War veteran Arthur Batey has been to Malta three times. He sailed into the Grand Harbour as part of the Santa Marija convoy. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

When three badly-beaten ships appeared on the horizon on that scorching August 13, 1942, thousands of starving Maltese ran to the Grand Harbour to cheer the first units of what would forever be known as the Santa Marija convoy.

An 18-year old man from Lancashire, Arthur Batey, was on the first ship to enter port. On what his son Ian believes might be his last trip to the island, the father-of-two remembers that day “as if it were yesterday”.

“Malta looked like a dustbowl, a mound of rubble. There was devastation everywhere but, despite the starving, people were absolutely wonderful,” he says.

Malta was first attacked in 1940 and by 1941 food was already scarce.

In June 1942, the UK ordered that the necessary provisions be sent to the islands but the convoy never made it to Malta.

A few weeks later, on August 3, another fleet of 14 ships left Liverpool with more than 80,000 tonnes of provisions including food and fuel. Operation Pedestal was to be etched in the annals of maritime history and save Malta from capitulation.

The fleet managed to slip into the Mediterranean unnoticed but all hell broke loose on August 11 as the ships approached Sicily. The convoy was heavily bombed from all sides and, once again, all seemed lost.

However, two days later, three ships – Port Chalmers, Rochester Castle and Melbourne Star – made it to the Grand Harbour.

The freighter MV Brisbane Star sailed in on the eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the badly damaged Ohio tanker arrived on August 15 with a destroyer on each side.

Mr Batey had just joined the Royal Navy and was selected for combined operations training (special troops selected from the army, the navy and the air force).

He was sent to Malta after just 12 weeks of training. Operation Pedestal was his baptism of fire, which he believes got him “toughened up” for the rest of his life.

His most vivid memory of the trip that injected new hope in the Maltese people is when the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, which was sailing very close to Port Chalmers, got hit with three torpedoes on one side.

“I could see the planes sliding off the deck of the ship one by one,” the 88-year old says, as he swings his hands from left to right, imitating the movement of the sinking aircraft.

“I was frightened. I was scared, believe me. I never knew where the next one was coming from,” he adds, referring to the barrage of torpedoes.

Later on, off Pantelleria, a bomber dropped a torpedo on Port Chalmers.

“The torpedo was coming straight at us but somebody saw it and we turned the ship around just in time,” he recalls.

But he bomb got stuck between the ship’s side and the paravane, a cable circling the vessel and which acts as a minesweeper.

“It kept bouncing off the side of the ship, so the captain ordered the release of the cable. The torpedo went right down to the bottom of the sea and when it hit the bottom there was a real explosion...

“That’s all I can tell you,” he says, shaking his head as if to rid his mind of this memory.

“Pantelleria was bad. We now had no protection against mines and Eagles were firing from all sides. When we set sail again, we were going to turn back but a destroyer that pulled up alongside Port Chalmers told us: ‘Keep on course, skipper. Keep on your course, skipper’,” Mr Batey recalls, looking in the distance.

“It was night-time. We were in pitch darkness and couldn’t see anything. We kept on sailing but when the sun rose, there was no destroyer. We were on our own,” he chuckles nostalgically.

In the end, Mr Batey, who has been awarded five campaign medals, believes it was “definitely worth it” that Port Chalmers had kept sailing towards Malta.

“So we kept going on our own and, then, on the horizon we saw burning ships... black smoke going up in the air... and Malta.

“The island looked terrible, simply devastating. And to be back after 70 years, oh my goodness, what a difference,” his voice trails off.

Mr Batey, who formed part of the landing craft brigade, helped unload the SS Ohio and other ships, as bombs whizzed by. 

But Mr Batey’s war adventures did not stop there.

One day, during the team’s six-month stay in Malta, the brigade had to take an army truck to Gozo. As they were crossing the channel, they were showered with bullets and had to take refuge in a cave in Comino.

“I don’t know what type of plane it was. I didn’t have time to look,” he laughs.

Mr Batey has been to the island three times since that day in August of 1942 when he first set eyes on Malta.

Later on, the war took Mr Batey to Italy and Holland. He also helped land the Americans on Omaha beach on D-Day. He was demobbed in Bombay, India, in 1946 before he got married to the late Winifred Ford-Batey.