At the end of the 18th century, the Maltese asked the British Navy in the Mediterranean, under the command of Horatio Nelson, to help them get rid of the French. Napoleon Bonaparte, on his way to conquer Egypt, had ousted, without a fight, the Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem who had ruled over Malta since 1530 and who had successfully defended Malta against the Turks in the Great Siege of 1565.

Soon after Napoleon’s departure, the Maltese had risen against the French garrison who took shelter inside the walls of Valletta, Manoel Island and Mdina. With British help, the French eventually surrendered and left.

The Maltese did not want the Knights back and instead asked the British to stay, using Malta as their Mediterranean Base in exchange for protection. The Maltese were Roman Catholics but were prepared to trust their future to a Protestant nation.

The arrangement worked peacefully and amicably over the years, except when the world situation was more peaceful than usual, as this nearly always, among other savings, developed in many of those temporarily employed by the British services getting the sack and there was no dole to fall on to. Then after nearly 140 years, in September 1939, World War II broke out.

My town, Sliema, just across the smaller harbour to the north west of Valletta, was popular with the Services. In the 1930s the harbour was home to two destroyer flotillas, some submarines, a hospital ship and a large number of smaller naval craft. The aircraft carriers, battleships and battle cruisers had their moorings in the Grand Harbour and provided a spectacular panorama from the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta.

The sailors loved Malta. There were four main Army Barracks – St George’s, St Andrew’s, St David’s and St Patrick’s. Three barracks were quite close to Sliema, one for the gunners and each of the other two housing an infantry battalion. Swordfish and Gladiator biplanes, temporarily at Ħal Far airfield while their aircraft-carrier was in port, often flew very low along the Sliema seafront probably hoping to get a glimpse of one of their girl friends. We usually gave them a wave and they always waved back. I often went to school by ferry to get a closer look at the destroyers. The Tribal Class were my favourites.

Sliema was also very popular with families of servicemen and many lived there in rented accommodation. I practised my English with Penry Greenaway whose father was a civilian technician with the navy. Our mothers became very good friends. Penry also had two very attractive sisters. Every year Royal Navy and Army units took part in a civilian football knockout competition for the Cassar Cup. The final match usually attracted close to 10,000 civilians and servicemen at the Empire Stadium.

The Services did not take part in the FA Trophy KO, that is still played for in the same way as the FA cup is organised in UK. The beautiful trophy was donated to Malta by the Football Association for the support given by a sizeable vociferous group of Maltese fans who in 1934 travelled to Rome to watch a friendly match between Italy and England. Sports was mostly introduced in Malta by the Services, who also provided some of the better referees and advisers.

There was no shortage of bands playing popular music, military tatoos, coast defence practice shoots complete with searchlights, soldiers in a hurry on route marches, Sunday church parade for sailors from the Ferries to St Patrick’s church with an officer at its head complete with sword in a black and gold sheath, and much more. A regular feature was a curtained omnibus drawn by a mule taking children to the Army School in St Andrew’s Barracks at five miles an hour.

I joined the territorials in June 1939, a few days after I was 18, to catch up with my friends who had already joined up. We were all privates in the King’s Own Malta Regiment. The unit was mobilised in August 1939 but, in October, I was allowed to attend lectures at the university in uniform on unpaid compassionate leave. It was then the Phoney War – nothing was happening – so in December 1939 I was discharged to continue with my studies.

Before the Battle for Malta was over, the island was to suffer well over another 3,000 air raids

On June 11, 1940, I caught a bus to Valletta as usual, but no lectures at the University were held that day because the previous evening Benito Mussolini, convinced that the war would be a short one, had declared war on Britain and France. The Allies were in complete disarray. It would soon be over and Italy would then share in the spoils of war.

Italian bombers had already started dropping their bombs. Soon after 7am that morning, six soldiers of the Royal Malta Artillery had died by enemy action when Fort St Elmo had been bombed. There were eight air-raids that day – 25 enemy aircraft took part in the evening raid during which 12 civilians also lost their lives.

