FINDING GENEALOGY GOLD #2

Part 2 – My Mum’s Notebook from 1952

Having just found two Black and White photos of what appeared to be Allied POW’s in civilian clothes and that 5 of those names were seemingly associated with men who were listed as being in PG 49 at Fontanellato, it was only when I came across my second piece of Genealogy Gold that answers to my questions started to materialise. And it was to be only a short time later that same evening that my brother handed me my second big find.

Ever since my mother’s death in 2014 I had been asking my brother if he had come across a diary that she may have kept of a visit I knew she and my father had made to Italy sometime after WWII. It had almost become a standing family joke that my mother insisted on being given a Diary every Christmas so that she could record family events and, latterly, all her forthcoming golf tournaments. I have to confess that there were a couple of Christmases that shopping inspiration deserted me and I had very quickly rushed into Boots the Chemist to buy Mum’s Diary for the following year and thereby have at least one member of the family that I didn’t have to torture myself worrying what the hell I was going to buy them for Christmas. So I was convinced there had to be something somewhere which provided some sort of clues as to when and where she and Dad had visited Italy.

My brother Graham had given some thought to the year they might have made the trip and, by process of his own recollections of periods of leave my father had enjoyed and associated holidays in the UK, Graham had concluded that it must have been somewhere around 1952. About 4 years before I was born.

So when Graham handed me a little brown notebook with my Mum’s handwriting jumping out of the first few pages, it was almost a relief to see that she had entered the DATE, MILEAGE and GALLONS for what looked like a car trip starting on 14th Jan 1952. And I didn’t even have to turn the page to notice that, whilst they had started their journey in Dorset and travelled to Folkestone, presumably then across the English Channel through France to Geneva, Milan and, you guessed it, PARMA! BINGO!

The hairs had already started to tingle up my neck. Parma is only a stones throw from Fontanellato! And yet there was no mention of Fontanellato. And nothing significant or useful had come out of this information, other than they appeared to have driven to an area of Italy that my father and his POW colleagues had been released into after being released from PG 49. Nevertheless, I decided to photograph the pages so that I could look at them and perhaps scrutinise them more closely when I returned to New Zealand.

In doing so I had thrown the booklet onto my bed and on returning with my phone to take the pictures of the three pages of information at the front of the notebook, I noticed that there was some writing on the back.

The first was a little tricky to read but looked something like “Pisa 296 6, La Rondine 2.15” and I didn’t think that was going to offer up any clues. But the second entry in my Dad’s handwriting looked like “DON NINO ROLLERI”. Even at this point I didn’t connect this name with the name on the earlier photograph. But my curiosity and excitement was already building and I couldn’t stop myself from typing the name into Google.

At this point I have to admit that I did start to feel as if I had actually found a nugget of gold as the first hit that I came across read as follows:-

“Don Nino Rolleri, born on 17 August 1916 (the same year as my Dad) in Varsi, in the Province of Parma (PARMA was screaming out at me but so was VARSI!), was a partisan (did that just read PARTISAN!?) priest from the Parma mountains.”

I’m starting to find this very difficult to read without shaking a little. What am I just reading here? Am I jumping to the weirdest conclusions? Why is this man’s name on my mother’s notebook?

The GOOGLE entry goes on to read “He was part of the Single Command of Parma from 4 April 1944 to 25 April 1945 and was chaplain of the 31st Garibaldi Brigade, Val Ceno Division.”

Now, my History Teacher from King’s Canterbury will confirm that I was not his best History Student, but there’s something telling me in the back of my head that this Garibaldi Brigade were not just a bunch of peasants with a few pitch forks. These guys sounded to me like hard core partisans looking to free their country from the fascists and I’m starting to feel a little nervous.

I’m not entirely sure what happened next but at some stage I must have picked up the booklet but, instead of opening it at the front as I did the first time, something made me open it up at the back.

BOOM!!! If I thought I had just found a gold nugget I suddenly realised I had now actually hit the Motherlode. And my Mum hadn’t let me down. Even opening up these pages some months later I still burst into tears. And I can’t really explain why. It seems like only a couple of years since I had started searching for something like this and now suddenly here it was.

