大象传媒

Camp 53 was a large camp divided into three compounds each housing nearly two thousand men. Each compound had three large ex warehouse buildings in which there were lines of three tier bunks.

At this camp there was a concert party, a dance band, and a military band. So most weeks there was some form of entertainment. There was a large sports field and a rugby or football match nearly every day. We also kept quite fit by walking around the perimeter of the field which was surrounded by a hire wire fence with the usual sentry boxes on top. About two metres in from the fence was a strand of barbed wire about two feet from the ground. This was the boundary and if any prisoner stepped over the wire the guards were permitted to shoot. If a football went over the barbed wire a prisoner had to get permission from a guard to go and get it. On one occasion a prisoner failed to get permission and a nervous guard shot and killed him. After that we were quite careful about going near the wire.

Charlie Beales and Ted Smalley had been moved to another camp and finally ended up in Germany. At camp 53 I palled up with 鈥楽quiff鈥� Rawlinson, a sergeant in the Scots Guards. He was 6鈥� 4鈥� tall and a guardsman right down to a smart moustache.
We shared our parcels and did most things together. On one occasion I had a touch of dysentery and Squiff went around the whole of the camp to get cheese to bind things up. He got so much it caused constipation so he spent most of his time trying to get figs and prunes to help things!
During the summer it was very hot and the barrack room became very stuffy and uncomfortable at night, we got permission to sleep outside. We soon wished we hadn鈥檛, we were eaten by fleas, the ground was alive with them.

We heard that our troops had landed in Italy and were fighting their way up the country, we thought with luck we could be freed. We heard rumours that we were all to be taken to Germany 鈥� the Italian commandant promised that if the Germans were going to take over the camp he would open the gates and let us go.

On 7th September the Italians capitulated and pulled out of the war, we anxiously waited the arrival of our troops. During the following days we heard all sorts of rumours, some good, some bad but all unsettling.

One afternoon Squiff and I with five other pals noticed that a sentry box at the wall was unoccupied and below the box was a small gate through which the guards entered the compound.
We went back to our billet collected all the clothing and food that we had and left by the unattended door. We got through the Italians quarters and headed for the open country. We later heard that over 800 men had escaped by this door but over half were recaptured when the Germans took over the camp later that day. During the following week all of the prisoners were moved to Germany. (We later met up with one of the prisoners who had crawled under one of the huts and waited until the Germans had left.)

When we first got clear of the camp we headed towards the mountains which we could see to the east. We covered about sixteen miles before it got dark and that night slept in the open as we didn鈥檛 know whether we could trust the Italians at that stage.

The following morning one of our group who could speak Italian found out from a farmer that we were only a few miles from Tollentino, a fairly large town and there were no German troops there.

We entered the town at about 9am and almost immediately met some French people who had recently been released from an internment camp following Italy pulling out of the war. Tollentino was their home and they invited us into their homes for a meal and a bath. They also found enough civilian clothes for us to discard our battledress. After our meal we were walking down the road when we saw a young Italian riding towards us on a tradesman鈥檚 bike with a big basket in front. You can imagine his surprise when we dumped seven British uniforms in his basket and walked off.
We carried on through the town when we saw German soldiers in a nearby square and an armoured car coming towards us. So much for no Germans in the town. Either the farmer lied or our pal could not speak Italian as well as he thought!

We got out of town and headed for the countryside. Once we were clear of the town we decided to split up as seven men together was too noticeable.

Squiff and I went off together, neither of us could speak any Italian but we managed to get some bread and fruit from farms that we passed. Two days later we arrived at a small village some miles south of Tollentino, the village priest invited us into his house. There were a number of escaped prisoners there and we exchanged what little news we had. The priest told us of what he knew about the fighting, it seemed that our troops were not advancing as quickly as before. We all still had some Red Cross food, we gave it to the housekeeper who cooked a wonderful meal, the best we had had since being captured.

The following morning after the service the priest told us that he had made the congregation aware that there were some escaped British prisoners and that that they should give us help if we passed through their villages. Squiff and I left about midday, every house and farm we passed offered us food and wine.

Later that afternoon we met a woman drawing water at a well, she must have been at the morning service, as she invited us to her home for a meal.

About a quarter of a mile from the well we came to the farmhouse where the woman, Theresa, lived with her family. We were welcomed by her husband Enrico Porfiri and their three children, Maria and Mario 鈥� seven year old twins and Norina 鈥� five years old. Also living at the farm was Enrico鈥檚 father, a miserable old man of about seventy who was not at all pleased to see us, Enrico鈥檚 younger brother Luigi, his wife Lena and baby Franco, and Bruna, Enrico and Luigi鈥檚 unmarried sister.
Except for the old man they all made us welcome and invited us to stay. As the farm was well away from the road and village we decided that we could safely stay there for a couple of days before making for the mountains which we could plainly see.
They told us we could sleep in the cart shed and the women made us a bed of straw and blankets.

Squiff who had been in the Army before the war had caught Malaria on his travels, he had a bout of it while we were there so we were forced to stay for a few more days while he recovered.
By the time he was well again it was harvest time for the apples and grapes, we decided to stay and give the family a hand. We then found that all the farmers a few miles around all came to our farm and they finished the harvest in a couple of days and then we all go to the next until all the apples and grapes have been gathered in.
The weather was perfect and we ate well at each of the farms whilst working.
We soon learned it was a case of no work 鈥� no food, even the animals were fed in accordance with what they did or the amount of food they produced. Pigs, sheep and chickens were fed regularly as was the oxen who did all the hard ploughing. The cats were fed a bit as they kept the mice down but the poor old dog got no regular meals just scraps off the table. When we mentioned this Enrico said it was because the dog did no work.

