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I: The North African Campaigns of 1942–43—Prisoners in Italian Hands

TO prisoners of war in Europe hearing enemy broadcasts and anxiously scanning enemy newspapers to try to follow the trend of the war, the months of 1942 until autumn brought news of disaster after disaster to the Allied cause, even allowing for the distortions and exaggerations of enemy propaganda. Yet by the end of the year the whole complexion of things had changed, the initiative was with the Allies, and as the first half of 1943 brought to light new successes (glossed over in the enemy press, but impossible to hide completely), prisoners began to realise that the Allies were, as one man put it in a letter, ‘starting on the home run’.

The early disasters in the Far East have already been mentioned. Yet by the end of 1942 the United States forces had stabilised the situation in the Pacific, and during 1943 the Japanese were dealt some heavy blows at sea. On the Russian front Sebastopol fell in July 1942 and the Germans entered Stalingrad in September; and the losses of the British raid on Dieppe, although it created a diversion in August, seemed a bad augury for the success of a second front. Yet by November the Russian forces were on the offensive and the new year brought them enormous gains in territory, together with the annihilation of large German and Italian forces. In North Africa a German offensive launched in late May gathered momentum in June and forced Eighth Army to withdraw hurriedly to the Egyptian border; then followed the fall of Tobruk and the retreat to Alamein, in spite of some delaying actions. Yet not only did the line hold at Alamein, but in October the British attacked and broke the Axis forces and during the next four months pursued them across Libya into Tunisia. The landing of Allied forces in French North Africa in November prevented their further retreat to the west,

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and in the first half of 1943 attacks from this quarter and from the south-east by Eighth Army put an end to enemy resistance on the African Continent.

The New Zealand Division was again heavily involved in the North African fighting and, especially in the struggle to hold the enemy at Alamein in July, suffered losses almost as severe as those of the previous November. Nor was the intense air activity in support of the ground forces maintained without losses, and more than half of the New Zealand airmen serving with the RAF who fell into Italian hands did so in North Africa during this period.¹ Of the two thousand or so 2 NZEF personnel taken prisoner, about a hundred were captured south of Matruh in the first stand by the Division after its hasty return from Syria, and in its break-out from encirclement at Minqar Qaim. But the vast majority were lost in actions on the Alamein Line in July.

The first of these was an attack on the western end of Ruweisat Ridge by 4 and 5 Brigades, which found themselves on the morning of 15 July in possession of their objective but, as our own tanks did not come up, completely at the mercy of the enemy armour: 22 Battalion was overrun almost immediately, and so by evening were 19 and 20 Battalions. The incidents of capture were a recapitulation of Belhamed and Sidi Rezegh. An infantryman's diary tells the story:

The tanks having knocked out our guns, came rumbling and clanking towards us with nothing to stop them. Their machine guns were going all the time at anyone they saw moving, while behind them were German infantry and more tanks. We could do nothing, but kept hoping that some of our own tanks would turn up to the rescue; alas we were alone in the desert. A big Mark IV was only about seventy yards off me by this time … I only had a rifle and had seen two pounder shells bouncing off the tanks ….

As on previous occasions no one had visualised being captured, least of all after a successful attack. It came as a shock to see our men with their hands up, and one man puts it, ‘I think we all felt rather silly and self-conscious’.

A week later almost the same thing happened to the infantry of 6 Brigade. In a night attack they captured the eastern portion of the El Mreir depression, only to be sacrificed to enemy armour in the morning; Brigade Headquarters, 24, 25, and 26 Battalions suffered heavily. Some 1700 New Zealanders were taken prisoner in these two engagements—a sad and undeserved fate for troops

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who had played a notable part in the defence of Egypt and had faithfully carried out their orders.