And again I’m skimming through the pages as they visit friends in Switzerland and then Italy and suddenly they’re in Parma after visiting “Andre’s old prison camp at FONTANELLATO, staying at the “Button Hotel”. We went straight out to VARSI and met Bernardo at 9 p.m.”

By now I’m a complete mess standing in front of Rex and Grum and Pat in their sitting room in Shoreham, but I can’t seem to speak. My mouth is opening and closing, a little like a goldfish, and nothing is coming out!

But I’m reading on and find myself thinking “Who the hell is Bernardo?” And the next thing there’s mention of Maria, Bernardo’s wife, and Mum and Dad are staying with them at VILLORA and then someone called Marco joins them at VARSI and their bags are carried on a 2 hour walk down the mountain across the valley and up the other side and Mum and Dad are given a reception by the two families. What two families?!

This is almost too much to take in. This actually happened. And this is the first time I’ve ever heard about it, let alone read it in black and white. At this point it becomes quite obvious to me that I’ll need to spend some time after we’ve returned to New Zealand to sit down and transcribe all this information as it is clear that I now have in my possession some very strong indicators as to who looked after my Dad for a short period in his life when he was on the run in Nazi occupied Italy. And boy am I going to enjoy following up on this!

Further Research – https://anpiparma.it/pietre-della-memoria/canonica-di-specchio/

Also in Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=associazione%20nazionale%20partigiani%20cristiani%20-%20parma

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FINDING GENEALOGY GOLD #1

Part 1 – Two Miniature Black and White Photos

In 2023 Rex Blanchette and I embarked on our first Holiday to Europe since the arrival of Covid to our shores and the appearance of Cancer in my life. And our aim? To achieve the following goals:-

  1. Return to Rome to see a few places we missed in 2019
  2. Visit our friends Wuz and Lyn in Sarnano
  3. Take part in the 80th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice in Servigliano
  4. Visit Florence for the first time
  5. Return to Paris to tick off a few more sights
  6. Tour some of the Battlefields of the Western Front in search of Family
  7. Visit Le Quesnoy and view the new NZ Museum – Te Arawhata
  8. Visit Caen and Etretat to follow up some research on Maimie and Grandpa Harry
  9. Visit Coutances to see where Rex’s French family originated from
  10. Visit Mont St. Michel and Cancale
  11. Return to Jersey to catch up with family and friends
  12. Visit family and friends in England
  13. Undertake a 2 week narrowboat cruise on the Langollen and Shropshire Union canals

Sadly we had to forego Goal Number 8 as we lost a day in France when we incurred a flat tyre at Quarry Cemetery just after finding the grave of LEWIS JARDINE.

But you’d think that all of that would have been enough! Yet there were three separate additions to our holiday that were to become Genealogy Gold for me.

The first was when I was given a pile of old family photos to wade through by my brother Graham when we stayed with him and his wife Pat in Shoreham. Now I’m pretty sure that I had previously rummaged through all these old photos on at least two other occasions. Once in 2017 and again in 2019.

So I was quite surprised when my eye caught a glimpse of two very miniature black and white photos that were of quite poor quality and needed closer inspection because there was something about them that reminded me of some pictures I had recently seen in a museum that was being created in Servigliano in Italy in honour of Italian families that had assisted POW’s that had been released into the Italian countryside after the Italian Armistice in September 1943.

The 2 pictures depicted a group of men who all appeared to be enjoying a nice day out in the countryside, and one of the men (at bottom right) appeared to look like my Dad. But who were these men and where were the photos taken? Fortunately, on the reverse of one of the photos was some writing which appeared to answer the first question, and I have attempted to decipher the handwriting which appears to be written by six different people and, dare I say it, not by an educated hand? Certainly not my Dad’s handwriting.

WILLIS – 2nd Lt. A.G.R. Willis (E.C. 1357) 11th Sikh Reg.

GOLDINEHAM – Lt. M.J.D. Goldingham (E.C. 3512) 18 Cav.