Before the Battle for Malta was over, the island was to suffer well over another 3,000 air raids. Most of the Royal Navy ships had sailed to Alexandria. The University was to close indefinitely and the final exams due towards the end of the month were cancelled. The rector suggested that we take up war work. That afternoon, I went back to my unit and was given my old regimental number.

During the first few weeks of the war there was plenty of panic especially among civilians in the dockyard areas, many of whom decided to move their family to a safer place. Fortunately, the villagers welcomed them and shared their meagre accommodation. The arrangement eventually proved also beneficial to the villagers as they soon learnt that there were other ways of living besides the one they were used to.

There was also some panic in the Services. A local naval launch that had gone out of harbour to stop an Italian ship from being scuttled fell victim to the coast defence guns who had not been informed of its presence and a number of men were killed.

Everyone was aware that there were practically no RAF fighter planes to engage the enemy bombers and not many anti-aircraft guns either. Four naval Gladiator biplanes had been left at Kalafrana in their crates when the aircraft-carrier had to leave Malta in a hurry.

The Gladiators were very popular. Normally, only three were airborne at any one time – they were nicknamed Faith, Hope and Charity. They were being flown in action by RAF pilots who had not received any fighter training. The Maltese had collected money for the purchase of two Spitfires – named Malta and Għawdex – but they saw action elsewhere.

There was no hope of immediate help as Britain was itself in dire straits expecting to be invaded by the Germans at any moment, with only the English Channel to stop them from doing so immediately. Fortunately, most of the Expeditionary Force had managed to return to Britain from Belgium via Dunkirk.

Malta had been under fire for over a week when Britain’s new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, gave one of his famous speeches in the House of Commons. Every town and village had a loudspeaker in its main square relaying local and BBC news.

The following extracts from his speech were of great encouragement also to the Maltese: “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation... Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war... But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties... if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.”

By mid-December I was granted an emergency commission after attending an Officers Cadet course. I was given the choice of unit and I chose 2nd HAA Regiment, Royal Malta Artillery as they were already firing away at the enemy planes. My first gun position was Bengħisa on the south cliffs with Ħal Far airfield to the west and Kalafrana used by visiting four-engine Sunderland flying boats and seaplanes, to the east.

On my 10th day in officers’ uniform, I was detailed on No.2 gun to get used to the bangs as there were too many officers at the command post that day. We were manning three-inch 20 cwt guns – WW I relics – and luckily, on those guns, layers faced the rear when following the pointers on their dial. The guns were firing towards the Grand Harbour with our backs to the cliffs.

I was standing behind the gun when suddenly the gun layer got up from his seat and leapt towards me pushing me hard against the sandbags. “Sorry sir,” he said, “I did it to save your life,” and went back to his seat. All I had seen while on the ground facing upwards was a glimpse of a very low flying plane just above me.

After the shoot, everyone agreed that the plane had flown just 20 feet above the gun position and some said that it had dropped a bomb. My gun layer added that it also fired a machine gun at no. 2 gun and there were two dents on the gun mounting to prove it. The plane had dropped one bomb that landed on its side between No.2 and No.3 guns leaving a one inch curve on the hard ground and ricocheting more than a hundred yards into a field. No one was hurt. The bomb was later found and I took a snapshot of a young officer sitting on the bomb before the RAOC took it away for disposal.

After the invasion of Sicily in 1943 a map of Malta found in a captured Luftwaffe airfield accurately showed all gun positions

It was probably our first experience of the Luftwaffe – a much tougher nut to crack than the Italians whom we had all started to take in our stride. Many civilians had long ago started watching the raids from their flat roofs or from out of doors before being shooed away by Passive Defence personnel.

