In March 1960, junior engineer John Caruana, then aged 21, was on duty in the engine room of a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support tanker. It was refuelling a destroyer in Cypriot waters when Maltese seaman Dominic Brincat was accidentally struck by a large hose. He was killed on the spot. The mood aboard the ship was sombre as all Maltese crew members disembarked to bury their friend and colleague in a Roman Catholic cemetery in Limassol, Cyrus. But when, some 60 years later, Caruana returned to the graveyard to pay his respects to the fallen seaman, he was disappointed to see that Brincat’s gravestone was no longer there. Now, aged 85, Caruana is on a mission to mark the memory of the seaman. “Something has seriously gone wrong. Someone died in the service of the country during operations, a British citizen before Malta’s independence. I believe I am the only one on that ship still alive to tell the tale,” he said. Six years ago, soon after realising what happened, he issued a call in the media asking anyone who had any details to come forward. Now, as the years tick by, Caruana feels he may be running out of time, so he contacted Times of Malta. “I have a story to tell,” he...
