In its Showtime Supplement (April 4), The Times carried an article on the re-enactment of the ceremony of presentation of the George Cross by Lord Gort in 1942 to be held later this month in Valletta. The writer has not the slightest idea of his subject and the article is inaccurate and flippant and in no way reflects the ordeal the islands went through during the World War War II. He is wrong right from the first sentence when he writes of "King George VI of England" when he was in fact King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and of the Empire, of which Malta was part - hence his authority to make the award. He does not even know elementary history as the last King of England was William III of Orange (1659-1702).

The award was made not only to the people of Malta but to the Garrison which included the three Services, not least the Maltese Regiments and the Royal Air Force whose airmen came from all parts of the Empire and from the United States.

Carpet bombing was carried out by the Luftwaffe only during late March 1942 on Ta' Qali and not throughout the war, as the article implies. This was the first example of carpet bombing in the whole war. The carpet bombing carried out by the RAF and US Air Force over Germany later far surpassed that on Malta, although Ta' Qali airfield was repeatedly pasted in massive attacks.

To compare the three years of bombing over Malta with the London blitz is like comparing an elephant with a mouse ‒ the blitz on London was a different kind of bombing altogether. Between March 20 and April 28, 1942, the Luftwaffe flew over Malta 5,807 sorties by bombers, 5,667 by fighters and 345 by reconnaissance aircraft and dropped 6,557,231 kilograms of bombs, which equalled the tonnage dropped on the whole of Britain at the height of that battle in September 1940.

The writer is grossly misleading when he writes: "By the end of the siege virtually the only target left untouched was the Grand Master's Palace in Valletta which German Field Marshal Kesselring had earmarked as his official residence ..." This is totally wrong and without foundation. The palace was hit several times. I should know as I was inside during one such attack. Kesselring was the overall German commander for Southern Europe and was only involved indirectly in the occupation of Malta which was left in the hands of the Italian High Command, which would have appointed its own Italian administrator had the island been taken. The Italians in fact planned Operazione C3 but were reluctant to carry out the assault and frequently stressed with their German partners their lack of proper preparations and the possibility of failure.

There were more than three Gladiator aircraft at the outbreak of the war. The Fairey (not Fairy as in the article) Swordfish was a naval biplane which was flown by the Fleet Air Arm and by no stretch of the imagination can be described as part of the air defence.

Malta right from the start of the war was not bereft of fire-power ‒ there were plenty of guns and the island had radar, the only place outside the United Kingdom, a system of defence the Italians did not have in the war.

To pour scorn on the Italian army by stating that a company of boy scouts or the KOMR would have been more than a match is to insult the Italian services who were brave but ill-equipped and had no heart for the war but fought on and died for the Patria. The exploits and courage of their frogmen and their torpedo-aircraft crews were legendary.

Much is made of the arrival of the August 1942 convoy but there were equally important convoys which were vital to the survival of Malta, with heavy losses of merchant ships and warships and their crews.

The George Cross was awarded months before Operation Pedestal, officially as the Santa Maria convoy was known.

In March 1942 four ships of Convoy MW 10 were escorted by a handful of British warships who fought off a vastly superior Italian naval squadron in the Second Battle of Sirte, to shepherd them to the island only for the ships to be sunk near or at Malta because of lack of urgency in their unloading, a state of affairs that led the British Prime Minister, Mr Churchill, to recall General Sir William Dobbie from governor and replace him with Lord Gort. Gort arrived in May bringing the George Cross with him and this was displayed in the squares of the various towns and villages until the formal presentation in September 1942.

I am sure the Malta Tourism Authority can produce a worthy re-enactment of the event.