Rescuers at the scene of the tragedy at the Regent Cinema, Valletta. Photos: Malta at War, Volume 4, by John Mizzi and Mark Anthony Vella.Rescuers at the scene of the tragedy at the Regent Cinema, Valletta. Photos: Malta at War, Volume 4, by John Mizzi and Mark Anthony Vella.

Francis Lauri is now 92 years old, but despite his age, he vividly remembers his youth. Born in Valletta in 1921, and the youngest of 18 siblings (eight of whom died during birth), he is proud of the city and on many a morning he grabs his walking stick and makes his way gingerly through Republic Street for exercise.

Affably known as is-Sur Ċikk or Ċikku, he is a highly respected gentleman and an active member of the parish church of St Paul. Lauri has always lived in the capital city.

He was employed by the British Services in 1938 and served as a clerk at the office called Garrison Adjutant Malta and Libya, at Castille. In due course, he was transferred to Luqa aerodrome. At that time Lauri, still a teenager, was fond of travelling with Tirrenia Lines on the Città di Messina. This ship plied between Italian ports and Tripoli, Sfax, Benghazi and Tobruk.

When the war started in Europe in September 1939, many people in Britain thought it would be a localised affair limited in time and place and that the troops heading for France would return home before long. In fact, the term ‘phoney war’ came in use at the beginning of 1940 as there did not seem to be any real fighting in the west and the belligerents seemed to be employing the same trench warfare tactics of World War I. But with the German invasion of western Europe in 1940, these thoughts were quickly discarded.

On June 11, 1940, Italian bombers of the Regia Aeronautica attacked Malta. They caused civilian death in Paola, Cospicua, Vittoriosa, Żabbar, Portes des Bombes, Msida, Gżira, Sliema and Pietà, and left many injured. Six Maltese soldiers were also killed at Fort St Elmo in Valletta.

The war had started in real earnest for the island and the British forces realised they had been caught napping. Many Maltese sought to live in the centre of the island or in Gozo, either with friends or relatives where they felt safer. In fact, Lauri’s mother and the rest of the family went to live with her daughter in Hamrun, while he and his father remained in Valletta.

Lauri recalls the heavy German attack on the aircraft carrier Illustrious at Parlatorio Wharf. He was living in a house in Old Theatre Street, corner with Old Bakery Street, exactly on top of the present Manoel Cafe.

At about 2.30pm, he was peering carefully from the balcony with his father and witnessed the planes diving on their quarry. Ċikku says they were flying so low he could see the pilots’ faces. One plane in particular dived on Kingsgate, veered to port into Old Mint Street and dropped two large bombs there.

These exploded on a block of flats behind the Lauris’ house, and a huge cloud of dust erupted. Scurrying outside, Ċikku, together with a few other men, began removing debris with their bare hands to recover the people underneath. These included the three-week-old baby of his sister, Virginia.

Fortunately the latter and all her children survived, save for a few scratches and dust all over them from the low ceiling of a shelter in the basement. However, among the casualties there was a woman who later succumbed to her injuries.

Referring to the tactics employed by the enemy in the blitz on Britain in 1940, Ċikku recalls two sad events in particular. The Luftwaffe had carefully observed places where large numbers of people used to take shelter. On September 10 of that year, Halsville Junior School, in the East End of London, which was crowded with refugees, was bombed, and 600 people were buried alive. And in West Ham, 450 people were killed when a bomb hit an air raid shelter in November.

He had just left the cinema before the end of the film and was about to turn from Kingsway… when the Regent Cinema disintegrated in a few seconds

Similar actions were used by the enemy during their raids on Malta. Lauri remembers that because of the war, Carnival festivities had been cancelled indefinitely. On Carnival Sunday, February 15, 1942, at 5pm, a solitary Junkers 88 bomber turned inland towards Fort St Elmo and released a stick of four 250-kilogramme bombs on Valletta.

One hit the Casino Maltese, killing two of members of staff and six patrons, another fell in the upper courtyard of the Palace, the third in Queen’s (Republic) Square and the fourth smashed into the Regent Cinema.

The auditorium was full of people for the afternoon show of the film Northwest Mounted Police, starring Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll. The building collapsed on the audience, most of whom were servicemen enjoying their Sunday leave.

Reports say 15 civilians, mostly teen­agers, and 26 servicemen perished, while 29 were wounded. But John A. Mizzi, in Malta at War, Volume IV, puts the tally at 20 civilians and over 80 servicemen killed inside the cinema, besides 38 civilians and an unknown number of servicemen injured.

