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Hiding history: the Allies, the Resistance and the others in Occupied Italy 1943–1945*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Roger Absalom
Roger Absalom
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
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Abstract

Of the almost 80,000 prisoners-of-war held by Italy at the time of the Armistice with the Allies of 8 September 1943, more than half succeeded in escaping and almost 18,000 were not recaptured, largely due to the help offered spontaneously by Italian civilians. The records of the Allied Screening Commission preserved in Washington, and other official papers available in England, South Africa and Australia, complemented by oral history fieldwork among former escapers and their Italian helpers, reveal an Anglo-Italian epic of anti-heroism, whose protagonists nevertheless displayed great courage, ingenuity, perseverance and humanity.

Exploration of this neglected but critical dimension of the secret history of the years of occupation and resistance between 1943 and 1945 throws new light upon the characteristics and the long-term potential of a submerged nation of peasants, charcoal-burners and shepherds. The article is an attempt to historicise their expression of an often overlooked but universal peasant culture of survival, far deeper at the time than political commitment, but not without ultimate political importance.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 111 - 131
Copyright
Copyright Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 ‘Until the day of liberation, the majority of the Italian people formed a strange alliance with the prisoners’. Sir Noel Charles, HM Ambassador to Italy, 17 May 1946, in a speech made to Italian helpers at the Teatro Adriano, Rome, at an Allied Screening Commission ‘Ceremony’ and incorporated without attribution in the subsequent press statement (cited in Foot, M. R. D. and Langley, J. M., MI9. Escape and evasion, London, 1979Google Scholar; also in Barbara Barclay, Carter, Italy speaks, London, 1947)Google Scholar. His remark was prefaced by the conventional reference characteristic of British and American propaganda at the time, stressing that ‘the Italian people could be relied upon for help, not in return for money or for hope of prestige, but out of sympathy, and, very soon, friendship’. This was doubtless sincerely meant, but, like all such tributes, begs the question of the real nature of the response of Italians to the escaped prisoners-of-war.

2 MI9's ignorance illustrated in PRO WO208/3374B, Escape Operations; reports of some SAS dropped blind to find escapers and who got back, in NAW RG331, AFHQ, G-3, Microfilm reel 35-A, File 74/1.1 ‘A’ Force operations; IS9 Weekly Newsletter of 23 Nov 1943 (in PRO WO208/3416) mentions ‘A’ Force agents as being located at Cremona, Padova, Milan and Genova, but there are good reasons for disbelief; more credibly the same source states that the total of escapers rescued by Allied agents at the end of November was 822, while the total reaching Allied lines was by then 1810.

3 Neufeld, M. F., Italy, school for awakening countries (Ithaca, New York, 1961)Google Scholar was the first of many treatments of this theme.

4 Cf for all: Jackson, W. G. F., The battle for Italy (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Sheppard, G. A., The Italian campaign 1943–1945 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Richard, Lamb, War in Italy 1943–1945. A brutal story (London, 1993).Google Scholar

5 Cf. Harris, C. R. S., Allied military administration of Italy 1943–45, HMSO, 1957Google Scholar; Cole, H. L. & Weinberg, A. K., US Army in World War 2: Vol 6. Civil affairs: soldiers become governors, Department of the Army, Washington 1964.Google Scholar; David, Ellwood, Italy 1943–45 (Leicester, 1987)Google Scholar of which the considerably different first edition was: David, Ellwood, L'alleato nemico (Milan, 1977)Google Scholar; for a study of the stereotypes involved, see Roger, Absalom, ‘II peso degli stereotipi nazionali e militari’, in Italia e Gran Bretagna nella lotta di Liberazione (Florence, 1977).Google Scholar

6 Cf. Quazza, G., Resistenza e storia italiana (Milan, 1976)Google Scholar for a synthesis of the received view; the output of publications dealing with the Italian resistance continues to be massive even after 50 years; the best recent revisionist work is Pavone, C., Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza (Turin, 1991).Google Scholar

7 British and mixed-nationality undercover units and services specifically created or adapted for use in Italy included the various branches of Military Intelligence, the Special Operations Executive, the Long Range Desert Group, ‘Phantom’ (a signals-interception unit related to ULTRA), the Special Service Brigade (commonly known as Commandos), Special Air Service, Special Boat Section and No. 1 Demolition Squad (also referred to as Popski's Private Army). They were often given cover-names such as No. 1 Special Force (the local designation of SOE), ISLD (MI6) and MI9's prisoner-of-war and evader rescue service was referred to successively as ‘SIMCOL’, ‘N’ Section of ‘A’ Force and IS9.

8 The general confusion is well described in Foot and Langley, MI9, pp. 156–70, and is amply confirmed by the accounts of escapers.

