Retired Major Maurice G. Agius would be around 99 years old now, according to an interview he gave to my colleague Albert Galea, two-and-a-half years ago - around the same age as Prince Phillip.
This slim and readable book tells not just about his exploits during the war but also pays due homage to the many men who, with only rudimentary protection, defended Malta through the worst years of World War II risking their lives in the process.
These were the gunners defending the airfields who stuck to their guns in the worst air raids when they were sitting ducks with bombs raining all around them.
Numerous books have been written on Malta's contribution on the side of freedom and justice against Nazism and Fascism during the war. Tribute has been paid to the RAF fighter pilots who defended the island in the air, to the merchantmen and the Royal Navy for the convoys which brought in the fighter planes, food, fuel, ammunition, guns, reinforcements, spare parts and a thousand other items, to the submariners operating from Malta, to the Royal Navy for the attacks on the Italian Navy, to all the other armed forces who provided all that was necessary in the defence of Malta, to the doctors and the nurses, the Police and the Air Raid Precautions personnel and last but not least, to the civilian population for not breaking down in the face of so many air attacks, death, homes in ruins, suffering, hunger and privations.
Of course, the principal heroes were those sailors, airmen and others who during the first half of August 1942, in those relatively few but dramatic and extremely dangerous days, took part in Operation Pedestal, otherwise known by us Maltese as Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija.
But, at any rate before this book's appearance, not enough has been written about the anti-aircraft gunners who greatly contributed to Malta's survival and who have not been given their real due.
Coming from all towns and villages, many illiterate who joined to get a regular pay, these men became colleagues and friends, just put on their steel helmets and manned their gun when an air alarm sounded when everyone else huddled in the shelters.
Malta was battered by more than 3,000 air raids and the HAA were active in all of them, at all hours, rain or shine. During the war, the author served in just one battery - 7th HAA Battery of 2nd HAA Regiment Royal Malta Artillery but they were moved around - Benghisa on the southern coast to Tigne Barracks in Sliema to Nadur on the Bingemma Heights and lastly to Targa Gap with a commanding view of the Ta' Qali airfield and thus the most exposed.
This troop never experienced a direct dive-bombing attack but many other HAA gun positions did - with disastrous results.
Those were very primitive days and the real technical developments came later. The gun crews had to carry out a series of mathematical calculations to calibrate the guns. Then the box barrage was invented so that the coordinated shooting by all batteries in the area caught attacking planes as they dived to bomb.
This is no arid account but a lively chain of episodes from the author's reminiscences. Most of the episodes are on the complimentary side and others are told without the name of the person involved. But some not complimentary details got through and The Times later carried a prickly letter by a former RMA colleague who protested that uncomplimentary things were said about people who are dead and cannot defend their name.
On the whole, I would say, this could be true of people who were at his level of officialdom but the author is quite affectionate and loyal when he mentions his men. Among them, to my surprise, I found a man who I think was our next-door neighbour in Hamrun, Gunner Mose Caruana.
Apart from being an account of defending the island, this is also an account how people tried to get on with their lives, despite everything. People still got married; some in the middle of an air raid and the author himself spent his courtship years before his wedding as a soldier.
Towards the end of the war, he was sent on many courses mostly in the UK. He stayed on in the army after the war and graduated at the Staff College Camberley. His army postings included at the War Office, HQ Cyrenaica District (Libya), British Army of the Rhine, Battery Commander in Dortmund, Brigade Major and Liaison Officer of the HQ Malta Land Force of the newly independent Government of Malta. In 1968, he resigned from the army and ran the MMDNA until 2000.
He had joined the army when just aged 18 at the outset of the war. He was personally present at some of the key events of the war - he watched the massive attack by German dive-bombers on the Illustrious on 16 January 1942 from near the Vernon Club (today the Central Bank of Malta).
On 15 August 1942, however, he was manning the battery while thousands watched SS Ohio limp in with its fuel cargo intact and then on 13 September the George Cross was presented on Palace Square. Then HMS Aurora entered the harbour with King George on a 10-hour visit, welcomed as the Pedestal ships by jubilant crowds on the bastions.
As I write this, on Tuesday, the Government of Malta has not announced any mourning to mark Prince Phillip's death. Is this just an oversight or do I detect an underlying sense of shame for Malta's share in the war, encapsulated perhaps in the sacrilegious words mitna ghall-barrani (we died for the foreigner)? Prince Philip, more than any other member of the Royal Family except his wife, had particular close links with Malta.
The people Agius writes about were as Maltese as you and me, thinking of the families they left behind while they risked their lives shooting and getting shot at. Were they doing so to please the foreigner?