大象传媒

I was sent forward to Corps HQ at Arezzo, who allocated me to HQ 10th (Indian) Division at Subbiano, a few miles to the north. There, I found a friendly officers鈥� mess, and I was given an empty farmhouse about a mile from Divisional HQ, where I set up my 鈥渃age鈥� and office. For guard duties, I had a detachment of Indian soldiers consisting of a Havildar (Sergeant), two Naiks (Corporals) and six Sepoys (Private soldiers). They were a happy bunch, performed their guard duties willingly, and my driver and I got on well with them.

Prisoners were brought back directly from the front, many of them convinced that they were going to be shot any minute. My brief was to find out the enemy order of battle opposite us. This was often easy, as the unit was decodable from the Field Post numbers in the men鈥檚 paybooks. We were often able to discover new additions to the list of numbers we already had, and these were sent back in our reports. Names of officers, locations of HQs, etc, and rumours about imminent intentions were also sought.

All information we had obtained was immediately written down in the form of a report, one copy of which went to the division, one to corps (with the prisoner) and one to CSDIC in Rome. If we were lucky, we had access to a typewriter. Otherwise, reports were written by hand. Prisoners were only held for a minimum of time and sent back to Corps 鈥渃age鈥�, where the interrogator had a different brief. They were then sent back to the 8th Army 鈥渃age鈥� for transportation to one of the main POW Camps. However, if at any time during this procedure it transpired that a prisoner had any 鈥渟ensitive鈥� information, he would be sent to Cinecitt脿 for detailed interrogation.

I had been with 10th (Indian) Division for only a few days, when an Italian in semi-uniform presented himself at my office with an offer to share guard duties. He said that his local Partisan Group would feel honoured to do this. I had to tell him diplomatically that my Indian guards would feel slighted if I accepted his kind offer and he withdrew. However, he was soon back and invited me and any of my colleagues to a 鈥渃elebration鈥� for the liberation of the village.

Three officers from Divisional HQ, plus my batman and a few others decided to accept. At the local village hall, some 15-20 partisans in music-hall uniforms entertained us. Their ladies served spaghetti. Plates were piled high, and second and third helpings freely given. We were all dismayed to find that this was only the first course! Copious helpings of meat stew and vegetables followed. The wine flowed freely, and our tumblers were kept full to the brims.

Several of the partisans managed to make speeches in broken English, to which one of the officers from Divisional HQ replied in what seemed like passable Italian. Everyone was praised, especially the 鈥済lorious partisans鈥� (who had no doubt been skulking in the hills whilst the Germans were in the village!).

Soon we pushed forward to the village of Rassina, where I was allocated an empty villa, which proclaimed on a tile by the front entrance that this was the residence of the local midwife. I sincerely hoped that there would be no births while we were in the village!

I was still arranging my office when my agitated driver came in and announced that the retreating Germans had machine-gunned the local agricultural co-operative, and that the vats of grappa were leaking fast. He quickly gathered together any handy containers, including our steel helmets, and went off to fill them with the rapidly dwindling, fiery grape spirit. It was raw and virtually undrinkable, but improved with the addition of fruit juice or coffee! It kept us in 鈥済ood spirits鈥� until we moved on . . .

Shortly after I had arrived in Rome, I received a letter from my father, addressed to me in Cairo. It had been all round a number of military units for some time and had finally found me. It informed me that he had been appointed to a unit in Algiers, and was hoping to move to Rome as soon as conditions allowed.

A little 鈥渋ntelligence work鈥� revealed that the unit he mentioned had in fact been moved to Rome, and I tracked him down to a building in the centre of the city. He was in charge of a motley crew of multi-linguists, who listened in to news broadcasts on the regular civilian radio stations in axis countries. He provided a daily digest of this news for Eighth Army HQ. I was only able to contact him briefly before being sent 鈥渦p the line鈥� to Arezzo.

We kept in touch sporadically by means of the makeshift military telephone service, and one day I borrowed a motorcycle and drove to Florence, where he had been posted recently. Unfortunately, my father had chosen just that day to borrow a truck, and had come to see me in Rassina! We therefore missed one another, but as the 10th (Indian) Division was due to come out of the line shortly, I arranged to come to Florence for a few days鈥� 鈥渞est and recuperation鈥�.

