Luther and Anna Vaughn

Adele, Loredana, and Francesca share old family photos with Judy Ingersoll during Judy and Victoria’s 2006 visit in Italy.

In January 2007, when I first set out to research the story of Camp 59, I made contact with Ian McCarthy of Associazione Casa della Memoria—the memorial association of Camp 59 in Servigliano, Italy.

Ian provided historical background about the camp, and he put me in touch with Judy Ingersoll and Victoria Vaughn, two daughters of American serviceman Luther C. Vaughn. Like my father, Luther had been a POW in Camp 59.

Victoria and Judy had recently been to Italy to see the camp and meet members of the Italian family that hid and fed Luther after his escape from P.G. 59.

On March 8, Victoria wrote, “How thrilling to hear from you! It is like hearing from a long-lost brother, as our fathers were brothers in arms.

“Dad was in the 1st Armored Division, 27th Field Artillery. He was a staff sergeant on a half-track. He deployed out of Fort Knox, Kentucky. His name was Luther Claude Vaughn, and I think his nicknames were “Ark,” “L.C.,” and who knows what else. He was captured at Tabourba, Tunisia, on December 6, 1942.

“On our visit to Servigliano, we met one family member who was living when Dad was there, as well as the descendants who were the warmest and most wonderful people.

“In 1943, Luigi and Lucia Cesari had three children: Renzo, Francesca, and Elena. Their son Pacifico had died in the war.

“Renzo married Adele, and their sons are Claudio and Pierluigi. Claudio is married to Laura, and Matteo is their son. Pierluigi is married to Enrica, and their daughter is Genny.

“Loredana is Francesca’s daughter.

“It was fascinating that everywhere we went in the area, people who heard our story recalled a GI who was with their families for some period of time. The Italians really seemed to embrace our POWs who escaped from Camp 59.

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This article was published one year ago in the Murray Ledger & Times (Murray, Kentucky). Victoria Vaughn has offered a few corrections, which are in brackets throughout the article.

Victoria Vaughn, far left, and sister Judy Ingersol, middle, are shown during their 2006 visit to Servigliano, Italy with former Italian soldier Minetti Nello, second from left, Francesca Cesari and Adele Cesari, both members of the family that gave help to the sisters’ father, Luther Claude Vaughn, as he dodged the German military in World War II. The Cesari house is shown in the background.

Adventure of a lifetime

Murray’s Ingersoll tells story of meeting family who helped dad in World War II

By JOHN WRIGHT
Murray Ledger & Times
Saturday/Sunday, November 11-12, 2017

MURRAY – On the occasion of Veterans Day, a local woman says she owes a debt of gratitude to the Italian family that kept her injured father safe while he was fighting in Europe during World War II.

Judy Ingersoll said this week that the reason she had not gone public with the story of how her father Luther Claude Vaughn had survived his Army duty of WW II was because she did not think anyone would be interested.

“There are a hundred stories just like this here in Murray alone,” Ingersoll said.

However, there is another part to this story, one that happened about 11 years ago in a small town in Italy, the same place her father had spent a lot of his time during the war. It wouldn’t be called a reunion, because she and other family members had never met the Cesari family of Servigliano, the family that provided safety as Vaughn and others tried to hide from German troops.

“When I told friends about that part, they immediately said, ‘Judy, you have to tell this story! You just have to,’” said Ingersoll on Wednesday, just days before America observed Veterans Day, a day that acknowledges soldiers who emerged from combat alive, as her father somehow did in 1945.

Vaughn had left his home in Webster County to join the Army in 1940, well before the war started. He would marry his sweetheart, Anna May Muye, of Evansville, Indiana while on leave in the summer of ’41, having asked a member of his platoon for $10 to borrow. His bride would eventually work in an Evansville factory helping manufacture airplane wings during the war.

[Judy explains, “My mother, Anna May Muye was actually from Clay, Kentucky, also but was living in Evansville, Indiana, working first as a hospital aid to help pay off her father’s medical bills and later ‘Rosie the Riveter’ working on the wing of an airplane. (My mom is still alive and living in Florida).]

Meanwhile, Vaughn and his outfit, Battery C of the 27th Armored Field Artillery unit based in Fort Knox, were thrust into war preparation after the Dec. 7 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. By early ’42, the unit was being shipped by the British luxury liner The Queen Mary to the European theatre of the way to battle Germany and Italy.

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