大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Chris Comer of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Fred Hirst and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Fred Hirst had been serving with the Sherwood Foresters in Tunisia when he was captured by the Germans. He was handed over to the Italians and sent to an Italian POW camp.
When Italy pulled out of the war Fred Hirst and his companion Ron Ford seized the opportunity to leave the camp and make their way South to Allied lines.
There were by now some 50,000 escaped POWs roaming either North or South through Italy trying to reach safety whilst the Germans, still fighting a determined rear guard action against the allied forces were doing their best to recapture them. Of the original 80,000 POWs in Italy 30,000 were recaptured in their camps by the Germans.
Another concern was running into Italian fascists who would hand them over to the Germans. Fred and Ron decided that there was more danger of this happening in the larger towns so they tended to stick to the countryside, approaching farms and villages with extreme caution if they needed help, food or shelter for the night. In the majority of cases the Italians were sympathetic and helped them, often at huge risk to themselves.

鈥淗owever, in some cases we were told unexpectedly by our helper to leave at once, for no reason other than that he had become afraid for his family and his home. Many stories abounded of German viciousness reaped on those unfortunate enough to have been found to have harboured escaped prisoners under their roof. People were shot or imprisoned, or sent to Germany as slave labour, houses were burned down and pillaged. Despite the consequences many took the terrible risk of coming to the aid of the confused and hungry strangers from countries which were now friendly and who were trying to liberate them from the Germans.鈥�

Fred and Ron, who by now had been joined by two Spaniards who said they had served with the French foreign Legion in Tunisia, finally came to the town of Terni. The roads were full of German traffic and they decided to skirt round Terni to the East. They safely negotiated the road and river and started to climb a hill where there were a few scattered houses, intending to keep clear of them if they could.

鈥淎s we pushed on one of the inhabitants of a bungalow popped his head over the fence and enquired if we were 鈥業nglesi?鈥� (English?) but we hurried on without answering. Perhaps they might mistake us for Germans. The path carried on past the dwellings and on through the wood. Then to our left appeared two hefty looking men holding double-barrelled shot guns and they were pointing them at us. These men were Italian Fascists and obviously out to claim their reward for turning in Allied escaped POWs.鈥�

They were handed over to the Germans who kept them for several days in a virtually deserted barracks in the town of Terni. They were allowed to roam the barrack buildings and soon began to discuss whether they should make another break for freedom. Ron Ford was from the second Parachute Battalion which had served as infantry support in Tunisia. Ron was a Yorkshireman like Fred and had trained as a Para at Ringway, Manchester. He had acquired skills that would come in handy later.

However they delayed too long and were horrified to discover that they were going to be transported to another POW camp at Spoleto and were from their put on a train heading for the labour camps of Germany.

Fred Hirst wrote a book about his experiences called 鈥楢 Green Hill Far Away鈥� Extracts from this book have been reproduced with the permission of the author and the publisher.

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