October 10, 1942

It happened exactly today 81 years ago – Saturday, October 10, 1942.

My parents had married at the beginning of World War II and I was five months old. My sister Lydia was about 18 months.

We lived together with my mother’s family in a large house on Ta’ Saguna Street in peaceful Sannat, Gozo.

Ġużeppi, my father, used to work at the small power station – Il-Magna tad-Dawl – in Victoria. He started working there when he was 14 years old and retired sometime in the 1980s having served mostly as an engine driver.

He used to cycle to work. Little did he think he would be in danger while cycling along the open fields from Sannat to Victoria.

Why would the enemy need to drop bombs over Gozo?

Rationed food

In those years, the authorities used to help people and families in need by offering them rationed oil, pasta and other foods… at special prices. And, in October 1942, the authorities offered rationed special biscuits to families with babies.

My parents were entitled to those biscuits since they had two young babies.

After finishing work that Saturday morning, my 29-year-old father picked up  the ration card for the biscuits from the Control Office in the Banca Giuratale at It-Tokk Square and cycled back hom, to Sannat.

My mother then immediately went to Tal-Kaċċatur grocery, near the parish church, to collect her share of biscuits.

An explosion

No sooner had she walked out of the house that she heard a huge explosion and found herself enveloped in a large thick cloud of red soil.

She immediately turned back and found to her horror that her family house and home had been hit.

Bombers approaching

As soon as my mother had left the house, Dad took me in his arms.

He heard the sound of aeroplanes approaching; it was very rare for aeroplanes to fly over the village.

He placed me – a five-months old baby – on the window sill at the back of the house, and told me: “I’ll show you an aeroplane, today.”

Uncle Michelangelo – my mother’s brother – was behind him hoping to catch a glimpse too.

That fateful hour

It was almost 10.15am. In the skies over Sannat, two British Royal Air Force Spitfires were chasing two German Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 twin-engined bombers.

In order to fly lighter and escape the chasing fighters, the Junkers released two large bombs, one of which fell in the fields just behind our home.

Our house collapsed in the shattering explosion, with only one wall left standing - the one on whose windowsill my father had placed me.  

Ruins, blasts and casualties

My father was found motionless face-up, half buried in the rubble. He suffered smoke inhalation as well as badly injured legs and spent two weeks in hospital. He would continue to suffer from those injuries for most of his life.

Uncle Michelangelo was found face downwards, almost buried in the debris, but fortunately, he survived too. 

Grandmother Tona was found crouched in a space luckily formed when a wardrobe toppled over and came to rest on a chest of drawers.

Alas, however, my sister, Lydia was hit by shrapnel and died about two hours after the explosion, in the arms of auntie Gerita, my mother’s sister.

A ladder …

As soon as my horrified mother saw me, somehow still on the windowsill, she shouted for a ladder “to bring down and save that baby”. Help was quickly at hand.

The second bomb from the Junkers hit houses near the old school building and close to a bakery, causing more casualties.

As soon as he heard of the tragedy, Dr Emmanuel Caruana, who was on duty in Gozo at the time, drove to Sannat and gave his most appreciated help.

I never heard either of my parents describe how the rest of mother’s family survived the explosion. What I know for certain is that on that fateful Saturday of 81 years ago Sannat lost 18 people, including children and babies, among them my sister Lydia.