BELANTYING – Lt. J.A. Ballantyne (229558) R.A.C.

LEWIS HEATH – Lt. F.R. Lewis-Heath (162524) Hamp.

HOUGHTON – Capt. H. Houghton (141472) R.A.M.C.

Don Nino?

Now the first 5 people all tie up with personnel who I have already identified in the Roll Call section of my Blog and I have to assume therefore that all these men were likely to be somewhere in the Italian countryside, and is it too much to assume that this was sometime after they had all been released from PG 49 at Fontanellato? But what exactly is the name at the bottom? And I have to confess that at the time of reading this information for the first time, I had no idea what that last name was and how it was connected with these five men.

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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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Another piece of the Jigsaw

Into Battle at El Alamein

You know the feeling….you’ve been waiting for that bus for ages and when it arrives three others arrive at the same time?

Well, back in 2021, following some advice I had received from Anne Copley of the Monte San Martino Trust about researching my dad’s wartime record, I reached out to an organisation called WW2Talk but sadly unearthed very little about my father or his wartime unit in the Indian Army, which was the 4/11th Sikh Regiment.

Then, out of the blue, a few days ago (21st August 2023) one of the contributors to the site sent me a message explaining that he had seen the thread that I had posted about my father, Andre Graham Romain WILLIS, and his wartime Regiment and that, in May 2013 (possibly 2023?), he had “started a thread on the 18th Indian Brigade’s battle at Deir el Shein, where your father was taken POW. See: Deir el Shein sources – July 1942.“

Of course I was immediately curious as, although I had always known that my Dad served in the Desert Campaign and had been taken captive there, I had no real idea where that had been exactly, other than what I had recalled as a child and heard from my eldest brother who had recently written a chapter in a book about a period in his own life when he was in an unbeaten rugby side at King’s School Canterbury, in which he mentioned a little about Dad’s wartime experiences. But I had no recollection of hearing anything about Deir el Shein. Perhaps Tobruk and El Alamein, yet these were household names to children of my age. But my brother’s words had started my thoughts racing. The following is an extract from my brother’s book which had been prefaced by none other than, Sir Michael Morpurgo who had been head boy at King’s at the same time as my brother.

“When storm clouds gathered in Europe and war became inevitable all the young British tea planters and brokers were expected to join the volunteer regiment, the Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps (their cap badge was a tea leaf) and, when war broke out, they shipped up to India, where he enrolled in the 4/11 Sikh Regiment and was soon on his way to Egypt. He was one of 33,000 Allied troops captured at the fall of Tobruk in 1942 but escaped on his first night of captivity and, after two weeks during which he was given food and shelter by Bedouin tribes, made his way back to Allied lines on foot. Captured a second time he was sent to a POW camp in Italy where he escaped again and, for 6 months, found shelter with Italian communist villagers in the hills of Tuscany.”

N.T.G. Willis

Whenever I heard or read stories about the desert war, the only recollections I was left with of what my Dad talked about were that he spent most of his time walking backwards and forwards across the desert. But the names Mersa Matruh and El Alamein kept popping up in my head. I was very young when I heard this stuff for the first time so it’s hard to recall what is factual and what I think sounds like romantic war time heroics. But could any of this have been true? And what did this battle at Deir el Shein have to do with my Dad I wondered?

Well, it didn’t take very long to find out as the link I was provided with took me straight to a breakdown of the Battalion Diary of the 4/11 Sikhs in June 1942 that had been posted by another contributor to the site. And, as I’m rushing through it, I’m jotting down 1st June 1942 Erbil (is that Iraq?) and on to Mosul (yes it is Iraq!), Then on to Chadada (could that be Ash Shaddadi?). We’re heading west into Syria! 11th June on to Deir ez Zur and Palmyra on 12th June. 13th June Palmyra to Damascus – are they in a bit of a rush? 14th June sees them move on to Lajjun which appears to be near Haifa in then Palestine? And they then have about 5 or 6 days of training!

But then I nearly fall over backwards – the diary entry reads….

