Maltese serviceman’s wartime experiences

I would like to point out a number of historical inaccuracies in Peter Farrugia’s ‘A Maltese Odyssey’ (The Sunday Times, November 6).

The reference to HMS Russell is totally incorrect, as the battleship did not assist any British troops defending Turkey from the German Army in the First World War. Rather the opposite.

Turkey was an ally of Germany and had just repelled an assault by the combined Anglo-French force which had attacked the Gallipoli peninsula.

Russell formed part of a Royal Navy squadron patrolling the Aegean to keep watch on two German warships to prevent them passing through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean.

It had arrived off Malta on the morning of April 25, 1916, from the Greek island of Lemnos, when it hit two mines and sank, many of its crew dying after being rescued from the sea from the effect of poison from burning cordite fumes from its magazine. They are all buried at Kalkara naval cemetery. Emi Farrugia and divers have often dived on the wreck which stands upright on the seabed.

HMS Kelly did not participate in the evacuation from Dieppe in June 1940 as it was undergoing repairs after being hit by a torpedo off Norway several months earlier.

There were no Israeli prisoners-of-war in Cyprus post-war as Israel did not exist. The Americans were not involved at all, and did not offer to replace British troops, as Palestine was then a British mandated territory and the Royal Navy from Malta was patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean to prohibit Jews from Europe breaking the blockade into the region.

Incidentally, sailors serve in (not on) ships, aboard (not on board). The name of a ship takes the definite article only when mentioned by name but not when it is identified as HMS.

To conclude an article on the bravery of the Maltese people with a quote from Roosevelt and not with the award of the George Cross shows a crass lack of appreciation of the island’s past.