'BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR IN ITALY:
PATHS TO FREEDOM'

by Malcolm Tudor
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African Prelude - p 11

'Most prisoners of war in Italy were captured in the great tank battles in the African Desert from Morocco to Egypt in 1940-1943, particularly in Cyrenaica, the eastern province of the Italian colony of Libya, in 1942.'

Captivity - p 24

'In early September 1943, the Allies fought their way from Sicily to the Italian mainland, with landings at Reggio, Salerno and Taranto. Eighty thousand of their countrymen were in the Kingdom already as prisoners of war.'

PG 49 Fontanellato - pp 33 -34

'A German column had been seen only two miles away, drawn up on the main road and ready to take over the camp. At midday an Italian bugler blew three Gs, the prearranged alarm signal. The prisoners marched out in five companies, three in a row, through a gap cut by the Italians in the wire at the far end of the playing field. By 12.10 the camp was empty.'

Terror - p 66

'Ten to twelve thousand German troops combed the area, aided by 24 aircraft. They sought to eliminate partisan formations and to terrorise the people with burnings, destruction and massacre so that they would no longer support the Resistance. As the partisans retreated into the mountains beyond Bardi they met the dislocated inhabitants of three villages the Germans had burnt. Cattle and crops had also been destroyed.'

Escape - p 69

'By the end of the war, more than 12,000 Allied ex-prisoners of war had crossed the lines within Italy and over 5,000 had reached Switzerland as a result of the help they received.'

Family - p 70

'My mother and her friends walked to Fiorenzuola to join a jubilant crowd cheering the Allied troops as they made their way along the Via Emilia, throwing them flowers and giving them bottles of wine.'

'Dedicated to the Allied Forces and their helpers in Italy, 1940-1945.'
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