9 The principal sources were the following Record Series: Public Record Office, London: War Office Papers (mainly PRO WO208 and PRO WO224); Foreign Office Papers (FO371 and FO916); National Archives and Records Service, Washington: AFHQ Files (RG331); Office of Strategic Services Records (RG226); ACC Files (RG331); Records of the Allied Screening Commission (RG331); South African Defence Force Archives, Pretoria: AG (POW) Files; Australian War Memorial, Canberra: AWM 54 (779 and 781) Series. Particular thanks to Professor M. R. D. Foot, who took the trouble to prepare and send me a copy of the reference notes for MI9. Escape and Evasion 1939–45.

10 ‘Unconditional peace’ reported by Iris, Origo, War in Val d'Orcia (London 1947), p. 64.Google Scholar

11 Approximation is inevitable since the lists in official archives produce different statistics; the figures given are a ‘best guess’ at the situation on 8 September 1943, derived from lists in PRO WO224/221, PRO WO208/3374B, FO916/369, and an undated, unreferenced, but apparently more complete list prepared by the Alto Comando Prigionieri di guerra and kindly supplied by Prof. Valdevit of the Istituto storico delta Resistenza in Trieste; the best contemporary evidence on the numbers held are the records of the Allied Screening Commission (in NAW RG331 ASC 2–5), which was trying to account for the following: British 42,194; Imperial (mainly South African) 26,126; French (Gaullist) 2,000; US 1,310; other European allies 49; Greek 1,689; Yugoslav 6,153; Russian 12; no details of total numbers of non-Italian civilian internees have been discovered, but the great majority consisted of thousands of Slovenes considered by the Italians to be of dubious loyalty; English-speaking internees in the seven camps known to the Red Cross, some of them only housing a handful of persons, cannot have numbered more than a few hundred in all, while a further unknown number of elderly long-term residents were not interned at all but merely confined to remote villages. Locations of camps and estimates of numbers escaping are mainly in PRO WO224, the most complete evidence being in PRO WO224/178 and 202.

12 MI9's ignorance illustrated in PRO WO208/3374B, Escape Operations.

13 Individual escape reports in PRO WO208 often appear, in any case, to contradict the information provided in the series mentioned.

14 For the postwar disappearance of Kriegsgefangenenwesen papers, see Foot, and Langley, , MI9, p. 334.Google Scholar

15 No part of the military bureaucracy appears to have concerned itself with compiling the corresponding statistics, or else the results have been lost. Some indication can however be deduced from the weekly movements returns recorded in the war diaries of one of the two units responsible for repatriating returned Allied prisoners-of-war, which show that over 4000 were despatched to their respective homelands during the period September-December 1944 (in PRO WO 170/3748, War Diaries of No. 2 Allied P/W Repatriation Camp, Resina, Naples); the running total given in the MI9 War Diary for the same period indicates that IS9 handled 1464 while the IS9 newsletters show that the organization claimed credit for only 250 of these; other figures derived from statistics in PRO WO208/3416, weekly newsletters of IS9 CMF; PRO WO165/39, History of MI9; PRO WO208/3242, History of ASC.

16 Details of a mission deployed by MI9 in Piedmont between October 1944 and May 1945 extracted from the undated but certainly contemporary ‘Relazione sull'attività del tenente artiglieria complemento Bruno Leoni’ kindly obtained from his widow by the Istituto storico della Resistenza in Piemonte, from other documents provided by the same body and from the official report ‘Report by “Leo” for the Operation “Ferret” in Piedmont’, dated 17 June 1945, in ASC 2–0.

17 In PRO WO208–3416, IS9 newsletter of 16 July 1944.

18 Reference to escapers' wives in PRO WO208–3416, IS9 newsletter of 25 February 1945; reference to number of missing in Italy in ASC 4–8, memo from Captain West-Watson to the mayor of Fontana Liri, undated (but 1946); the official assumption was made that all of these missing soldiers were dead, but apocryphal evidence abounds that, unofficially, many were still very much alive; cf. also Foot, and Langley, , MI9., p 156.Google Scholar

19 Though perhaps with mixed motives: one well-known figure who gave money and supplies on a lavish scale in the Bardi area was also the Social Republic's appointee as mayor in the town, and hence closely linked with unrepentant fascists (ASC Claim 28818 by Francesco (‘Frank’) Berni; Lumia, G., ‘Amicizia italo-inglese’, in La Gazzetta di Parma, 18 August 1945)Google Scholar; a valuable analysis of the cultural resilience of Italian peasant emigrants to the USA is Briggs, John W., An Italian passage: immigrants to three American cities, 1890–1930 (New Haven–London, 1978).Google Scholar

20 Escape Report, MI9–S–PG–Misc–Int–32, of Captain D. A. Blair, 5th Bn Seaforth Highlanders, dated 6 Nov 1943 (in PRO WO208–3343); cf. also Foot, and Langley, , MI9, pp. 161–2Google Scholar; Lt.Col. John, Furman MC, Be not fearful (London, 1959), pp. 8–9.Google ScholarPubMed

81 Such evidence as exists is in PRO WO224–221; a number of former escapers have confirmed that good escape maps printed on silk were dropped by parachute after the armistice, but very few actually received one.