23 June 1942
Road party in unit M.T. under Willis & Ward, who had just returned off a Commando Course, left at 0500 hrs. Remainder of Bn left for HAIFA EAST railway station starting at 0645. Everybody entrained by 0945 & train left at 1005 hrs for KANTARA.

“Willis & Ward”! It sounds like I’m suddenly in a truck with my Dad belting along the Mediterranean coast with a whole contingent of Sikh soldiers heading towards the Suez Canal and the main port of what must be El Qantara and on to possibly Cairo or Alexandria? But the next couple of entries suddenly make you realise that you’re heading right smack into a war zone and not only that, but Rommel is in a hurry to blast straight past you following the fall of Tobruk!

The final destination for the Regiment is a place called Galal, but the German thrust eastwards means they suddenly have to withdraw back to Daba, which today now looks like El Dabaa, just west of El Alamein.

The next diary entry reads….

24 June 1942
Arrived KANTARA on time at 0200 hrs. Men got tea & by 0430 everything had been ferried across the canal & all loaded up in train ready for move. The train left at 0500 for SEMILLA which was some 15 miles from MERSA MATRUH. This obviously indicated a change in plan as our road parties were definitely ordered to Cairo. Some of the mess servants got left behind on departure but they caught up later as they were brought along by 2/5 ESSEX REGT. Arrived AMIRYEH at 1500 hrs where we had a two hours halt & the men were able to cook food. Left at 1700. Up to now we had been running well on time. From now onwards slow progress & sometime during night halted short of DABA. Moved again but then halted soon after owing to the train running out of water. Were passed by 2/5 ESSEX train. Eventually got water & arrived at DABA 1600 hrs. After another 20 miles or so the train halted about a ¾ mile short of GALAL where the ESSEX had also halted. Some doubt as to reason.

Yup! The Diary said “MERSA MUTRUH”!

25/26 June 1942
Obliged to spend night here although had to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Continual air activity on both sides. The enemy dropped flares & soon realised the situation. As a result both us & the Essex were bombed. One stick bursting very close to the train. Unfortunately everybody was not able to get clear in time and 7 were killed & 18 wounded. Of the wounded 2 later died in hospital. The remainder of the night was spent lying dispersed away from the train. No further bombing directed on us but not much sleep obtained & a most unpleasant return to W.D. However all well next day & jawans [??] cheerful.

But where’s my Dad in all this?

26 June 1942
At 0745 hrs the train was ordered to move back to DABA, where we arrived at 1200. After a short halt we moved back to EL ALAMEIN & came under 1 S.A. Div. Went into a dispersal area N.W. of station at about 1415. At about 1600 Willis & road party arrived. They had gone to DABA but had been sent back from there.

PHEW! And yes that was “EL ALAMEIN”! My Dad went into Battle at El Alamein! And I now know that the 4/11th Sikh Regiment was rather hastily put together as part of the 18th Indian Infantry Brigade that was allocated a defensive Box at a small depression called Deir el Shein just to the west of Ruweisat Ridge together with:-

  • 2/5th Battalion The Essex Regiment
  • 2/3rd Gurkhas Rifles
  • 121 Field Regiment Royal Artillery
  • Plus Field Ambulance, Work Section, Brigade Transport Section

I’m so grateful for this wonderful response from my new found friends at WW2Talk and I am so looking forward to meeting up with people in Servigliano in a few weeks time whose fathers were also in Fontanellato with my Dad. I’m so curious as to how he ended up there as it appears that there are no other Sikh Regiment officers in that camp, although there are quite a number of Indian Army regiments represented.

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MONTE SAN MARTINO, ITALY

4 years ago, in July 2019, just prior to my Cancer Diagnosis and the World shutting down with Covid, I was lucky enough to discover a small village in Italy called Monte San Martino while holidaying close by in the foothills of the Sibillini Hills in Le Marche, at the home of an old school friend.

I had just started investigating the wartime exploits of my father and had discovered that he had been a Prisoner of War (POW) in Fontanellato, near Parma in Italy.

Unfortunately, as I was just starting out on my journey to piece together my Dad’s wartime experiences in 2018, the Monte San Martino Trust had been celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice, and this had taken place in September 2018 in Fontanellato, the very Prison Camp my father had been a POW.

