Author Archives: Dennis Hill

Una Bella Passeggiata (A Walk in Wartime Italy)—Installment 2

Chapter 5—Sempre Giu Alle Montagne

From the first moments of being taken prisoner we, who had been expecting imminent death or dreadful wounding, were given a sudden and unexpected reprieve. As one German said to me, “For you the war is over, but I go on and on.” The neutrality of camp life seemed to confirm that, as in 1914–1918, being a POW meant immunity from the perils of war for the duration, that we were meant to return to wife, girlfriend, or mother. As prison became less disagreeable and its monastic nature appeared to distance us from the struggle against Naziism, so we slowly accepted its placid regime and grew less inclined to consider re-entering the fight to rid the world of totalitarian frightfulness. Belsen was not known to us and the Holocaust barely a whisper. Now, at a stroke, we were back in it as though the drive and spirit of our old company commander, despairing of our inertia, had booted us back to duty.

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Una Bella Passeggiata (A Walk in Wartime Italy)—Installment 1

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Preface

I can claim no experience in authorship of any extensive written work beyond responding to my Tutors’ demands in Teacher Training College days for a pocket thesis on some facet of education and an attempted booklet aimed at introducing Geology to 14-year-olds. The first was accepted as adequate and the second judged to be too ponderous for 14-year-olds to stomach.

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Arthur Page’s Memorable Walk

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Arthur before deployment, with his first wife and his sisters, mother, and brother Roy

In March 2015, I published a short post on Camp 59 Survivors about British Sergeant Arthur Page. (See “P.G. 59 Prisoner Arthur Page.”)

Five years later, in December 2020, I received a surprise comment on the post:

“I am proud to be this man’s son, forever in our thoughts.”

I was thrilled and wrote immediately to the commenter, Arthur’s son Mike, saying I would very much like to know more about his father.

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Brayno “Frenchy” Reome

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photo of Bryan Reome — Sergeant Brayno Reome

This is the very first post on Camp 59 Survivors concerning Brayno Reome.

However, I first was in contact with Brayno’s grandson Andrew in 2013—a full decade ago—and I have been in communication with Andrew and his father James since then. I quoted Andrew concerning his grandfather’s reluctance to speak about his war experiences in a 2018 post, “To Talk or Not to Talk.”

I’m eager to post more about Brayno in the future. Here is Andrew from 2013:

“My name is Andrew Stockton. I live in Cicero, New York, and I recently came across your web site while searching for information on my grandfather, who was a prisoner of war during World War 2.

“Brayno Reome was my mother’s father.

“Although there is not a Brayno Reome listed on your prisoner list, I observed a “Tex” Reome of Malone, New York, as listed in a deck of cards [see “Dual Purpose Deck of Cards”], which I assume to be my grandfather. He [seems to have gone by] a nickname during that time which he probably wished to forget after that experience.

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Long Gone—But Not Forgotten

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Peonies in bloom at Rose Hill Cemetery—Bloomington, Indiana

Today is Memorial Day here in the United States, a national holiday for honoring those who lost their lives while serving in the Armed Forces.

On this day, families and others wishing to pay respects to the fallen soldiers visit their graves, sometimes bringing flowers. Originally known as Decoration Day, the time each year for “strewing the graves of Civil War soldiers—Union and Confederate” with flowers was effectively promoted by Mary Anne Williams after the U.S. Civil War. Eventually, the last Monday in May became a Federal holiday.

Each year at this time, I visit one of the oldest cemeteries in my community, Rose Hill Cemetery, where a profusion of peonies bloom just in time for the holiday. These perennials are most concentrated in the oldest part of the cemetery; the largest peony clusters are believed to be well over a century old.

There are many graves in Rose Hill of soldiers from both the First and Second World Wars, as well as those of men and women who served in more recent wars and conflicts. The surnames are very familiar to me, and I reminded that many people I know have had relatives who went to war.

On Camp 59 Survivors, this is an appropriate day to remember three Americans who escaped from P.G. 59 in September 1943, but who did not return home.

Each was killed by Germans or fascists while traveling through enemy-occupied Italy.

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Stephen Hargreaves—A Story and Two Postcards

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The day after I posted “Stephen Hargreaves—A Soldier Comes to Light”), Steve’s daughter, Julie Barkway, wrote again:

“It is strange how little snippets of conversation keep coming back to us every now and again,” she said. “There was an anecdote that my father used to tell us that went along the lines of something like this:

“He was travelling along some heights in Tunisia with his troop, when they looked down on a very quiet village. My father and a driver took a jeep down to investigate while the rest gave cover from above. Finding the place deserted, both men were heading back to the jeep when a Stuka came diving out of the sky and dropped a bomb which landed between the two men. My father recalls the scream of the plane coming down and then this warm, floating experience, as he was thrown into the air. It seemed to last for an age.

“After a while, he opened his eyes, but said he couldn’t see anything in front of him at all nor could he hear a single sound. He got to his feet, checked himself over, and found no injuries at all. His only conclusion was that he was dead and having an afterlife experience. The driver who had been with him suddenly appeared in front of him like a ghostly white apparition. His mouth was moving like he was trying to say something but my father heard nothing but a ringing in his ears.

