The relatives of a World War II RAF Spitfire pilot, who crashed at Dwejra in Gozo 80 years ago, will be meeting with the family of the Gozitan surgeon who treated him after the incident and went on to become Malta’s fourth president.
The daughter and two grandchildren of flight sergeant Percy (Bill) Stratford, from New Zealand, are expected to meet at the newly restored Dwejra Tower, the site of the crash, with relatives of former President Ċensu Tabone, who treated the injured pilot for broken bones and concussion at Victoria Hospital. The initiative is being organised by Din l-Art Ħelwa.
Stratford’s family is visiting Malta in May for talks on wartime Gozo, during which ongoing research on the incident will be shared, as well as the story of the important role played by Gozo’s coastal watchtowers during both world wars.
His grandson, Darren Spicer, also plans to share the “amazing” story of his time in Malta in 1943.
“As a child, I would love to listen to my grandfather telling me about being a Spitfire pilot. I was proud and fascinated,” said Spicer.
“While we knew about the crash, we did not know very much about the circumstances. The last few months have shed a lot of light on what happened.
“To now come to Malta and Gozo to mark the 80th anniversary is very special, and to potentially meet relatives of his rescuers is both humbling and poignant,” he said.
The search for Percy
Speaking in the run-up to the 80th anniversary of the crash tomorrow, Simon Wallace, a volunteer at Dwejra Tower, said it all started from a post about the incident shared on DLĦ’s Facebook page in 2019.
The post was picked up two years later by his grandson, based in the UK, who was simultaneously and independently doing his own research and has his original documents, such as his pilot’s diary, wartime photos and logbooks.
Last year, Spicer and his family visited Malta and Gozo, including the Dwejra crash site that he had learnt about from the post, to discover more about the time his grandfather spent here.
Wallace and Spicer got in touch via another of Stratford’s relatives in New Zealand and have continued to share photos and findings.
While the tower was closed to visitors last year to undergo extensive restoration work, Wallace had the opportunity to confirm the facts surrounding the Spitfire crash and carry out further research on the incident.
He trawled museums and archives in Malta and Gozo, as well as online and digitised resources in New Zealand, the UK and Canada, to “piece together the events into some sort of backstory”.
Many, he said, had generously and freely shared their memories, knowledge and expertise, offering ideas, inspiration and support during his “search for Percy”.
Wallace’s “journey” began with the wartime copies of Times of Malta, held on microfilm at the Bibliotheca in Valletta, and Charles Bezzina’s 2015 book, Wartime Gozo 1940-1943: An Account of the Bleak Years in which the author gave Percy’s name and brief crash date details.
His father, Frank Bezzina, had documented and interviewed many people living in Gozo during the war, including the man who rescued Percy.
No report of the incident was found in local newspapers, but a reference in a book in the library’s Melitensia collection, Spitfires Over Sicily, seemed to confirm events, Wallace said.
Among the “fascinating” facts he dug up, he found the pilot’s admissions record for Victoria Hospital at the Gozo National Archives.
According to the RAF 1435 Squadron Records: “The pilot was fortunate enough to put his aircraft down on a small rock not much bigger than the Spitfire.”
The Dwejra crash
It was early in the morning of March 27, 1943, that an RAF Mk Vb Spitfire, EP122-L from 1435 Squadron, based at RAF Luqa, crash-landed on the cliff edge at Dwejra Bay, while carrying out a search-and-rescue mission.
The injured pilot from New Zealand was initially rescued by Reserve Police Constable 051 Carmelo Zahra, the tower’s Coast Police Observer on duty at the time.
The pilot had been searching for a group of commandoes in a rowing boat at the time, and the squadron operations record book for that day’s entry states the plane was probably flying at low height (just 100 feet) and was short of fuel.
Spicer hit “a very small island in a bay on the West of Gozo” – presumably Fungus Rock – before he put his aircraft down on a small rock not much bigger than the Spitfire.
Spicer suffered a broken arm and leg, with deep cuts to his forehead and chin and a chipped tooth. He was concussed and suffering from shock when admitted to Victoria Hospital in Rabat under the care of Captain Vincent ‘Ċensu’ Tabone, before being transferred to the 45th General Military Hospital in Malta two days later.
The heavily damaged aircraft, at the time named Ramona II, was pushed over the cliff edge into the sea shortly after the crash, and parts of it were found in the bay by RAF Sub Aqua Club divers in 1969.
They were recovered from the seabed in the mid-1970s, and restoration work began at Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar Ltd and at other specialist vintage aircraft repair companies in the UK.
The fully restored plane made its first flight in May 2016 and appeared in the film, Dunkirk, the following year, flown by the pilot Dan Friedkin, its current American owner.
It is now based in the US and makes flights at air shows as an example of the most significant aircraft to have been involved in the air defence of Malta during the war.
Wartime Gozo talks at tower
In late May, the tower is hosting talks on wartime Gozo and sharing updates on the research into Spitfire EP122-L.
Details and images, some supplied by the pilot’s grandson, exploring Dwejra Tower’s military history, will also be displayed on one of its new illustrated visitor information panels.
On the day, DLĦ also plans to screen a rarely seen eight-minute 1943 RAF Film Unit newsreel entitled Malta Strikes Back, containing unique Spitfire footage over the islands, with the permission of the Imperial War Museum in London.
Matthew Curmi from Nadur is also currently researching a book on all plane crashes in Gozo during WWII and has been interviewing older Gozitans to capture their memories of that time and any incidents, Wallace added.
“This is probably the last opportunity to document their memories and experiences,” he noted.