The Monte San Martino Trust celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice in Fontanellato – September 2018

But there had been several other Anniversaries in Fontanellato that I had known nothing about. The first that I came across was when I first stood outside the gates of Dad’s wartime prison, the “Orfantario” (The Orphanage), in 2019 while Rex and I had been driving from Lucca to Verona, which indicated the 40th Anniversary had taken place on “11 SETTEMBRE 1983”. Although the date below it appeared to indicate 11th September 1965?!

Then notably the 60th Anniversary which also took place in Fontanellato in September 2003.

PG 49 –  FONTANELLATO, ITALY –  60 Years on – WW2 Escape Lines Memorial Society

And inside the building yet another plaque that indicated the 70th Anniversary that had been celebrated in Fontanellato on 8th September 2013.

But this year, 2023, will mark the 80th Anniversary of the Italian Armistice on 8th September 1943 and I am lucky enough to be returning to the area we visited in 2019 known as Le Marche (pronounced luh mahr-kay) to join in with those celebrations in the villages of Servigliano and Monte San Martino that are being co-ordinated by the Monte San Martino Trust in conjunction with the Escape Lines Memorial Society (E.L.M.S.) and the Casa Della Memoria Association.

The Monte San Martino Trust was started by Keith Killby, a former inmate of the nearby POW Camp (PG 59) at Servigliano, who had sought shelter in the nearby village of Monte San Martino shortly after the release of the prisoners into the Italian countryside.

And it is the Trust that has provided me with snippets of information about my father and the time he spent as a POW, together with a few pieces of the jigsaw that saw him being released and his subsequent journey through the Italian countryside in his attempts, presumably, to reach England. Or at the very least re-uniting with Allied forces in Italy or reaching the wartime sanctuary and safety of neutral Switzerland.

This website that I have created tells of my own journey of discovery in piecing together this puzzle in the hope that it provides us with a glimpse into the extraordinary kindnesses and sacrifices that were made by so many Italian families who provided the nourishment and shelter that thousands of Allied soldiers received after their release from captivity.

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FINDING FONTANELLATO

Finding Fontanellato was a bit like “Finding Nemo”. Yes, I had always known that my father had been in a POW Camp in Italy during WWII. Mainly because I knew that he had been told that his father had died on 10th March 1943 when he was a prisoner of war. But for the best part of half a century I had no idea Where in Italy? What Town? What did the Camp Look Like? Was it Still There? What had it been like Being Imprisoned There? Where did they go after being Liberated at the time of the Armistice? Question after question kept popping into my head.

After establishing in early December 2018 that my father had indeed been in PG49 in Fontanellato I couldn’t think of anything other than finding this place.

It was about this same time that my partner, Rex, and I had started to plan a trip to Europe to catch up with family and friends. Plans started to formulate in early 2019 and soon we had our itinerary set for stops in London, Malaga, Granada, Rome, Sarnano (to visit friends), Lucca (a pilgrimage for Rex to pay homage to Puccini), Verona (for an Opera at The Arena) and Venice before embarking on a memorable Cruise around the Baltic on the Queen Victoria.

London saw us take in the incredibly acerbic and riotously irreverent musical comedy “The Book of Mormon” at The Prince of Wales Theatre and the gloriously melodramatic Opera of “Tosca” at Covent Garden. That set us up for the most incredible journey into the Moorish Architecture and Arabic World of The Alhambra in Granada which is an experience I would recommend to anyone. But it was on returning from The Alhambra in Granada with my brother Graham and his wife, who had both brilliantly organised our glimpse into The Arabian Nights, to their holiday home in Estepona that the most incredible thing happened. As you can imagine both he and I had recently stumbled on this treasure trove of information on PG49 at Fontanellato, as provided by the Monte San Martino Trust. And consequently, all these questions which had been bouncing around in my head suddenly had a sounding board, which probably only succeeded in creating yet more questions.

Then, out of the blue, Graham said…. “I think you need to read this.”

