Memoirs of a Gunner

3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library). Page 1

MEMOIRS

of a

WORLD WAR TWO

GUNNER


Prologue

The Military Parade, Valletta, 1939

The following three photos were taken on the 10th

of June, 1939, on

the occasion of the King's Birthday Parade. Every year the Parade

used to be celebrated at the Floriana Parade Ground (Ix-Xagħra

tal-Furjana) but as the war clouds were gathering on this occasion a

much larger parade was held through the streets of Valletta. Every

possible military item was brought out to raise the people’s morale.

Ironically, exactly one year later to the day Mussolini declared War.

3.7 inch AA Gun (Mobile) towed by Scammel Pioneer Gun Tractor.


Breech Loading 6 inch Howitzer, 26cwt (1.3 tons weight of barrel

and breech), towed by Scammel Pioneer WW1 vintage but still

effective.

Bofors 40mm AA Gun on mobile platform, towed by Morris

Commercial CS8 15cwt truck. This vehicle would have been

inadequate as a Bofors gun tractor in the field as it lacked 4 wheel

drive and did not have enough space for the crew and stores, spare

barrel, etc. but for the parade it sufficed.


Reminisces on service in a troop of 22nd Battery,

3rd

Light Anti Aircraft (LAA) Regiment Royal Malta

Artillery in 1942-43 as an 18 year old school leaver.

The Bofors gun was a 40 mm calibre quick firing

gun, manned by seven men. It could fire two

shells every second when set to fire at automatic

but it had a short, effective range of 1,500 yards.

Its purpose was to deter low flying enemy aircraft

from dropping their bombs on their intended

target, and, if possible, shoot them down.

The guns were therefore sited on the perimeter of the target

being defended, be it a harbour, the Dockyard or an airfield.

When defending the harbours or the Dockyard, gun

detachments had the privilege of being billeted in decent

rooms with electrical and washing facilities and toilets within

the fort when the guns were defending the harbour, or in

some requisitioned house if defending the Dockyard.


If the guns were defending

an airfield, the men would

be billeted in some small

room in a field close to the

gun where farmers

previously kept their tools

and livestock. At Hal Far I

was billeted in one of these

rooms with eight other men.

The room measured 12 feet

by seven feet by eight feet high.

We slept in three tier wooden bunks and the sergeant and

the bombardier slept in a tiny adjacent room. There was no

electricity and we used hurricane lamps for lighting. The

only running water came from a tap in the cookhouse hut.

At other gun sites which had larger rooms the men were

lucky to have a bed which consisted of three wooden

planks and two low trestles. For mattresses we had three

straw filled cushions measuring two and a half feet square

and three inches high. These were referred to in army

jargon as 'biscuits'.

In summer I preferred to lay my ‘biscuit’ on the gun pit

wall and cover myself with a 'ground sheet', a rubberised

sheet with which we covered ourselves when it rained. I

preferred it to having to sleep in a tiny room smelling of

dirty socks.

Although 22 Bty was a TA Bty, most members of this

detachment were all conscripts and came from different

walks of life. There were members of religious societies,

like the MUSEUM, others were labourers, school leavers,

farmers, stone masons, port workers, etc., we even had a

‘chucker-out’, nowadays referred to as a 'bouncer', from

Strait Street, a mixed society if there ever was one, and the

language used by these lads was not drawing room stuff

either.


For ablutions the army provided each gun

site with two basins but we preferred to

have our own. These were made out of

four gallon petrol cans which were

plentiful in the airfields. We would remove

three quarters of the upper part of the can,

and, pronto, you had a basin. One did not

need anything larger because you would

not dare strip to wash in winter since ablutions were

carried out in the open field. We would only wash our

hands and face and shave using cold water.

I personally would scrub myself in the bath at home when

I went on leave. In summer we had the luxury of a shower,

thanks to empty four gallon petrol can with the top

removed. The bottom would be pierced with a bayonet and

then hung to a carob tree branch. While one man stood

under the can, his comrade would pour water into it. The

procedure was then reversed.

Toilets as we know them were unheard of in the field so

the army provided metal sheds with a wooden door (three

feet by three feet by six feet high). Inside was a large

bucket with a wooden top with a hole in it, to serve as a

seat. The bucket was meant to be changed daily by a

contractor but on occasions he did not turn up.

There was no hot water to wash our plates with since the

small amount of kerosene allotted to each gun site was

used for cooking and for lighting our hurricane lamps. So

we poured a little water into the soil to turn it into mud and

would then scrub our plates with the mud to remove the

grease and rinse them in a tub full of water.


On the guns

Each gunner had to perform four hour or sometimes six

hour stints as sentry on the gun position, come rain or

shine. Each duty lasted two hours. NCOs and the cook

were exempt from sentry duty and there would be two men

on leave every day.