My batman, Peter Teagle, and I duly arrived in Florence and we were billeted in my father鈥檚 unit. He had in the meantime discovered that there was an English lady he had known many years previously, now living with a local family in a Tuscan farmhouse. A grand party was arranged, and we drove out into the Tuscan hills to a typical 鈥渉ollow square鈥� farmhouse. Here, we were entertained by my father鈥檚 friend and her Italian hosts to roast pork (and, of course, spaghetti!) and copious helpings of local wine. We did finally get back to Florence, but I remember little of the journey!

The Division came out of the line at Rassina for a week of re-forming, and was then moved back into the front on the other side of the Apennine Mountains. The Divisional HQ was at a small market town called Mercato Saraceno, where I was allocated a household goods shop on the main square for my office and cage. Two incidents stand out in my memory from our short stay there:

A batch of German prisoners came in, and we held them in a shed at the back of the shop awaiting interrogation and transport back to Corps HQ. One of them came to me and complained that the Indian soldiers were insulting them. I made enquiries, and found that one of the soldiers had decided that the Germans would like some tea. Not able to find sufficient cups for them, he saw a 鈥渓arge cup鈥� in the window of the shop, filled it with hot, sweet tea, and sent it to the prisoners. I had to explain that the Indian soldier was unfamiliar with the use of this "large cup" 鈥� a chamber pot!

The second incident was when a group of prisoners was brought in, and I had to disperse a voluble crowd of Italians, who were jostling them and spitting at them. While I was interrogating their Corporal, he told me that he was grateful for my intervention. He explained that one of the girls, the ringleader of the 鈥渟pitters鈥�, had willingly and enthusiastically slept with him, only a few nights before!

When the Division was withdrawn from the front at Mercato Saraceno, I moved to Rimini, where CSDIC had set up a forward unit. I was then re-allocated to 56 (London) Division at Forlimpopoli, a little town on the Via Emilia, an old Roman road which runs in a straight line northwest from Rimini. My office was the local cobbler鈥檚 shop, on the main street.

At 56 Div, I had the divisional concert party as my guard troops. They were a lively, musical and most amusing lot. Their officer, Lieutenant 鈥淟ovely, lovely Dickie鈥� Henderson, was retained at Divisional HQ for other duties. My driver and I once again got on well with them.

I also had considerable contact with the divisional Italian Liaison Officer. He was Sottotenente Ruffo, Principe di Calabria (Second Lieutenant Ruffo, Prince of Calabria), a very young officer in the Italian Army, whose main duties were to help Divisional HQ in their negotiations with the local authorities. He was also very interested in my interrogation work, and, in return for being allowed to 鈥渟it in鈥�, taught me Italian.

The Via Emilia is crossed at right angles with a succession of little rivers, which are usually dry, or at most a little trickle for most of the year. However, for a short while in the winter and spring, they become raging torrents, and so their banks are built up to form high 鈥渂unds鈥�.

These bunds were convenient as front lines, and our 鈥減ushes鈥� were usually from one river to the next. Progress was slow. Prisoners were usually few and far between, but I remember one group, commanded by a young Captain, who arrived with a vast amount of luggage. His men complained to me that, whereas he had taken all of his belongings, they had had to leave all their kit behind. They said he was a tyrant. I informed him that he would not need his entire luggage at the base camp. His tantrums were wonderful to behold. His men were openly laughing as I resisted his attempts to 鈥減ull rank鈥�. He eventually set off with as little kit as his men.

I distributed most of his luggage amongst the guard troops. His sheepskin sleeping bag went to a local tailor, with my accumulated cigarette ration (I do not smoke). It was returned a few days later in the form of jackets for my driver and me. These were most welcome in the winter we were about to face!

