Charles Debono’s ‘Hurricanes in Battle of Malta’ (The Sunday Times, August 15) made very disappointing reading on many counts, especially due to a number of errors and omissions that beg to be corrected.
‘Battle for Malta’ would have been more appropriate in the title, which is in any way misleading as the feature ends at the end of 1940 when the proper Hurricane ‘battle’ had hardly begun; Hurricanes continued to bear the brunt of fighting over Malta until the arrival of Spitfires in March 1942.
Pilots of Operation Hurry were not ‘seconded’ from the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) as claimed. Royal Air Force pilots performed all Royal Navy flying up to 1939, when the FAA returned to Admiralty control. In this particular case those pilots chosen for Hurry came from Fighter Command and had gained aircraft carrier flying experience having previously served with the FAA.
No. 418 Flight could not have been formed on August 6, 1940, as claimed, as in fact it had been formed at Abbotsinch on July 19, 1940, where pilots chosen for Operation Hurry flew some familiarisation flights on the 12 brand-new Hurricanes the following day. Hurricanes and pilots embarked on HMS Argus on July 21and next day sailed down the Clyde to Greenock to meet its escort.
RAF ‘flights’ cannot have ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ flights as described; only squadrons are made up of ‘flights’, usually between two and four. It was No. 261 Squadron that was reformed in Malta on August 6, 1940, absorbing the surviving Sea Gladiators and Hurricanes of Fighter Flight Hal Far together with its own new aircraft.
As No. 261 Squadron had only existed previously for a short time during 1918 it had no official crest of its own and the one created for the new unit clearly indicates its Maltese connection, displaying an eight-pointed cross among other features.
The story of Operation Hurry and the subsequent formation of this squadron can be found in the detailed personal experience of Flt Lt A.J. Trumble, who led No. 481 Flight to Malta, transcribed from an exchange of letters with myself and reproduced in my book Malta G.C.; Victory in the Air (Modelaid Publications, Malta, 1996; pp.20-21).
The various commands attributed to No. 261 and its flights are also incorrect. Sqn Ldr D.W. Balden took command of No. 261 Squadron (not of ‘A’ Flight); command of ‘A’ Flight was assigned to Flt Lt A.J. Trumble, while ‘B’ Flight came under the command of Flt. Lt. J. Greenhalgh.
Hurricane pilots had scored victories well before July 10 as described by Mr Debono; in fact, the first Hurricane victory was recorded on July 3, when Flg Off J. Waters, flying Hurricane P2614, engaged and shot down a Savoia Marchetti S.79, but later he himself fell victim to fire from a Fiat CR.42 flown by Magg. Ernesto Botto of 9º Gruppo, Regia Aeronautica. Waters managed to crash-land his Hurricane, which was written off, but he escaped with minor injuries.
And now for the sore point of the Hurricane photograph reproduced on top of p. 47 of The Sunday Times. It seems to be lifted from p.118 of The Hurricane Years (Grub Street, London, 1987) complete with incorrect caption.
The aircraft is, in fact, a Hurricane Mk II, a version that first arrived in Malta in April 1941. Z2982 served with No. 185 Squadron, a unit that operated exclusively from Hal Far up to June 1943, when it was transferred with its Spitfires to Qrendi; I have no references of No. 185 ever operating from Ta’ Qali.
I published that photograph for the first time in Modelaid Quarterly International (No. 3, July 1984, p. 49), a full three years before it appeared in The Hurricane Years. It comes from the excellent collection of Malta wartime photographs belonging to the late Hugh Quinn, who so generously allowed me to copy his entire collection in 1974.
My copy negatives were made available to the National War Museum Association (not to the National War Museum), through Frederick Galea and Louis Tortell in 1977, from which prints were made for the association’s archives.
One hopes that the omission to mention that a fully restored Hurricane can be viewed at the Malta Aviation Museum, Ta’ Qali, was unintentional.
Should readers wish to learn more about the Hurricane’s contribution during the Battle for Malta there is nothing better than The Hurricane Years quoted above.
Apart from my contribution in Malta G.C.: Victory in the Air I had other occasions to write and illustrate Malta Hurricanes, especially in features that appeared in Scale Aviation Modelling (Vol. 1; No. 8, UK, 1995), Malta Flypast (No. 2, 1998 and No. 5, 2001, Malta Aviation Museum, Malta), and Model Airplane International (No. 25, 2007 and No. 59, 2010, UK).