- Contributed by听
- Bombardier Cecil Allcock
- People in story:听
- Cecil R Allcock
- Location of story:听
- Malta
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A4548396
- Contributed on:听
- 26 July 2005
During the siege of Malta in 1940 to 44, I was serving in the Royal Artillery, Anti Aircraft Bofors gunnery as a member of a gun crew. The gun site was located in the area of Saffi Strip which is part of the present day civil airport.
A comrade and I were detailed to trace the telephone line between our gun site and troop HQ which had been damaged during an air raid.
The task involved scrambling over Maltese farmland which consisted of areas of soil retained by dry stone walls. As I was about to negotiate one of these walls we encountered a large unexploded bomb.
Giving the area a wide berth we located the telephone cable some distance beyond the bomb and assessed the damage. Connecting a hand set we were carrying we contacted HQ to report the restoration of telephone contact and informed them about the location of the unexploded bomb.
Troop HQ politely instructed us to continue on to HQ to pick up a red flag and erect it close to the bomb on our return which we did.
During the event we came across some Maltese civilians, I shouted Bombi Bombi and indicated where the bomb was and they fled
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