Description
Object description
British officer served as staff officer X Corps in North Africa, 1942; prisoner of war in Campo PG 21, Chieti and Campo PG 49, Fontanellato di Parma, Italy, 1942-1943; escaped and joined Italian Partisans in Chianti, Italy, 9/1943-8/1944
Content description
REEL 1 Background in GB, 1915-1940: family; education; employment; attitude to declaration of Second World War, 9/1939. Aspects of period as officer with Royal Engineers in GB and Egypt, 1940-1942: pattern of career; voyage from GB to Egypt; securing commission; degree of contact with Ultra. Aspects of period as staff officer with X Corps in North Africa, 1942: appointment to corps as GSO3; circumstances of his capture, 6/1942. Aspects of period as prisoner in Libya and Italy, 1942: initial incarceration in camp at Fuka; conditions in prisoner of war cages in Libya; flight from Benghazi, Libya to Leece, Italy; hostility of Italian populace in Lecce; inadequacy of food during transit Campo PG 75, Bari, Italy; later execution of camp commandant; psychological adjustment to imprisonment.
REEL 2 Continues: Recollections of period as prisoner of war in Campo PG 21, Chieti, Italy, 1942-1943: camp layout; sleeping facilities; pressures on interpreters; food supplies; tension between senior and junior officers; methods of passing time; baiting Italian captors; information gleaned from Carabinieri; punitive roll-call; use of Cypriot prisoner of war labour; organisation of food supply; institionalisation of some prisoners of war; tunnel construction; successful escapes from camp.
REEL 3 Continues: securing privacy in camp; contact with other Communists in camp; medical attention from Italians. Aspects of period as prisoner of war in Campo PG 49 Fontanellato di Parma, Italy, 1943: hearing of Italian collapse, 9/1943; release from camp, 8/9/1943. Recollections of period as evader and with Italian Partisan group in Chianti, Italy, 9/1943-8/1944: crossing Apennine Mountains; recruitment to partisan band; ambush by Fascists; encounter with monarchist partisans; regaining Allied lines and debriefing; leadership of partisan group.
REEL 4 Continues: organisation of partisan group; arms held by partisan; acts of sabotage carried out; German capture of prisoners of war in Campo PG 21 at Chieti; decisions to execute individuals; opinion of Italians; partisan revenge against Fascists; attitudes towards escape in Italian prisoner of war camps.