I read the feature article ‘Honouring the memory of Maltese sailors lost on HMS Glorious’, by Saviour Azzopardi (The Sunday Times of Malta, March 5) with interest.

The author claims that “for Malta this will always be our worst naval disaster”. If he meant that this is the worst incident during the Second World War, I would agree with him.

Otherwise the worst naval disaster occurred on January 20, 1918, when HMS Louvain was torpedoed and sunk by U-Boat UC-22 in the Kelos Strait in the Aegean Sea with the loss of 224 lives.

Out of these there were 77 Maltese nationals, including my maternal grandmother’s brother, George Vella, who was 32, leaving his widow pregnant with his only child, Georgina.

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