22 Cf. Anon., Ecco Radio Londra, BBC, London 1945.

23 For a good example of how stray escapers became a useful reserve labour-force, see Vivian, Milroy, Alpine partisan (London 1957), pp. 59–81.Google Scholar

24 For the situation in enemy-occupied territory, see Giacomo, Becattini and Nicola, Bellanca, ‘Economia di guerra e mercato nero’ in Italia contemporanea, 163 (1986)Google Scholar; reports by Allied liaison officers and escapers in enemy-occupied territory in 1944–45 already confirm the pattern outlined (‘Reports on Piedmont’, dated 10 October and 17 November 1944, in RG331 10000/125/4; report to ‘OC 1015 Pioneer Coy, Cyprus Regiment’ by No. 4280 L/Cpl L. Hajicosta in ASC 4–1); comparable phenomena in the liberated areas of the south amply illustrated in documents in Cole & Weinberg, Soldiers become governors.

25 Arrigo, Benedetti, ‘In montagna con gli inglesi’, in Italia e Gran Bretagna nella lotta di Liberazione (Florence, 1977), p. 46.Google Scholar

26 See Roger, Absalom, ‘Per una storia di soprawivenze. Contadini italiani e prigionieri evasi britannici’, in Italia contemporanea, 140 (09 1980), pp. 106–22.Google Scholar

27 Cf. Roger, Absalom, ‘Ex prigionieri alleati e assistenza popolare nella zone della “Linea Gotica” 1943–44’, in Rochat, G., Santarelli, E., Sorcinelli, P. (eds.), Linea Gotica 1944. Eserciti, popolazioni, partigiani (Milan 1986), pp. 453–73.Google Scholar

28 All details of the Ravaioli case in ASC Claims No. 33436 and 62288.

29 La Santa Milizia, Republican Fascist newspaper published in Ravenna, 8 January 1944.

30 See Quazza, G., Resistenza e storia d'Italia, pp. 124–41Google Scholar, for a shrewd summary of attendisme.

31 Eric, Newby, Love and war in the Appennines (London, 1971).Google Scholar

32 See Angela, Spinelli, ‘Le comunità contadine del pratese nella Lotta di Liberazione e l'assistenza ai prigonieri evasi britannici, 1943–1944. Fonti orali e ricerca storica nell'indagine su una classe subalterna’, in Argomenti Storici, quaderno VIII, Università di Firenze, Facoltà di Magistero, 1981.Google Scholar

33 Testimony of Giuditta Curzi, interviewed at Force, Ascoli Piceno province, 27 July 1983.

34 See Roger, Absalom, A strange alliance. Aspects of escape and survival in Italy 1943–1945 (Florence, 1991), pp. 247–275.Google Scholar

35 Details in ASC Claim Folder 9631, dated 13 September 1944, in the name of Annita Santemarroni; letters from Pte J. W. Leys and memoranda from Foreign Office in ASC Correspondence File 7−5.

36 The fullest description of the contents of the original archives of the Allied Screening Commission can be pieced together from the correspondence contained in PRO FO371/67771. Most of the sorry story of its ultimate disposal is to be found in PRO FO371/73168.

37 The relevant passage in Eisenhower's ‘Secret’ order to preserve the documents, sent by him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 22 November 1947 (ABC313 [7–12–44], Sec, I-C), reads as follows: ‘There exist in the files of the ASC […] detailed case histories of assistance given to E&Es in Italy, giving names of persons assisted, locations, dates and other pertinent data. The records constitute a complete list of persons in Italy who might be useful in covert intelligence operations’.

38 Statistics of awards recommended in various lists in ASC Correspondence File 3−6. Of the 447 Italian helpers recommended by various agencies for Allied decorations only the seventeen who received the Medal of Freedom from the Americans were in practice honoured. The proposed awards are meticulously documented in ASC Correspondence File 3−6; British internal correspondence between the Rome embassy and the foreign office in 1945–48 in FO372/4902 makes it clear that the main objections to making awards to Italians came from the admiralty, the war office, and the palace, and were readily endorsed by the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin; the last word on the decorations question in a foreign office memo to George VI after the signature of the peace treaty in December 1947 reads: ‘We take the view that an exchange of individual honours with Italy would undoubtedly give offence to families in this country bereaved at Italian hands and we have come to the conclusion that awards to Italians should not be entertained’.

39 See Pavone, , Una guerra civile, pp. 372–83.Google Scholar

40 Eric, Newby, Love and war in the Appenines, pp. 116–18.Google Scholar

41 John, Berger, ‘Can peasant society survive?’, The Listener, 21 June 1979.Google Scholar