Patrol activity in August accounted for another 50-odd prisoners, and a harassing movement on Rommel's withdrawal from his September attack for still another 90-odd. From the beginning of October 1942 until the end of fighting in North Africa in May 1943, however, we lost only another ninety or so prisoners. Moreover, from the Battle of Alamein in late October 1942 until the end of the war in Europe—from all the subsequent fighting in Libya, Tunisia, and Italy—the Division's losses in prisoners were fewer than 350, as compared with over 8000 in the preceding period of the war. If the number of prisoners taken in land fighting can be used as an indication, the battle of Alamein was clearly the turning point of the fighting in the West.

In holding up the German advance after the fall of Tobruk, the New Zealand Division had been encircled at Minqar Qaim near Mersa Matruh. A night attack with the bayonet during the breakout from this position was the cause of much high feeling among the encircling German forces. A party of 92 New Zealanders who were left grounded there and were captured in the morning received rough handling, and perhaps owed their lives to the intervention of a senior German officer. They were lined up, stripped of everything except uniform and greatcoat, and told after a long harangue that they would be shot as a reprisal for the tactics of the New Zealanders on the previous night.¹ Eventually, however,

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after a conference with their senior officer, the Germans in charge of the prisoners announced that they had been reprieved. Meanwhile they had been standing in the heat of the sun for some hours without food or water, while sentries with tommy guns forced back into line anyone who tried to fall out or lie down. On the other hand a badly wounded officer, after an immediate anti-tetanus injection, was removed to a main dressing station where two German surgeons ‘saved [his] life and deplored the war’. From the time of his capture he encountered no hostility, but rather an attitude of ‘Just too bad, but you’re in the bag'.

Even those captured 18 days later at Ruweisat Ridge met with some signs of a carry-over of the hard feelings after Minqar Qaim. Some were asked expressly whether they had taken part in the Minqar Qaim action. Whether from this cause or not, although there was no brutality, the experiences of prisoners from the moment of their capture at Ruweisat until their arrival in a back area were unpleasant enough. Men of 18 and 19 Battalions, after a search for arms, were herded back a mile or two to a holding area, where there was a count and officers were taken off for interrogation. The march back then continued until late that night, by which time all had raging thirsts and a number had collapsed;¹ but there was no food and almost no water that night nor was there any until, completely exhausted, they reached transport later the next morning. Men of 22 Battalion were marched back 15 miles through the heat of the day before being picked up by lorries. Those taken at El Mreir on the morning of 22 July had a similar exhausting march back to a plateau, where they were left in the blazing sun without food or water. A soldier's diary runs:

A scorching sun beat down on the shimmering rock. To lie was unbearable. To stand and feel the barely discernible breeze from the sea was impossible for more than a few seconds. Our legs were too weak to bear the weight of our bodies…. Chaps were offering watches for a cup of water.

Eventually transport came and took them to the prisoner-of-war cage at Daba.

Some were able to escape during the herding back from Ruweisat, and many walking wounded who had been left by the Germans unattended at RAPs were able to set out for the British lines under cover of darkness. Many felt that the wearying marches back without food or water were intended to make sure that no one was in a fit state to regain his freedom by walking away.

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At El Mreir the 6th Brigade commander¹ took off his badges of rank and, playing the part of a medical orderly, helped with the wounded for a day, then feigned death and made his way back after nightfall. He was captured again shortly afterwards in early September, and though he made a temporary break for freedom he was picked up by a German vehicle while making his way back across the desert. Many others who had made a break were picked up similarly by armoured-car patrols or lone vehicles. It is difficult to say how many escaped during this early transit stage. Many men simply rejoined their units, and the incidents of their escape were left to chance to record.

There was a more serious attempt at interrogation than there had been in the campaign of the previous November, though still nothing like the systematic process to which captured airmen were subjected in Germany. Officers were questioned at German formation headquarters, many of all ranks by German interrogators at Daba and by Italians at Mersa Matruh, from which point back the lines of communication were manned by Italian forces. Some of the wounded were interrogated at the various dressing stations they passed through. Papers and paybooks were examined and questions were asked mainly with a view to unit identification; but though there was some angry shouting at times, there appears to have been little or no attempt to obtain information by intimidation or violence.