Eric Newby’s lifetime exploits are well documented (see Books) and none more so in relation to PG49 at Fontanellato than “Love and War in the Apennines”.

And what an extraordinary revelation it was. Not only was this man, Eric Newby, writing about his wartime experiences and capture off the coast of Sicily in August 1942. But he very soon afterwards pops up in PG49 at Fontanellato when he starts describing some of his experiences and life within the Camp. And suddenly I’m there……

“The prison camp was on the outskirts of a large village in the Pianura Padana, the great plain through which the river Po flows on its way from the Cottian Alps to the sea. The nearest city was Parma on the Via Emilia, the Roman road which runs through the plain in an almost straight line from Milan to the Adriatic.”

So now I know Where it Is! But there’s more!

“The building in which we were housed had originally been built as an orfanotrofio, an orphanage…The foundations had been laid back in 1928, but the work had proceeded so slowly that the war began before it could be completed, and it remained empty until the spring of 1943 when it became a prisoner of war camp for officers and a few other ranks who acted as orderlies.”

And I now also know that it was a building! And it wasn’t just my Dad who was there! Yet more disconcertingly….

“It was a large, three storeyed building with a sham classical façade, so unstable that if anyone jumped up and down on one of the upper floors, or even got out of bed heavily, it appeared to wobble like a jelly.”

So, was it still there? Now I really HAD to find this place. It was at this point that I started trying to figure out if our carefully planned route through Italy could squeeze in an interloper. It wasn’t long before I worked out that our route from Lucca to Verona HAD to go in a certain direction. A quick check on Google Maps meant that our journey would no longer go via any of Florence, Bologna or Modena but instead go via Spezia, Parma, Cremona and Brescia. And only 40 minutes added to the planned 3 hour drive to our next destination!

Lunch in Fontanellato was on!

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“The book which triggered one of the most thrilling adventures in detection of my life.”

Following my re-reading of Eric Newby’s book entitled “Love and War in the Apennines” I was reminded about a wonderful opportunity I was given as I was recovering from an operation I underwent in December 2020 to listen in on a Zoom meeting held by the Monte San Martino Trust on 16th May 2021 to commemorate the 50-year Anniversary of the book.

Professor Robert Tregay follows Eric Newby’s travels through Italy

The travel writer Eric Newby’s memoir Love and War in the Apennines was first published in 1971 and has been in print ever since. The book tells the dramatic story of Newby’s capture in Sicily in 1942, while on a commando raid, his time as a prisoner of war in Italy and on the run in the autumn of 1943 after the Italian armistice. He wrote the book as a tribute to the Italian people who risked their lives to assist him. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book’s first publication, Nick Young, chair of the Monte San Martino Trust, a charity founded by former British prisoners of war in Italy, hosted a discussion with Eric Newby’s daughter, Sonia Ashmore, and Professor Robert Tregay, who has researched the people and locations Newby describes.

The extraordinary thing I now realise with hindsight is that the opening words by Professor Robert Tregay in introducing his own book describing Eric Newby’s ‘Escape from Fontanellato’ was that I too was in the throes of being diagnosed with cancer and recovering from all sorts of hellish treatments and surgeries to ensure that I had a few more years left on this mortal coil to finish the journey I had commenced, prior to my diagnosis, of finding out about my Dad’s wartime exploits.

I have already wondered while reading this book myself, just what other relatives of POW’s are thinking when they have read it, but then I found out that someone else, who has no connection with Fontanellato or any other wartime exploits as far as I know, is as gripped by the story as I am and, like me, just wants to find out what actually happened. Or in my case where did my Dad go, and who was it that provided him with food and shelter, and what happened to some of the people he knew and met?

It was when I started reading the following extract from Professor Tregay’s summary of his investigations that I realised I was not the only person on the planet that was intrigued by this extraordinary period in time –

“Recovering from an operation six years ago, I was given Eric Newby’s book, Love and War in the Apennines, to read. “It’s my favourite novel,” my friend said, and it became for me the book which triggered one of the most thrilling adventures in detection of my life.“

Professor Robert Tregay – The True Story of Eric Newby’s “Love and War in the Apennines”.
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Hobbling and on the run!