Sentry duty in

summer mornings

was tedious since

the sentry had to

wear his fatigue

uniform, made of

thick denim. He

also wore his steel

helmet and had no

other shelter from the sun. In winter, at night, especially

for the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. duty I would wear a pullover and

battledress beneath my fatigue uniform and an army 'great

coat', and I still felt cold.

It was the sentry's duty to wake up the gun detachment in

case of an "air alarm" by blowing three blasts on his

whistle or at sunrise for the detachment to man the gun for

an hour. This was referred to as ‘stand to’. Should an

enemy plane fly in undetected by the radar, the guns would

be manned and ready to engage any enemy aircraft which

came within range. Another ‘stand to’ took place at sunset.

After the morning ‘stand to', we would go to our billet and

clean up the room, place our ‘biscuits' on top of each

other, fold the blankets (in winter) neatly and place them

and the bolster pillow on the ‘biscuits’ at the head of the

bed/bunk.

After that it was breakfast time. Breakfast consisted of half

a sausage or half a rasher of bacon, some baked beans, a

mug of tea and a slice of bread spread with margarine.

Occasionally we got a teaspoon of marmalade. Dry ration


biscuits sometimes substituted for bread. One could not ask

for second helpings. Breakfast over; it was ablution time,

always, of course, if there was no air raid in progress.

After ablutions came gun

maintenance. This

consisted of washing the

paintwork of the gun (the

mounting, the girders, and

the wheels) and cleaning

and lubricating the firing

mechanism and the gun

barrel's interior.

Tea break was at 10.30, and afterwards our time was free

unless there was an air alarm. Lunch would be at around

12.30 p.m. and would consist of either half a tin of corned

beef or half a tin of M&V (meat and vegetables), mashed

potatoes made from powdered dehydrated potatoes and

dried vegetables and two slices of bread.

When the cook was in the mood he would make meat balls

out of the corned beef and vegetable soup from the dried

vegetables. For dessert it was mainly dried apricots which

were boiled, with a bit of custard at times. Rarely were we

given tinned fruit.

After lunch we could rest on our bunks/beds and these

would be left made for the night. The army did not supply

us with sheets but we were given three blankets besides a

bolster and of course the ‘biscuits’ for bedding.

At 4 p.m. we would get a mug of tea. After that it was free

time. We would either kick a ball around in an adjacent

field or play cards or read a magazine.


Military discipline

One afternoon, the Commanding Officer walked into our

billet unannounced. We all stood to attention. He looked

around to see if the room was clean and checked if we had

all showered that morning.

While checking me, he noticed that one of the two hooks

which fastened my fatigue blouse collar close to my neck

was undone. I was told off for being improperly dressed

and warned that I would lose a day's leave if it were to

happen again. Such was military discipline in those days.

Supper consisted of a slice of bread, a sardine, a piece of

cheese and a mug of tea, before or after ‘stand to’,

depending on the season. After ‘stand to’ we could sit on

our kit boxes and chat or play cards in the light of a

hurricane lamp.

At 9 p.m. we would get into our beds and sleep, to be

awakened during the night for our turn of sentry duty or to

man the gun if an air alarm was sounded. In fact, we slept

with our clothes on not to waste time.

But the most strenuous job for me came

when the ammunition truck called at the gun

site to replace the ammunition that had been

spent since its last visit. This meant that the

gunners available would have to carry metal

boxes containing 24 empty cartridges in

carton sleeves from the ammunition dump to

the truck and bring back the same number of cases with

live ammunition.

Although each box had two handles, the men who were

used to carrying heavy loads on their shoulders in civilian

life before being conscripted thought nothing of it. But I,

an 18 year old school leaver, carrying a box full of arms

on my shoulder made my back feel as if it were going to

break under the weight. For all this we were paid two

shillings, equivalent to today's ten cents, a day


I cannot say that taking action during a raid was

something I looked forward to. In fact, we all felt a bit

tense, but when the guns started firing we would forget the

tension.

There came a time when ammunition got very scarce and

each gun was rationed to fire 10 rounds a day and this at

bombers before dropping their bombs.

One day a Bofors gun sited on the Ricasoli side of the

Grand Harbour overlooking the breakwater, shot down a

German bomber, a Ju-88. But it had already dropped its

bombs over the Dockyard and was on its way home.

The No.1 of the gun, a Sergeant Azzopardi, was going to

face court martial for wasting ammunition. Luckily some

top brass interceded on his behalf and he was let off with a

warning.

Credits

Capt. George Pace Balzan

The Sunday Times of Malta

Mr. Victor Filletti

Mr. Godwin Hampton

Major Denis Rollo, “The Guns and Gunners of Malta”

Capt. Joseph Wismayer

Capt. Saviour P. Portelli

3/11 Regiment Royal Malta Artillery (PDF Library).

Updated 15 July 2015

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Memoirs of a Gunner

Education