大象传媒

MY FATHER鈥橲 WAR

My father, William John Frank (鈥淛ack鈥�) Clarke (dob 07.06 1914), was 25 at the outbreak of war. He had been in the Territorial Army since April 1936, in signals. He was part of the British Expeditionary Force (April 1940). He left England again as part of the RAOC on 13 November 1940 for North Africa, disembarked at Port Said on 29 December, and was captured at Mechili on 8 April 1941. At some point he transferred to REME and was by the time of his imprisonment a second lieutenant.
He was taken to Italy as a POW and seems to have spent time in Rezzanello, Montalbo and finally Fontanellato, all camps in northern Italy, in the Po valley, and near Piacenza or Parma. I have researched his time in POW camps as far as I am able, but it is his experiences after the Armistice of 8 September 1943 which really fascinate me. After the war he compiled a list of dates and places and he began to write an account of his adventures, which sadly he never completed. I only discovered these notes long after his early death at the age of 69 and after a holiday in the depths of Umbria when I began to wonder about his time in Italy. I have read everything I can get hold of on the subject generally of POWs in Italy and spoken to quite a few people.
It seems that my father was fortunate in ending up at Fontanellato (PG 49) for at least three reasons. It was a permanent building (built in the Mussolini era as an orphanage) with proper facilities. The food was good thanks to the excellent Belgian in charge of catering and to the practice of pooling all Red Cross parcels; this meant that when the time came for escape the men were less unfit than they might otherwise have been. And thirdly the SBO had foreseen what was to come and had gained the full co-operation of the Italian Camp Commandant so that, when the Armistice was announced, all was ready and the entire body of prisoners marched out in formation and with plans as to what to do next.
After the first night spent in the open, my father was one of those who was billeted on a local family. He and his companion, initially a Cypriot in the Pioneer Corps named Jacovides, spent a few nights at a local farm which my father describes as awful. They were moved to the house of the local district nurse, Bianca Gelati, and her sister, right in the village of Fontanellato. A few more days and they went to the nearby hamlet of Cannetolo, where they lodged with the Gotti family who looked after them wonderfully. After a further 10 days my father realised that the Allies were not going to arrive in northern Italy in days or even weeks as some had hoped. (It turned out to be nearly 18 months of bitter struggle.) He felt that he should move on so as not to endanger the Gottis. By now the Germans had put up posters to the effect that anyone found harbouring POWs would be shot and their possessions confiscated.
So began his journey south which took about 6 weeks. Jacovides elected to stay in the area, but my father teamed up with Marcus Kane-Burman a South African dentist and a captain in the SAAMC, and a naval rating named McLean. I have been in touch with Marcus鈥檚 daughter and we have exchanged all the information we each have. But I have no knowledge of McLean and would be glad to find out anything. His service number is D/SSX 22068 and his initials are A McI.
According to my father鈥檚 list they stayed overnight at 44 different places, mostly for one night. I can imagine that they walked following the sun but also using the advice of the people with whom they had stayed. Looking at the map it is very clear that as they journeyed south, to attempt to cross the German line and re-join the Allied troops, they must have become fitter and got into the swing of walking, for the distances they covered each day became greater and greater. Bear in mind that for a large part of the journey, the route they walked took them against the grain of the land, up one side of a river valley, over the ridge, down to the next river, and so on.
I have visited some of the villages and hamlets in which they stayed, and said my thanks to the people I met there for their amazing generosity, courage and open heartedness in taking in these complete strangers at risk to their own lives and in sharing with them the sometimes very meagre resources they themselves had. I think it is one of the under reported episodes in World War Two, and deserves much wider recognition.
It must have been desperately frustrating when they were recaptured in the German line within sight of the Allied troops, just south of the hamlet of Frattura, above the Lago di Scanno in the Abbruzzi, on 19 November 1943. They were taken to a number of holding camps and on the 1 December 1943 were entrained for Germany. However one of those at the camp had secreted an axe about his person and so on the slow journey northwards, while the train was in motion, some of the men in the wooden cattle wagon took it in turns to hack a hole in the corner. Apparently there was enough dung from the previous occupants to hide the hole each time they stopped and their wagon was inspected!
They drew lots as to the order of jumping and whom to pair up with afterwards. My father was third and was to meet the fourth man, Anthony Laing, which even in the darkness they duly did. This was near to Orte, a big junction in the Italian railway system. Anthony was an architect and was a lieutenant in the RE. He is still alive and when I was born after the war my parents asked him to be my godfather.
Anthony had been very well looked after on his walk south by a wealthy family just outside Firenze, and so when the two of them decided that with winter now fast approaching they鈥檇 had enough of walking, that was where they made for. Here they were looked after more or less continuously from 21 December 1943 till 21 February 1944, exactly two months, by the Valvona-Buti family. (They did make one foray to Venice to try to get out of Italy either by ship 鈥� there had been talk of the navy trying to get people out 鈥� or through Jugoslavia. But neither proved possible.)
So with fake papers provided and with Italian guides they were taken by train to Bologna, Milan then Lago Maggiore. They crossed by boat, travelled up the west shore by bus, then were taken up by cart to Socraggio, a tiny hamlet in the valley of the Cannobina. The next morning, the 24 February 1944, they set off at 5 am and slipped and scrambled up the mountain parallel to the lake shore till they crossed the border and gave themselves up to the Swiss guards at 3.30 pm.
My father spent virtually the remainder of the war in Switzerland where it seems he was occupied in a scheme teaching POW soldiers various skills and crafts, in his case engineering of various sorts. He returned to England just in time for Christmas 1944.
His companion on the way south, Marcus Kane-Burman, also fetched up in Switzerland just a few days after my father, though after a completely different journey, and he became SDO (Senior Dental Officer) Switzerland. Anthony Laing was also there till the end of 1944.
This is a very brief account of an action packed period in my father鈥檚 war, following the two and a half years of relative inaction in POW camps. Knowing him and Anthony Laing, and learning of Marcus Kane-Burman, I hugely admire the qualities in them that carried them through that difficult time on the run. But at least as much I wonder at the many Italians who made it possible for them to survive; all those who gave them hospitality; all those who fed them at midday as they walked along; those who in one place washed and mended their clothes; those who guided them and helped them to avoid danger; the people who must have looked after my father when he was ill at one place; those who allowed them to come into their house to listen to the 大象传媒 in the evening; and those who obtained papers and clothes for them and arranged safe travel and safe houses on the way to Switzerland. All these Italians risked everything.
The Monte San Martino Trust attempts in a small way to say thank you to these people by giving grants to young Italians, descendants of helpers, to come to England and learn the language.

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