The firing of the daily noon-day gun at the Saluting Battery today marked the 70th anniversary from the date when the Upper Barrakka and the Saluting Battery received a direct hit during an enemy raid.

The event started at 11.55 a.m. with the sounding of an air raid warning.

The noon-day gun was then fired, to indicate the beginning of a two minute silence period to honour the death of Pte Samuel Ginies who lost his life on that occasion.

A second gun was fired to indicate the end of the silence period. This was followed with the sounding of the Raiders Passed using an original WW2 manual siren.

1941 in Malta had started with a blitz and ended with another. The first blitz has gone down in history books as the 'Illustrious Blitz'. The intensity of the attacks directed against HMS Illustrious and the Dockyard area brought a totally new dimension to the war experience in Malta.

The attacks on the island did not peter out when the Illustrious slipped out of the Grand Harbour on 23 January 1941, but kept going until June 1941 when the Germans redeployed their resources in view of the preparations for an attack on Russia.

The Russian diversion of the German war effort gave Malta a relatively quiet interlude in the course of which the island was used extensively for offensive operations against Axis shipping. Malta-based aircraft, ships and submarines dealt heavy blows to the maritime traffic between Italy and Libya, putting in serious jeopardy the Axis campaign in North Africa.

This led to a renewed and reinvigorated German resolve to neutralise Malta. In December 1941, the Luftwaffe returned to Sicily giving start to an unrelenting six-month blitz. During the last of the year 1941 there were no less than 169 enemy raids on Malta. The period December 18 to 31 was particularly heavy with attacks being launched every day. Not even Christmas day was spared. This became known as the Christmas Blitz.

On Wednesday, December 24 the enemy launched four attacks on the island. In the morning a raid was carried out by four JU 88 bombers, Valletta was targeted. The worst hit area was the Upper Barrakka and its surroundings. The Upper Barrakka was hit and a substantial part of balcony and the arches were demolished. Civilian properties in Battery Street, St Ursola Street and Melita Street were destroyed and damaged. The attack did not go unpunished for two of the enemy bombers were hit and damaged.

An unfortunate victim was Pte Samuel Ginies. He was taking cover under the Upper Barrakka balcony during the attack. When the garden was hit he was buried under the debris.

Ginies, who was from Sliema, was 18 when the tragedy hit. He was called up for service and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, a decision which was probably influenced by his involvement in the Boy Scouts. He was attached to the gun position located on the Saluting Battery. He was buried at the Pembroke Military Cemetery which is cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.