It’s been about 4 years since I first read Eric Newby’s book entitled “Love and War in the Apennines” so I’ve decided to see if I can refresh my memory of the very feelings I had when I first read it.

And before very long you’re immersed in another world. And most importantly I’m aware that my own Dad was alive and experiencing the exact same circumstances that Eric Newby is describing. And you’re there. You’re walking the same corridors. Marching the same roads. Playing in the same exercise yard. And eating and drinking, yes drinking, wine and vermouth in the same rooms. My Dad’s favourite drink on a Sunday lunch after a few hours in the garden when we were living in Jersey, was a Gin and Dubonnet.

 Actually, I think he used to say that it was the Queen Mother’s favourite tipple, but I now wonder if this taste for vermouth first came from his imprisonment in PG 49 at Fontanellato?

Whilst immersed in this book I start wondering if other relatives of these inmates at PG 49 have felt the same feelings that I am now experiencing once again. For suddenly you’re in Fontanellato. And not only that but you’re the one unfortunate who has broken his ankle, just two days before being released from captivity. As Eric Newby explains…

“….on the seventh of September, 1943, the day before Italy went out of the war, I was taken to the prison hospital with a broken ankle, the result of an absurd accident in which I had fallen down an entire flight of the marble staircase which extended from the top of the building to the basement while wearing a pair of nailed boots which my parents had managed to send me by way of the Red Cross.”

Hold on. Rewind! Did he just say “marble staircase”! What sort of POW Camp is this? And it’s only once you have seen it in real life, not just pictures from the Internet, that you get to appreciate the elegance of this grand old building. So how come my Dad didn’t mention any of this?

But this story of “Love and War in the Apennines” doesn’t end there obviously and, without going into a spoiler alert, it’s fascinating to learn that soon after sampling the intoxicating emotion and joy of being set free from captivity, Eric then faces what must have been an intolerable dilemma. Just a day after being set free from PG 49 at Fontanellato, he receives the worst possible news.

“Around eleven o’clock an Italian doctor arrived in a Fiat 500.He was an enormous, shambling man with grizzled hair, like a bear and one of the ugliest men I had seen for a long time.

He examined my ankle, which was rather painful after the strains to which it had been subjected, raised his shoulders, made a noise which sounded like urgh and went off to have a conference with the capitano.

‘The doctor says you must go to the hospital,’ the capitano said, when they emerged from their conclave.

‘But that means I shall be captured again,’ I said.

‘You’ll be taken away if you don’t…….. The doctor can get you into a hospital in Fontanellato. No one will think of looking for you there.’”

So, you’ve just experienced the euphoria of freedom to now finding yourself thrown back into the Lions Den of Fontanellato! Which by now is full of angry Germans who have just been betrayed and let down by the Italians. And very soon you’re lying in a bed in the Ospedale Peracchi on the outskirts of Fontanellato, only a few hundred yards from the orfanotrofio (Orphanage) which we now know to be the site of PG 49.

And suddenly I’m jumping on to my computer to see if I can establish if this Ospedale, or Hospital, exists. And sure enough a quick Google search comes up trumps. Sitting at Via XXIV Maggio 16 it’s just an 8 minute walk from Via IV Novembre 21 where the building housing PG 49 can also be found.

Now this I have to see one day!

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Reading Books

One of the first books that I came across while researching my father’s time in Italy was “Love and War in the Apennines”, by Eric Newby, which enabled me to immerse myself in the “Life and Times” of a POW “On the Run”.

The peasants are the great sanctuary of sanity, the country the last stronghold of happiness. When they disappear there is no hope for the race.

Virginia Woolf

“In 1943, Eric Newby escaped from the Italian prison camp in which he had been held for a year. Evading the German Army, he was sheltered by an informal network of Italian peasants. Love and War in the Apennines is Newby’s tribute to these selfless and courageous people and their bleak and unchanging way of life.”

Publishers – HarperCollins

To all those Italians who helped me, and thousands like me, at the risk of their lives, I dedicate this book.

Eric Newby
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