Soon after joining 56 Division, I was called upon by an Artillery officer. His battery was moving into a position close to my office, when he noticed two people coming out from under a haystack. They were a young man and a girl, and they had apparently been living in a dugout under the stack. In the dugout, my informant had found a double bed and a brand new portable typewriter. The girl was clutching a small black box marked 鈥淪iemens鈥�, with headphones and dials. The officer suspected that it was a radio transmitter. As they spoke only Italian, I turned them over to Second Lieutenant Ruffo for interrogation.

He told me afterwards that they had denied being spies, but as a precaution, he had handed them over to the civil police. They would be held for a while on a charge of immorality, having been found together more or less in one bed, without the formality of a marriage certificate.

The next day, my driver mentioned that 鈥渙f course鈥�, the girl was deaf. The 鈥淪iemens鈥� box was, in fact, a hearing aid identical to the ones he had been selling before the War!

I benefited from the incident by the acquisition of the typewriter, and the recipients of my reports were now happy to receive legible reports.

During the time along the Via Emilia, I was visited by two members of the CSDIC unit at Rimini, with instructions to return to Rome when 56 Division next came out of the line. We afterwards went to a nearby town, where there was an Officers鈥� Club, for a meal and a few drinks. Returning in my borrowed Jeep, I picked my way very gingerly along the maze of dirt roads leading to my office. Lights were not permitted so close to the front line. I knew that I had to turn right at a major crossroads. I found the junction, turned right, and found myself at the bottom of the dried-up riverbed alongside the road. I was unable to reverse the Jeep up the steep bank.

Luckily, a tank, escorted by a 鈥淒ingo鈥� scout car, came along after a few minutes, saw my predicament, and lost no time in pulling me out. I thanked the young cavalry officer in the 鈥淒ingo鈥�. He remarked that he wondered what the rest of the Army would do without the cavalry. As I sped away, I turned to see that the scout car had turned left 鈥� into the other arm of the river. I pretended that I had not noticed!

The division had pushed forward until the front line was on the River Senio, and it was on the point of pulling out. In fact, some of the forward positions had already been taken over by another division. A German officer bearing a white flag crossed the line and asked to see our General. He was first brought to my office, but he insisted on speaking to the commander of the division. His name was Lieutenant Behrens, and he spoke excellent English. He was somewhat handicapped by having an artificial leg, the result of an injury 鈥� in Russia, he told me.

I took him to Divisional Headquarters, and he eventually spoke to the General. He asked for a twelve-hour truce to allow them to evacuate some seriously wounded soldiers. Wehad been caught 鈥渙n the hop鈥�, as we were worried in case he had seen the preparations for the handover. He stayed with us for two nights, and was returned through a neighbouring division鈥檚 front line. He was treated as a guest at the Divisional HQ Officers鈥� Mess, and slept in my billet. I am not certain what the outcome of his visit was, I never heard whether a truce was ever arranged.

After re-briefing in Rome, I rejoined 56 Division in what was to be the last phase of the War. We had been informed that the Germans were putting in some divisions made up of Russian deserters and prisoners given the option of a prison camp or service with the Army. I was given new guidelines at Rome about handling these troops.

We re-entered the line at Lake Comacchio, a vast area of marshes and lakes south of the Po valley. Opposite us, we found a division made up of Russian Turcoman soldiers. These now deserted to us in their hundreds. Interrogation was impossible, as they spoke only rudimentary German. I needed a much larger holding cage, and transport was stretched to the limit to get them back to Army HQ. A disused factory building was hastily equipped as a camp, but the prisoners were quite unaccustomed to 鈥渃ivilised鈥� life. They misunderstood the purpose of the portable latrines set up for them at the end of their sleeping quarters. They removed the galvanised buckets from inside the latrine seats, which were then used without the buckets. The buckets were then filled with water, which dissolved the creosote, which had been used to disinfect them, and they were used for ablutions!

Clearing up the resultant mess was fortunately not a job we had to cope with, as we moved forward very soon.

When we reached the outskirts of Mestre, word came through that the War had ended. German troops came to us of their own accord, hoping to be sent home quickly. Italian partisans sprang up from all directions, once again demanding the honour of performing guard duties. My powers of diplomacy were stretched to the limit.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.