A few days later five Ju 87b dive-bombed a small ship at anchor in the middle of Marsaxlokk Bay, a mile or so away. It was an amazing sight. One after the other they dived to drop their bombs... their practically vertical dive is unforgettable.

The ship disappeared among the seawater splashing around it. They had been mistaken for Skuas RN bombers, that also had gull wings, on their way to Ħal Far airfield. No one had fired at them and they were gone at sea level before we all realised our mistake.

The Royal Engineers built standard concrete gun emplacements with adjoining sleeping accommodation and we had to assemble and install the four 3.7-inch guns that were delivered soon after. Luckily, our battery captain had served in Coast Defence and was fully qualified to handle equipment to lift heavy loads. We fired the new guns until April 1941 when we handed the site over to an RA troop newly arrived in Malta. I was in the rear party at the handover and was left holding the Bengħisa War Diary which lived in my box until April 15, 1942.

After the lone raider, we had never been attacked again in Bengħisa. The new occupants were, however, not so lucky – they were attacked 16 times in all. The dive bombers preferred attacking gun positions close to the sea to have a quicker and safer getaway.

The following are some of the events of note during my stay at Bengħisa:

• On January 16, 1941, I watched the first huge air-raid by the Luftwaffe on Malta . It was the first of several attacks on HMS Illustrious moored at a Dockyard quay. The aircraft carrier had been severely damaged by the enemy at sea and had limped into the Grand Harbour for patching up and to land her dead and wounded. I was outside the Vernon Club – an Other Ranks club – in Castile Square in Valletta and had a grandstand view across the harbour. The local AA barrage was being fired for the first time.

Some 60 Ju87b Stukas and Ju88s, besides fighters, took part in the raid in waves. They went through the barrage as if it was not there. At times the Gladiators also flew very close to, if not through, the gunfire. The scene has remained impressed in my mind ever since. In spite of even more heavy attacks, the aircraft-carrier was patched up, above and below sea level, well enough to slip out to sea at night three days later and sail to Alexandria under its own power. It was eventually repaired in the US. The towns close to the dockyard were very heavily bombed. The aircraft carrier also received one or two more hits. The enemy lost many aircraft.

• In early 1941, I picked up the propeller of a Ju 87b claimed by our sister troop. The plane had crashed halfway between our gun site and Ħal Far airfield. The propeller eventually became the RMA War Trophy and when 1st Regiment RMA marched into Luqa Barracks to become 1st Regiment AFM (Armed Forces of Malta), whose cap badge is still the RMA cap badge minus the crown, the propeller went with it. The propeller is now held at the Malta Aviation Museum at Ta’ Qali.

• We used to count the Swordfish and Albacores taking off from Ħal Far, while forming up on top of our gun position and count them again when they returned from their mission at dead of night, firing a code of coloured light flares to identify themselves as friendly;

• Watching a Hurricane being chased by two ME 109s a mile out at sea and not being able to do anything about it except to give a running commentary to our AA Operations Room (AAOR);

• Firing at an ME 109 chasing an unidentified and unannounced passenger plane landing at Ħal Far. The ME 109 abandoned the chase when it became aware of our rounds and those from LAA guns.

My next job was in charge of a Silent Gun Position in a field below Naxxar. We were billeted in Mosta less than a mile away. I had been promoted to Troop Commander but still in the rank of second lieutenant. There was an invasion scare.

Ta’ Qali airfield, which had just started being used as a Hurricane airfield, provided an excellent site for glider landings. Four three-inch 20 cwt guns had been deployed overlooking Ta’ Qali. The site was to remain silent and well camouflaged until the landings started and then used mainly in the ground role. Later it would revert to its normal HAA role. I managed to persuade an RAF sergeant-pilot to take me up in a two-seater Miles Magister to check on the gun site’s camouflage. My very first flight.

After the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, a map of Malta found in a captured Luftwaffe airfield was placed on show at the British Institute in Valletta. The map accurately showed all our gun positions.

(To be continued)