July 2, 1942, 7.45pm. The air raid sirens wails echoed around the island for what was to be the final attack of the day. Two Cant Z.1007s Italian bombers, escorted by 15 Macchi C.202s, droned towards Luqa and Ħal Far airfields.

Seven Supermarine Spitfires of 249 Squadron took to the air, to be joined by another four from 185 Squadron. These were vectored on to the incoming raid and the sky was soon filled with dogfighting aircraft, the sound of screaming engines and the hammering of machine guns and cannons. During that melee, the bombers managed to drop their bombs and scurry back to Sicily unscathed.

One of the Spitfires, piloted by Canadian Flight Sergeant Gerry de Nancréde, was badly shot up but he managed to crash-land his damaged aircraft at Ta’ Qali. The Italians claimed one Spitfire shot down and another six damaged. The British, in return, claimed three Messerschmitt BF 109s damaged – although it seems unlikely there were any German aircraft involved – and two Macchi C.202s destroyed.

Flight Sergeant Haggas of 185 Squadron was one of those who claimed a victory. He opened fire on an approaching M.C. 202 which immediately flipped and dived towards the sea. Haggas followed it down, firing two more bursts. The enemy aircraft never pulled out of its dive and plunged straight into the sea off Sliema. The pilot, Tenente Ennio Chierici, managed to bail out and was later picked up by HSL 107, an air sea rescue launch. Ironically, five days later, Haggas himself was shot down into the sea and killed.

The crash site of the Italian fighter. The crater has been covered with soil and the field is private property. Photo: Google Earth

Sergente Maggiore Alberto Porcarelli was not as lucky as Chierici. His M.C. 202 was hit by Flying Officer Stoop of 185 Squad­ron and crashed in a field at Qasam Barrani. He never left the aircraft. The diarist of 185 Squadron wrote that:

“F/Sgt Haggas beat the hell out of a Macchi 202 and sent it down in the sea a little too fast for comfort. F/O Stoop also performed a very neat operation on an M.C. 202 who was flying around the sky, and caused the sudden demise of one more Dago... On the whole we had a very good day today and everyone went home satisfied with the day’s work, except of course, the Jerries and the Dagoes.”

Porcarelli was an experienced pilot, having fought over North Africa, where he claimed a Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk shot down. Eyewitnesses who watched his demise all recall that when his aircraft was hit, it immediately started climbing vertically until it rolled over and then started a headlong dive towards the ground. The banshee wail of the dying aircraft ended abruptly with a huge explosion when it hit the ground.

Those who saw the dogfight believe that the pilot was killed with the first burst, but he instinctively pulled on the control column, making the aircraft climb until it stalled and hurtled towards earth.

Despite the fact that civilians were supposed to be taking cover during the attack, many saw the aircraft crash. Others left the underground shelters to see what had happened after they heard the explosion. A column of smoke marked the final resting place of the aircraft and quite a lot of people decided to quench their curiosity by walking all the way from Mellieħa to Qasam Barrani, especially when the word spread that an aircraft had been shot down.

Macchi C.202 of 151a Squadriglia, of which Sergente Maggiore Alberto Porcarelli formed part. Photo: www.pinterest.com

There was little left of the Macchi except for a myriad of small bits and pieces

The first to arrive on site were the farmers. Many started to rummage around in the wreckage to see if anything could be salvaged.

Again, this was illegal, but metal was scarce and worth its weight in gold. In fact, the aluminium skin from a Hawker Hurricane that had crashed in the vicinity a few months earlier was made into rings by children; its back wheel ended up as a well pulley, while pipes taken from another aircraft were turned into a ladder.

But on this occasion, most were disappointed. There was little left of the Macchi except for a myriad of small bits and pieces scattered around a large area.  John Aquilina was on the threshing floor, close to where today one finds Mellieħa Primary school, when he heard aircraft droning overhead.

Then a new sound, that of an aircraft in its terminal dive, caught his attention. He noticed a speck over Irdum ix-Xquq, plunging towards the ground, and then there was a detonation that resonated throughout the valleys and rocky wastelands of Mellieħa. Aquilina, who decided he had wasted enough precious time looking at the sky, grabbed his pitchfork and carried on with his work.

Anthony Caruana, who was seven at that time, also wanted to rush down to Qasam Barrani to have a look at the crash site, but despite his pleas, his mum would not budge. He would have liked to add a part of an aircraft to his collection of military artefacts, which consisted mainly of spent bullets, empty shell cases and bomb shrapnel.

A police report of the raid. The ‘Spitfire’ that reportedly crashed into the sea off Sliema was, in fact, Tenente Ennio Chierici’s Macchi C.202. Photo: Malta Police reports, National Archives of Malta

He got even more frustrated when he heard that the Italian fighter had crashed close to his father’s field at Qasam Barrani.

But Lady Luck still smiled at him. When his father returned later that evening from the fields, he took out of his pocket a few aircraft fragments which became Caruana’s most prized possessions, and the source of envy of his friends.

For Caruana and most of his schoolmates, war was an adventure and they could not wait to hear the siren, which meant the interruption of lessons and a trip to the shelters. He and several of his friends were more interested in drawing mules and sheep than doing sums.

He still did well at his schoolwork though. When a difficult exercise troubled him, he would ask one of the refugee kids in his class to do it for him, in exchange for some figs. Figs were manna from heaven for the evacuees from the south of Malta, who had no fields of their own.

“They are dogfighting. One has been shot down!” That was how John Debono heard the news of the Italian aircraft’s crash from his brothers who were watching the skies. “The plane left a crater the size of a threshing floor, half a storey deep,” he recalls. The hole was still visible up to the 1990s but then it was buried under debris when the area was reclaimed to make new fields.

Flight Sergeant Haggas (left), who shot down Tenente Ennio Chierici. Five days later, Haggas himself was shot down into the sea and killed. Photo: Broad family/Anthony Rogers collection

Carmelo Borg, like Aquilina, was on his threshing floor when he saw the aircraft crashing. He left his father to continue with the work and scurried to the crash site. He was met with a terrifying scene.

Wreckage was scattered everywhere; munitions were still going off and there were a few scattered fires. Then soldiers from the K.O.M.R. arrived and told everyone to leave. Of the pilot, very little was found.

One must mention that the Macchi C.202 was one of the best fighter aircraft produced by the Italians during the war. The letter C denotes that it was designed by engineer Mario Castaldi. The first production aircraft were equipped with the German Daimler Benz DB601 A-1 engines. But as these were extremely in demand, the majority of these fighters received a licence-built version of this engine, the Alfa Romeo R.A. 1000 R.C.41-I Monsione, driving a Piaggio P.1001 constant speed airscrew. Capable of speeds up to 600km/h, this aircraft compared favourably with the Allied fighters of that time.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the following, without whose assistance this article would not have been possible: Anthony Rogers, the Broad Family, Christina Galea, Frans Vella, Joseph Debono, Anni Vella, Anthony Caruana, Ġanni Debono, Joseph Aquilina, Carmelo Borg, Anthony Sciberras, Veronika Novotná, Ruben Vella and the staff of the National Archives of Malta.