follows the same angles as the original one. A room was built on the right side of what was previously a part of the verandah, yet the basic structure is the same.

The house in the recent picture has two steps more than the one featured in the 1942 picture, however this could be explained as an extension, added when the grounds surrounding the house were re-levelled and paved. Even the columns appear to be identical.

In effect, it is quite surprising there is anything left of the old barracks, considering that the place has been a hive of military activity ever since.

During Idi Amin's time, it was the headquarters of the infamous Nubian troops - the executive arm behind the atrocities committed under his bloody reign.

Most of the period buidings were pulled down in those years and replaced with new units, yet, the house which appears in the picture stands along with another four similar structures built in 1927. The army chief at the barracks arranged for us to interview two veterans who served in Bombo at the time as clerks. Both in poor health, they could not recall whether they had come across the Maltese group.

Prof. Frendo thinks it would be worthwhile funding a research project, retracing the footsteps of the internees.

Judging by the controversy the subject still generates, it is easy to anticipate that the idea would come across staunch opposition.

For now, however, some may take comfort in the fact that a portion of the physical evidence seems to be waiting for such as investigation.

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