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Louis VanSlooten’s Story
Louis VanSlooten before going overseas I have known Louis VanSlooten’s son Tom VanSlooten since 2008. Tom was one of the first family members of Camp 59 POWs I met when I began my research into the...
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The Camp 59 Tunnelers
Thick, well-guarded walls must have seemed an impenetrable barrier to the prisoners of P.G. 59. But miners in the camp envisioned another way out. In his dissertation on Allied Prisoners of War in the...
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Young Partisan William Scalabroni
William Scalabroni in 1942. Mattia De Santis says, “One year later he would be a partisan in this place.” Mattia De Santis from Ascoli Piceno, Italy, wrote to me two weeks ago, “I’m the nephew of two...
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Tom Alman—Back Home in Western Australia
Ray Worthington (son of P.G. 59 escapee Les Worthington) and Linda Veness (daughter of escapee Jim McMahon) discovered and shared this 1944 news article with me this week. Kalgoorlie Soldier Escaped...
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Charles H. Ebright
Charles Herbert Ebright On January 28, I posted on this site a list of 51 escapees who were helped by Domenico Mancini, an Italian. (See “Domenico Mancini—A Key Italian Assister.”) According to Allied...
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To Talk, or Not To Talk
Tomorrow is my father’s birthday. He died in 2000, but had he lived, he would have been 100 years old. He was born on February 9, 1918, to Finnish immigrants in a lumber camp in Michigan’s heavily...
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Domenico Mancini—A Key Italian Assister
The letter shown here and an accompanying list of Allied servicemen referred to in the letter are among many documents from the British National Archives that Brian Sims shared with me during our...
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British Captives Drank Champagne
The following two newspaper articles were provided by Vanda Jessopp, daughter of Stanley Thomas Dunn, a POW was interned with Jimmy Peters in Camp 59. (See “Stanley Thomas Dunn.”) The Germans Got...
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An Address in Switzerland—Christmas 1943
The following address from among Stanley Thomas Dunn’s papers from the war appears to be remarks given before a Christmas evening dinner at the Sonne Wolfertswil—the Sonne Restaurant—in Flawil, a...
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Stanley Thomas Dunn
At left, Stanley Thomas Dunn, 5th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment; at right, James (Jimmy) Peters, Royal Army Medical Corps. Photo taken in Camp 59, Servigliano. My friend Anne Copley met Vanda Jessopp...
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Douglas Allum’s Camp 59 Prisoner List
I’ve exchanged several notes with Bruce Allum throughout 2017. Bruce’s father, Douglas Walter Allum, Service Number 2585112, Royal Signals (2nd Middlesex Yeomanry) was captured in Libya on December...
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Escaped Prisoners and Airman at Fontanaluccia
A page from the register of the Partisan Hospital of Santa Lucia I received valuable information from Italian researcher Michele Becchi several days ago. He wrote, “I’m sending to you a page from the...
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Onore al Merito—Search for a Long-Lost Film
I would like to draw readers’ attention to an interesting article that appeared last week on The Text Message Blog, on online publication of the U.S. National Archives. “‘Let’s Make a Movie:’ The...
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American Escapers from P.G. 59
The “Scheda Personale P.G.” Italian personal identification card for my father, Sgt. Armie S. Hill. Greg Bradsher describes these prisoner of war cards, now held at the U.S. National Archives, in his...
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Robert Newton Story in Kindle Edition
Robert A. Newton’s biography of his uncle, Corporal Robert Alvey Newton, Soldiers of the Strange Night, is now available in a Kindle edition through Amazon. Here is the Amazon description of the book:...
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Mario Mottes
I.S.9 agent Mario Raoul Mottes Belgian-born Mario Mottes served as a parachutist and radio operator agent for Allied I.S.9 operations. His task was to locate escaped Allied POWs in enemy-occupied...
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I.S.9 Captain Andrew George Robb
Captain Andrew G. Robb, Commander of No. 5 Field Section, I.S.9 or “A” Force This resumé was prepared by Luigi Donfrancesco, nephew of Andrea Scattini, an agent of No. 5 Field Section, “A” Force. The...
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Service at Ancona War Cemetery
A rededication service for Private Lionel Brown, 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, and Privates Daniel Hollingsworth and Thomas White, 1st Battalion The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) took place...
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Ponte Dragone Deaths—A Second Report
A page from the Ponte Dragone Special Investigation Branch (SIB) file On May 16, 1945, Sergeant W. Mottram filed a formal report on investigations into the Dragone Bridge execution of three British...
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War Crime—the Ponte Dragone Executions
The River Aso between Petritoli and Ortezzano, in Fermo Province—a few miles downstream from Ponte Dragone, where three ex-prisoners of war and an Italian I.S.9 agent were executed in March 1944...
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