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Joe Mandese’s Longest Battle

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Joe Mandese in Italy with four fellow P.G. 59 escapees: at rear, left to right, are Peter Calvagno, Edmond Petrelli, and Mandese; in front, left to right, are Tony Spicola and Phil Vacca

Last week Bobby Canon notified me that an article about his grandfather, P.G. 59 POW Joe Mandese, appeared recently in AL&T magazine, a publication of the U. S. Army’s Acquisition Support Center.

Read “The Longest Battle” online.

For the article, Bobby’s sister, Kelly Tisch, was interviewed by staff writer Cheryl Marino.

Kelly explained how her grandfather’s military service inspired her to pursue a civilian career in the Army. She shared how traumatic memories of war and imprisonment haunted Joe throughout his life. “For some people,” the article explains, “PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] symptoms may start later on, or they may come and go over time.” For Joe they were an ever-present burden.

Through her close relationship with her grandfather, Kelly saw first-hand the importance of the Army providing quality, accessible mental health resources to veterans.

“My grandfather [and his sacrifice] is a reminder that there is nothing more important than keeping our Soldiers equipped and safe,” Kelley said. “Professionally, I want to continue to learn from others and be a change agent in any way I can.”

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Stephen Hargreaves—A Soldier Comes to Light

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Occasionally I come across the name of a soldier whom I know little about, other than that he had been interned in P.G. 59. Such was the case with Sjt. Stephen Hargreaves, whom I found on the Alphabetical List eight years ago.

Then, last week I heard from Julie Barkway (née Hargreaves).

Julie and her husband Peter had just returned from holiday in Italy. There they had visited the P.G. 59 memorial site where Julie’s father, Steve Hargreaves, has been interned.

“We were very unfortunate with the weather, which obscured the surrounding mountains. We didn’t have a tour and the museum was closed, so we just looked around ourselves and used what information Peter had found.

“I found it to be a very emotional day that really brought home to me what the soldiers must have gone through as young men. To be on the run at such a dangerous time in a strange country—and totally dependent on others for food and help—required bravery and courage. And, of course, a lot of luck.

“I am so grateful to those kind souls who helped them at great risk to themselves. They, too, showed enormous courage.

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The POW Camp Up the Road

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Italian POWs and U.S. Army staff during construction of a POW chapel at the Camp Atterbury WWII internment camp. Photo—Indiana Historical Society

Thirty miles up the road from my home in Bloomington, Indiana, is a military base operated by the Indiana National Guard.

Constructed in 1941, Camp Atterbury originally spanned over 43,000 acres.

During World War II, troops from across the United States were sent to the camp for basic and advanced training before being sent to overseas battlefields. Four U.S. Army infantry divisions were located on the camp.

In the 1940s Camp Atterbury had the largest hospital in America, spanning 47 two-story buildings. As many as 85,000 wounded soldiers were treated there.

In a quieter 45-acre compound on the west side of the camp, Italian—and later German—prisoners of war were interned. In April 1943, the first prisoners to arrive were Italians captured in North Africa. Internment of Italian prisoners was relatively short, as they began leaving soon after Italy’s surrender in September 1943.

The story of the internment of Italians in southern Indiana, and the importance POWs as laborers on local farms, was told in a 2016 blog post by Annette Scherber for the Indiana History Blog (Indiana Historical Bureau of the Indiana State Library).

I’m pleased to share a link to: “Corn, Tomatoes, & POWs: Hoosier Agriculture During World War II.”

The Camp Atterbury compound held up to 3,000 POWs, making it similar in capacity to P.G. 59, which during the Second World War held as many as 2,000 Allied prisoners.

A note of explanation to those outside of Indiana: the term Hoosier is a nickname for a person who is a native of Indiana.

Four Months Until the Grand Event at P.G. 59

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View from the hilltop comune of Santa Vittoria in Matenano, five miles from Servigliano

It seems that just yesterday I advised followers to “mark your calendar” for a September 2023 eightieth anniversary celebration of the Italian Armistice—and subsequent POW camp breakouts. (See “Mark Your Calendar for September 2023.”)

Amazingly, we are now four months away from this wonderful event, co-sponsored by UK-based Monte San Martino Trust and the Escape Lines Memorial Society (ELMS), in conjunction with Casa della Memoria in Servigliano. Details of the program are set and excitement is growing!

The September 7–10 program will be packed with activities that you can pick from, but there will be plenty of time for socializing and discovering local food and wine as well.

A Special Reason for Americans to Attend

In January 1941 the internment camp at Servigliano, which had been constructed as a First World War POW camp, reopened as P.G. 59. The first prisoners were Greeks; but soon the Greeks were transferred and the camp filled with Allied soldiers who had been captured in North Africa.

Records show that through the end of 1942 there were only a handful of Americans in the camp, but beginning in January 1943 there was a sudden influx of American captives.

By the end of August 1943, 236 of the 490 noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and 814 of the 949 enlisted men in the camp were American. (See the MSM Trust/Istituto Nazionale Ferruccio Parri website Allies in Italy for a month-by-month count.) By then most British and Commonwealth soldiers had been transferred to camps farther north, including work camps in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy. So at the time of the September breakouts, P.G. 59 interns were overwhelmingly Americans.

Over the years many Americans have shared with me how a father, grandfather, or uncle had escaped from P.G. 59. Some of these contacts had visited Servigliano; a smaller number had connected with descendants of the Italians who protected their family member on the run.

Most have not made connections, but expressed a desire to one day visit Italy and see the camp. The trip, they tell me, is on their “bucket list.”

If this sounds familiar, I’d like to suggest this event could be the perfect time for your visit.

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