Major Maurice Agius, one of Malta’s last remaining World War 2 veterans, has turned 100.

His birthday was celebrated with a traditional Maltese dinner at the Simblija care home, where Major Agius now resides.

Major Agius was interviewed by The Malta Independent back in 2018 on the occasion of the anniversary of the arrival of Operation Pedestal – better known as the Santa Marija convoy – in Malta.

He joined the military when he was 18, in June 1939, enlisting with the Territorials a couple of months before Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland on 1 September.

At the time, Agius was attending the then Royal University of Malta and that he used to go wearing his army uniform.

However, when October came along, the summer uniform proved to be inadequate for keeping the cold out and as a result he had to call in for a winter uniform.  When he phoned in, he was told that he had to either go back to the army or leave totally.  His father was ‘very cross’ as he had joined the army without telling him, and as a result he had to take his leave from the army.

He would remain out of the army until Italy declared war on France and Great Britain on 10 June 1940.  The day after Agius was due to sit for his annual exams, but instead he and the rest of the students were called into the Aula Magna by the rector, Professor Robert Victor Galea, and told that since they were in a situation of war the University had to close. 

On the same day, Agius was back with his old unit, with the same service number; ‘it was like I hadn’t left at all’, he told this newspaper back in 2018.

Major Agius formed part of the Royal Malta Artillery within the 2nd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment for the duration of the siege of Malta, and served at gun posts ranging from Benghajsa, Tigne, Ghajn Tuffieha, Dwejra near Rabat, and Bezbizija in the limits of Mosta.

He recounted his wartime experience with The Malta Independent in great detail – including an episode where he escaped being killed by an initially unexploded bomb by mere seconds – in 2018.

You can read that interview in full, here.