The Borg Pisani story

Why is it that persons who have not lived history want to interpret it in their own personal, biased and unsubstantiated way later when they do not know even half of the story?

Dennis Vella apparently found two busts of Carmelo Borg Pisani, which from the photographs do not look much like him, "languishing forgotten in a dingy attic store room" in a museum in Rome, discarded by the Italians, but he wants to put one of these on public display.

Borg Pisani was hanged in 1941 as a spy for Fascist Italy at a time his Maltese compatriots were being bombed and killed, and property destroyed by hordes of Italian and German aircraft.

He was a naive, foolhardy idealist who despite the pleas of his other irredentist Maltese companions failed to see which way the wind of war was blowing and wrote a testamento spirituale stating: "To the King (of Italy) and the Duce goes my last thought, which goes beyond victory to the glory of the immortal motherland," the motherland being, of course Fascist Italy.

Vella writes: "His actions were the tragic culmination of entire decades of frustrated nationalist aspirations" which, of course, is a load of rubbish. Borg Pisani in his testamento declares "ardent love for our real motherland" and yearns for a Malta "restored to the true Great mother country, Italy". Remember, Fascist Italy then! Some aspiration!

In February 1941 the US Embassy (America being neutral then) wrote to Borg Pisani to ask him to renew his British passport. This was his reply, in Italian: "...you have done well to send me an Italian translation (with your letter) as being a native of Malta and an Italian not born in the Kingdom (of Italy) I do not know English (this was a lie).

"I beg to state that just because I was an Italian under foreign domination I am no longer concerned with the fate of the British Empire, whose care has been entrusted to you. I beg you to note, once and for all, that I like so many other Maltese residing in the Kingdom (of Italy), only wish to be left free to follow my work in the Italian holy war, that I consider it shameful to have been a British subject in the past and that I do not wish to be protected by the United States of America." Fascism apparently had him in its grip.

Borg Pisani joined the Italian army, was sent to Corfu with the occupation forces, and in April 1941 he was promoted to sotto-tenete to undertake a spying mission to Malta. This is when he wrote his testamento spirituale which, contrary to what Vella states, was in fact carried in the Times of Malta of January 18, 1945.

When Vella states that during the war "one could read it at grave personal risk" this, again, is pure fantasy - this was obviously unavailable and had it been it would have been given wide publicity as it was a condemnation of Borg Pisani as a spy.

Borg Pisani landed by rubber dinghy at Ras id-Dawwara off Marsaxlokk, botched the whole operation by stepping ashore at a most inhospitable spot, was stranded, remonstrated with the Italian authorites by wireless, which he carried, why no one had returned to pick him up again, but was washed into the sea by storm waves with all his stores and equipment.

He shouted for help, was eventually spotted and rescued at night strark naked when he chided the crew of the RAF launch for not having picked him up earlier! Taken to Mtarfa hospital, he was immediately identified by the Maltese army medical officer, Tommy Warrington, wherupon he blurted out that he was on a spying mission.

He revealed then and in subsequent statements that he had to find out how a fast ship was able to bring supplies to Malta without being observed (this was HMS Welshman), if there were radio location stations in Comino or Filfla, if there were military objectives on Gozo, and what the food situation and the morale of the people and garison were like.

He admitted being told before he left Sicily that not a single person in Malta could be found to spy for Italy - which should have alerted an otherwise clear-minded person to the fact that the inhabitants stood four-square with the British authorties and did not consider Italy their mother country.

He was tried before three highly conscientious and competent Maltese judges: Sir George Borg, the Chief Justice, and Mr Justice William Harding and Mr Justice Edgar Ganado. Who is Dennis Vella to cast doubt on their integrity when he writes:

"Whether Borg Pisani was a traitor or not is a matter of interpretation." It certainly is not, and he should read the evidence in his trial where he not only changed his tune, stating he had only taken the mission as an excuse to return to Malta as he had become sick of the Italians bragging they were destroying Malta, but he provided the court with a list of all the Maltese in Italy who were collaborating with the Fascist authorities.

He was found guilty on three charges and sentenced to death by hanging - a sad end to a disillusioned young idealist who could not see further than his nose.

If any monuments are to be erected, these should be to remember men like Joseph Cassar (whose obituary you carried last Sunday) and his brother Dr Bru, my cousin Alex Mizzi and the many others who endured years of detention because they would not renounce their British citizenship. Borg Pisani did not live to see the end of Il Duce.