Tribute was paid recently to a wartime Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot, Flt Lt Joe Hughes, when Alfred Conti Borda presented a framed copy of an article he had written on Hughes's life story to the Malta Aviation Museum, Ta' Qali.

The article was published in The Sunday Times on June 29, 2008, and the framed copy now hangs in the old World War II hangar.

Hughes, affectionately known as 'Spike' by his colleagues, joined the RAF in December 1940. He followed various courses in the USA and in Canada during 1941 and 1942. After qualifying as a navigator, he was posted to 76 Squadron flying Halifax bombers at Linton-on-Ouse in Yorkshire.

In the evening of May 23, 1943, the squadron was detailed to bomb Dortmund in northwest Germany, and then make a run for it over enemy-occupied Holland.

However, on reaching Holland, the plane was coned in by searchlights. A German night-fighter from the airfield at Venlo, on the Dutch-German border, attacked the bomber, hitting it several times, killing the two Canadian air gunners, setting it on fire. Hughes was captured and made a prisoner-of-war.

He was eventually liberated by British troops in April 1945. Weakened by his wartime ordeal, he spent the next couple of years in and out of hospital. In 1947 he rejoined the RAF, starting the Malta run by flying Dakota DC-3s based at RAF Oakington.

He later served in Meteor Night Fighters of 72 Squadron in 1956 and later joined Canberra fighter-bombers of 139 Squadron at Binbrook.

Promoted to Flight Lieutenant, Hughes visited Malta more often, especially when he was posted at RAF Waddington, serving on Canberras and then on Vulcan jet bombers of No. 9 Squadron in the 1960s.

He and his wife Isabel, whom he married in 1948, fell in love with Malta and bought a flat in Bugibba. They had twin daughters, Mary and Jayne.

Hughes died on January 3, 1993. His widow, now in her 80s, lives in Nottingham.