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On July 8th, 1940, I was eighteen, and living near the town of Petworth in Sussex. The army had just returned from Dunkirk. The battle of Britain was just starting. I had to register for conscription, and I joined the Home Guard. In 1941 had to go for tests to become an Air Gunner. I failed. I was finally called to Winchester Barracks to join the Army in 1942.

I was serving in the 11th Battalion of the Kings’ Royal Rifle Corps in Italy in early 1944. At one point we occupied the front line village of Laroma on a plateau named Capralico. On the other side of the valley or ravine was the small town of Guardiagnele, occupied by the enemy.

In a small village on the outskirts of this town lived an Italian father with his wife, 5 teenage daughters and two small sons. Because the enemy liked to take young women to do their washing and cooking, the father had kept his daughters in a cave. This could not go on, so he decided to take his family over what was No Mans Land, through the British line, and on to their rear. He did this after dark, by all of them wading along a riverbed. Of course, I did not know this at the time, but I do remember a family passing through our lines, and them being taken to Casoli, a village to our rear. There is a sequel to this at the end of my story.

We left Italy on 4th June 1944, and escorted 4500 prisoners to Egypt on the Liner Orion. On October 13th 1944, the Battalion embarked for Greece, first to help with the liberation, and then we became involved in the Civil War. The Prime Minister visited during Christmas 1944. We spent Christmas Day guarding the sewer, where a ton of dynamite had been found!

After the War in Europe ended, I was sent back to Britain with other younger members of the Battalion to be re-equipped to go to the Far East. Then, when the Atomic Bomb was dropped, the war finished. I remained in Britain until I was demobbed in 1947.

The sequel to the story of the Italian Father is that, in 1952, I met and started a conversation with a young Italian Woman who was working in this country. When I discovered where she came from, it did not take long to establish that she was one of the daughters of the Italian man who had brought his family through our lines.

She has now been in this country for 53 years. We are married and live in Surrey. My wife is 79 years old, and I am 83. We have visited the area where we first almost made contact regularly for many years.

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