“Captain Rev. Richard H. Hill was a Padre in the Royal Army Service Corps attached to 72nd Field Regiment, R.A. He was captured in Libya on 1st June 1942 and transferred to Italy, where he was imprisoned first at PG41 Montalbo and then at PG49 Fontanellato.
After the mass escape from Fontanellato in September 1943, he set off south to rejoin the Allies but was recaptured on or around 8th October. He was sent to Germany.”
Wikipedia records that PG41 at Montalbo was a – “Hilltop 15th Century castle near Piacenza. Held about 300 Allied prisoners, 280 officers and 20 other ranks between 1941 and 1943. In March 1943 the castle was seized by German command when the prisoners were moved to P.G. 49 Fontanellato.”
Could it be that my father, Andre Willis, was captured at the same time? It appears that after his capture Reverend Hill’s journey consisted of a number of lorry journeys across the desert until “we arrived successively at Derna, Barce* and finally Benghazi, whence we were flown across the Mediterranean to Lecce, in Southern Italy, where we were incarcerated for that night in a former tobacco factory. From there we were taken on to a large transit camp at Bari where we remained for three weeks with very little food…”
- Barce* (Italian) also known as Barca (Latin), was an ancient, medieval, and early modern city located at the site of Marj in northeastern Libya.
“After three weeks, a large party of us was transferred to our first permanent officers’ camp which proved to be at Montalbo, a beautiful spot in the foothills of the Apennines, south of Piacenza. The journey was made by train and in passenger carriages, which we later looked back on as great luxury.”
“From July 1942 until March 1943 we continued our placid existence at Montalbo until it was disrupted by our being moved en bloc to another camp. Our new quarters were in the village of Fontanellato, in the plain of Lombardy not very far from Parma. The building was brand new, built as an orphanage but never so far occupied, and another officers’ camp and our own were combined in it. It had three storeys with a large assembly hall, a dining room, large airy dormitories and good washrooms and kitchens We had proper beds and bedding and our laundry was done at a neighbouring convent. There was quite a liberal·supply of macaroni in various forms and of vegetables so, with our Red Cross parcels, we were very adequately nourished. Mail from home came through very well.”
Other POW’s referred to by Richard in his story were:-
- Paul O’Brien-Swayne (possibly Swain, P.B.) who painted “a view of Fontanellato from the top windows of our building”
- Bill Glover who painted “an impression of the surrounding countryside with its poplars and vines”
- Hector MacDonald (133401) “a Presbyterian minister from the Isle of Islay”
- Roques, (V.J.?) “who had been in the Army Post Office and was therefore always known as Posty”
- Pat Gibson “our music maestro”
- “We knew much later that some of our own parties had successfully made for Switzerland and that a very few had made their way some two hundred and fifty miles south, passed success fully through the German lines and rejoined our own forces. Among these heroic few were Geoffrey Phalp (88264) and his companion Gervase Nicholls (132008), also of the 72nd Field Regiment R.A. It was really a great achievement.”
PG 49 at Fontanellato in Italy - The Story of allied servicemen who were held prisoner of war in this town in Italy in World War II 