Month: September 2023

80th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice

Servigliano in Le Marche, 8th September 2023

80 years after my father was released from POW Camp PG 49 at Fontanellato near Parma, I was fortunate to attend this 80th Anniversary, held in Servigliano in Le Marche, organised by the Monte San Martino Trust, in conjunction with the World War II Escape Lines Memorial Society (E.L.M.S.) and the Casa Della Memoria Society.

It was an extremely hot autumn day in Europe, for someone recently arrived from the southern hemisphere winter! But while the occasion was based around the stories of those Allied POW’s from this Camp (one of hundreds all over Italy) after they were released into the Italian countryside, it nonetheless gave me an insight into the difficulties and hardships these men faced after finding themselves as free men behind enemy lines.

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Amongst the many dignitaries who started proceedings were, on the left, the British Ambassador to Italy, His Excellency The Honourable Lord Edward Llewelyn OBE, and, on the right, Sir Nicholas Young (Chairman and Trustee).

Whilst we were all heading off to be given a tour of the site of PG 59, I managed to introduce myself to Nick, whose father had written a diary during his travels through Italy after the prisoners were released into the Italian countryside, with a short and very brief statement entered on Saturday 18th September 1943, “Willis and another passed through….”

One of the more poignant moments for me, was seeing the hole in the wall through which our great benefactor, Keith Killby had escaped at the time of the Armistice. Keith is recognised as being the one person who cared for and collated information about, not only the stories of all these Allied soldiers, but also the Italian families who sheltered, fed and sustained these men as well as helping them reach Allied lines to the south and safety to the north.

Also attending the Anniversary were many people who I had communicated with over the last couple of years, including Anne Copley, John Simkins and his wife Maggie and of course Dennis Hill from the USA, the very man who had helped and encouraged me to write this Blog, having been so impressed with his own site, now some 15 years in the making – Camp 59 Survivors

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Do we ever learn from History

Flying up to Italy for the 80th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice that took place on (or about!) 8th September 1943 I was reminded of all the conflicts that had taken place in or around all the cities that kept popping up on my screen when I was checking on how our flight was progressing.

Most notably I had only just been learning that my own father had either passed through Alexandria or certainly close by it. And, just prior to engaging with Rommell and his Panzer Divisions in the Libyan/Egyptian Desert in 1942, leading to his ultimate capture and imprisonment at Fontanellato (PG49) near Parma in 1943.

Ice Cold in Alex

But then there was also Yalta which immediately conjured up visions of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt convening at that conference in 1945 at the end of World War II.

In February 1945, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta resort in then-Soviet Crimea to finalize their strategy for the remainder of World War Two and forge a post-war settlement.

But my mind also took me even further back to the Crimean War. And really, what was that all about? Certainly, something to do with the decline of the Ottoman Empire. But what consequences did that have on the Russian psyche and where we are now?

Woodville, Richard Caton; The Relief of the Light Brigade, 25th October 1854; National Army Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-relief-of-the-light-brigade-25th-october-1854-183084

Lord Tennyson wrote in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”

“’Forward the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply.

Theirs not to reason why.

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.”

And what about our recollections of Beirut. And what were the major factors that kept recurring with all these conflicts? Was it Religion, Oil, Power? What an extraordinary world we live in. And now, especially with Kiev in mind, we seem to just fly on by.

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