In a few minutes, ambulances of the Royal Air Force, Navy and Army came rushing in to cart away the dead and tend to the wounded. They were helped by servicemen and civilians who had been sheltering nearby, followed by the Police and Air Raid Precautions (ARP) squads.

Lauri thanked his lucky stars. He had just left the cinema before the end of the film and was about to turn from Kingsway (now Republic Street) into St Lucy Street when the Regent Cinema disintegrated in a few seconds. He says it was a very frightening scene he will never forget. Besides this scene of death he also saw two horses in St Lucy Street whose bellies had been ripped apart by shell splinters. Among the deceased that day was also a Carmelite father.

One day, Lauri met a Spitfire pilot at Luqa and asked the airman what he would do in case his ammunition had finished in a dogfight with an enemy plane. The reply was concise and to the point: “I would ram the b******.” The fight had become a personal one.

Nazi pilots had become so daring as to land their machine on uncultivated flat ground and then immediately take off. It was a bold move to challenge the defenders and to prove that they could do so with impunity. Unfortunately, on that day, the RAF had not one available aircraft to hit back. The defence of the island relied solely on anti-aircraft fire.

Ċikku relates that the population had become so used to hearing siren warnings of an imminent air raid that they sometimes did not take precautionary measures and find shelter, often with fatal consequences. He adds that it was usually on a birthday celebration round a very plain cake that familiar faces were missed because they had not survived the blitz.

It was exhilarating to watch the spectacular aerial fights between the defending RAF fighters and the Luftwaffe. The struggle between life and death took place at various heights, and vapour contour trails of flying machines weaved a crazy pattern across thousands of feet of azure sky.

One day, there were so many continuous air raids that red flags denoting danger were raised from every bastion or vantage point for 24 hours at a stretch. Lauri narrates that he was in a shelter in Old Bakery Street and noted that an old man, holding a fisherman’s basket, was emerging from the arch of the place called il-Fossa.

Ċikku ran towards him and asked him whether he had any fish to sell. “Two, and I had to stop because of the raids,” was the reply. Lauri asked whether he wished to sell them. “You may have them,” the man replied. These sweet words sounded like manna from heaven during a time of near starvation. So Ċikku dug in his pockets, drew out all the small change he had and gave them to the old fisherman, who thanked him.

At home, Ċikku’s mother praised her boy for the lovely fish but wondered how on earth she was going to cook them. The family had neither oil for frying nor coal for heating. But they did have a small amount of oil bought at a high price on the black market. They also had pieces of wood taken from smashed apertures of bombed houses. It was a king’s meal in circumstances of famine and destitution.

Lauri recalls that there was one particular man who had spent his whole time living in a shelter. In early 1943, the enemy ceased massive incursions over the island, but one or two Ju 88s, the Luftwaffe’s most versatile fighter bombers, were carrying out sharp attacks when they were least expected. They were sneaking in, skimming the sea surface at ‘nought’ feet (about 15 metres) to avoid detection by the island’s radars, jettisoning their bombs and then making quick getaway.

The population had become so used to hearing sirens warning of an imminent air raid that they sometimes did not take measures to shelter themselves, often with fatal consequences

It was on one of these days that this particular fellow ventured out of his ‘nest’ and unfortunately ‘bought a packet’. Lauri says that this man was very unlucky to lose his life during the last days of the war in Malta.

He narrates that one day, when he and his father were away from home, the corner premises was destroyed in a raid, but after the war, flats were built instead through the help of the War Damage Commission. His family lived in one of the flats, which was later rented to his sister. He moved into his present residence in Valletta a long time ago.

Lauri does not remember when he retired from the G.A.M.L. office at Castille. He joined his father’s business, a shop selling cameos at the former Kingsway in the 1950s and 1960s. In the porch of this retail outlet, there was a large weighing machine with a dial. Many young children were genuinely excitement to insert a penny in the machine and watch a thin long needle going round the gauge to indicate their weight and print it on a ticket.

Some did this more than once a week, and were obviously disappointed when they noticed that their weight had hardly changed, but it was in such simple things – that of watching a machine, which is now a museum piece – that children found something interesting to while away time.

Lauri retired from the business many years ago but he is one of the few Maltese survivors of World War II. He is a mine of information from a time when Malta was at the end of its tether, when democracy was at stake, and when the free world was embroiled in a conflict which cost many lives, destroyed countless of homes, and when millions of people were displaced far and wide in many places all over the globe.

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.