J. Keith Killby, Cav. Uff., O.B.E.

Founder of the Monte San Martino Trust

James ‘Keith’ Killby, Obituary – Lancing College Head’s 1930–1934 (September 2018)

“Keith is something of an enigma. A conscientious objector, who joined the SAS; a man afraid of heights and prone to chronic seasickness, who became a parachutist and a sailor; a man with a taste for hard bargaining
in the meat trade, who went out of his way to see the best in everyone in the brutal context of war.”

Written by Sir Nicholas Young in the Foreword to Keith’s book “In Combat, Unarmed”.

Sadly I was never fortunate enough to have met Keith Killby, he died on September 7, 2018, about the same time that my journey started to find out more about my father’s involvement in World War II. But as soon as I came across the Monte San Martino Trust and started reading about its work and the incredible amount of material that Keith had assimilated over many years in relation to other POW’s who had been released from Camps all over Italy in September 1943, I soon came to realise that it had to be someone very special who had been at the heart of its conception.

From the Islington Tribune

From Camp 59 Survivors – Remembering Keith Killby

J. Keith Killby’s Memoir in Print