These were followed by the Gozo Mail Service Company which was a partnership between Joseph Gasan, Giovanni Dacoutros, the Grech family known as “Gelluxa” and some ten other Gozitans with minority shareholding.
This company operated the
Royal Lady between October 1938 and May 1942 and a sailing vessel,
Franco between May 1942 and April 1948. Both vessels were bombed by the Germans during the war. The Royal Lady was sunk in 1942 and Franco received damage in its funnel but luckily kept running till 1948.
In 1945 the British colonial government requisitioned the three masted schooner
Anna from Giovanni Dacoutros in order to carry much wanted cereals and other commodities between the two islands. Unfortunately, this beautiful vessel was bombed when about to sail out of Grand Harbour and sank loaded with the precious grain at Marsa. Anna remained in the depths of Grand Harbour till after the war and the British colonial government imposed a fine of 15 Maltese pounds per day in order that the owner would remove the vessel from the bottom of the harbour. For this purpose a special crane was brought from Gibraltar as no large lifting equipment was available. It was eventually lifted out of the water about a year later and sold for firewood.
It is interesting also to note that, following the end of the war, one of the surviving vessels – the
Maria Dacoutros – made a few trips to Gozo to carry grain and other commodities, It also carried mail and passengers. The Maria Dacoutros was also the very first vessel to leave Malta for Sicily following the Italian surrender. It performed this service until other ways of delivering mail were found by the British services in Malta