It was the same for the family, when there was plenty of work in the spring and summer and food was plentiful everyone ate quite well, but in the winter there was only two meals a day and one of these was bread and cheese with fruit.

Enrico and his family were tenant farmers, the property was owned by two brothers, Osvaldo and Ezio Caporalletti, they lived in the main village in the district, Camporotondo, about four miles from the farm. We were taken to meet the brothers one day and whilst there learned that our troops were being held up un the Rome/Pescara line some sixty or seventy miles to the south. The brothers told us that the Germans had moved all civilians back from the front line for about two miles and said that we wouldn鈥檛 have much chance of getting through to our own troops. They advised us to stay at the farm until the line started moving again.
We couldn鈥檛 stay in the village because German and Fascist troops passed trough most days and we could well have been given away.

We went back to the farm and did what work we could. The weather was quite warm and we worked stripped to the waist. Enrico stopped that, he said that Italians would not take their shirts off and if anyone saw us they would know we were escaped prisoners. Most of the farmers knew who we were but there was always a chance that troops or police might visit the farm for some reason and spot us. As I have said Squiff was very tall and with his bearing and moustache he could not have been mistaken for anything but a British soldier. I became sunburned and with my dark hair could pass as an Italian, until it came to speaking. I picked up enough Italian to converse with the family but any other Italian would realise what I was.

One Saturday, Squiff and I were in the living room at the farm when Enrico ran in to tell us that the local police chief was on his way to the farm. He was a friend of the old father and kept some of his clothing at the farm. Enrico was not sure how he would feel about us and thought it best if we hid. Squiff got out of the house and into the fields. I was a bit slow and when I got to the door could see the policeman coming towards the house. I went back into the house and into the old fathers bedroom and hid under the bed. This proved to be a bad choice because the policeman kept his spare clothing in this room and I could see his feet going to and fro. I had been under the bed for about an hour when Lena came into the room and saw one of my elbows sticking out, how the policeman didn鈥檛 notice it I shall never know 鈥�(of course he may well have seen it and known more than we thought) 鈥擫ena was quick thinking and put a sack of corn on my elbow, not very comfortable but I had to stay like that for another hour.
In November the Germans posted notices around the villages offering a reward to anyone who turned in an escaped POW, they also stated that if they were found in any house the house would be burned down and the males of the household would be sent to Germany to work in the Labour Camps.

We decided that we could not put the family to such a risk and said we would move on. We had heard from other prisoners that who had passed through that a submarine was coming to a spot on the Adriatic and would take off as many prisoners as possible. We decided to head for Ancona to see if we were lucky. On the way Squiff had another malaria attack that held us up. As we got nearer the coast we heard from other prisoners that it was a German rumour and a German submarine. A lot of prisoners had been recaptured or killed as they ran to the beach having seen a submarine.

We headed back towards the mountains and had some rough nights sleeping out in the open. Some of the farmers were frightened to have us on their property, although they gave us food they would not let us stay.

Squiff and I really didn鈥檛 know where we were and one night in a storm found ourselves in familiar surroundings near the Porfiri farmyard. It was raining so hard we though we would ask to stay for the night but when the family saw us they said we would have to stay for the winter until the weather improved. They cleared out an attic which had been used as an apple store and put up an old bed for us.
The trousers we had got from the French people had become threadbare by this time so Theresa and Lena made us each another pair out of some old calico sheets. Our boots had also worn out, as there was no leather to be had Luigi carved us some new soles out of wood. They were a bit uncomfortable but wore well.

We continued to visit Camporotondo and occasionally bumped into German troops but managed to get off the road before we were seen. Christmas 1943 was spent with the family and was the best of the war so far. There was plenty of food and drink, we visited the local farms for seasonal drinks.

On the morning of 1st January 1944 we woke to find that it had snowed all night and the farm was completely cut off from the road, the village and all other farms.
Our first job was to dig paths to the well, haystack and woodpile.
Luigi and Enrico could get about alright because they had skis and they were very skilful on them. The only way Squiff and I could get about was harness one of the oxen and let it walk in front and then we stepped into its footprints in the snow. It was a slow method of getting about but better than staying in the house. After a few days the tracks between the farms and villages became passable and we went and spent some time with the brothers in Camporotondo. As the Germans and Fascists could not get through to the village we were able to stay for a few days and even listened to British radio, although the news wasn鈥檛 very encouraging as the snow was just as bad down at the front line.

Once the snows had melted things returned to normal and we continued to help around the farm. Although the Italians had pulled out of the war, those in the parts still held by the Germans were still being called up and sent to Germany as part of the labour force. The young men of call up age didn鈥檛 like the idea of being sent to Germany so many came up into the mountains to dodge the call up. About once a month the Fascists had a round up and came to all the villages and farms searching for escaped prisoners and call up dodgers. As our farm was well off the road we always had plenty of warning, usually one of the children from the village would be sent up to the farm to warn us, then we would go into the hills until it was safe to return. The family would signal to us by hanging a sheet out of one of the top windows, we would know it was safe to return. The searches kept us on our toes, a number of escaped prisoners and call up dodgers were captured.

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