The leaving of some of the wounded on the battlefield at Ruweisat without attention has already been referred to. It happened at more than one place on this occasion and was probably the cause of many deaths that could have been avoided by immediate medical attention, however makeshift. But the Germans appear to have had a large number of their own casualties to treat, with only very limited medical supplies. The delay in treatment of prisoners seems to have been limited to sixteen hours at the most—long enough, certainly, to be fatal for many cases. Treatment at the dressing stations farther back seems to have been adequate and humane. In later battles during this period seriously wounded prisoners seem to have been attended to promptly, and even lightly wounded to have been segregated and treated at the first headquarters on the way back. There were hospitals at Matruh and at Tobruk, though with limited facilities, and most of the serious cases were evacuated to Italy by hospital ship from these points.

The first stop for transport bringing back prisoners was the British cage at Daba, now in German hands—a piece of the desert

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enclosed by barbed wire. To men parched and some almost insensible from the exhaustion of their twenty-mile trek across the desert, the cool evening sea breeze restored some life. Officers and men were separated, there was usually another search, and an issue of half a mug of water and a few ounces of biscuit. Most men had no hunger, some had not even the necessary saliva to masticate food; for the most part they lay on the soft sand of the pen and tried to sleep. Many knew that this would be their best chance of escape—barely thirty miles from their own lines—but few had the physical resources to attempt it. One New Zealand officer,¹ however, got away and, after gamely plodding alone for three days across the scorching desert, reached our lines in a state of exhaustion.

From a night bivouac near Sidi Barrani six British officer prisoners, including one New Zealander,² were able to get away unseen in the early hours of 12 July. They hid for two days in the old Italian positions south-east of the town. They then seized an Italian vehicle and, overpowering the two Italians in charge of it, left them with some food and drove off by the coast road to the east. By picking up water, petrol, and other necessities from derelict trucks en route, they made their way to the Alamein positions and eventually came through to a British armoured detachment, waving a white towel.

From Daba back to Benghazi prisoners were taken in large Italian trucks, sometimes in trailers, and often packed so tightly that it was only possible to stand. The journey by the coastal road took some four or five days, with stops at night wherever there was a barbed-wire pen to hold the prisoners. There was some kicking and the use of rifle butts by Italian guards, and the ration of biscuit and bully beef was all too little; but after the tortures of thirst during the first two days of captivity, men felt that so long as there was a reasonable amount of water they had something to be thankful for. The more fortunate were allowed to swim at Sollum or to wallow at a water point en route.

The compound at Mersa Matruh in Italian hands was the first place where thirsts were really slaked, and men were then able to take more interest in the dry rations that were issued. Some were interrogated here and, as at almost every staging point, there was a search; not many valuables remained in the possession of prisoners by the end of the journey. As at other staging camps, most men had only shirt and shorts to sleep in.

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Tobruk's large prisoner-of-war compound was on the escarpment at the edge of the aerodrome. A prisoner gives his first impression on debussing:

Seen through clouds of racing dust it seemed a hopeless confusion, shanties, blanket-huts, tin shelters and tents all higgelty-piggelty and strung together with string and rope. There was a babel of tongues and a confusion of outlandish figures and dresses—South African Blacks, Indians, Gurkas, Siamese, Springboks, Tommies and Kiwis were living together, cheek-by-jowl. All conventional values were gone. The private no longer deferred to his officer nor black man to white.

The coloured troops were forced to work on the docks during the day, and while doing so were able to acquire not only extra food but firewood, groundsheets, blankets, and other things of high value to a prisoner of war. Their standard of living was higher than the average, and many of our men benefited by generous gifts from them. At night wood fires lit up the polyglot encampment and gave it an exotic atmosphere; and the gabble of foreign voices, some musical, some harsh, recalled to some men's imaginations stories they had read of Asiatic bands of freebooters. There was the usual issue of dry rations, and men lay down to sleep on the dust where they could. RAF raids made the nights broken, but though shell splinters fell among the prisoners the bombs were further away. In the morning there would be an issue of water and a convoy of trucks full of prisoners would move off.

There were further staging camps at Derna and Barce, with groundsheet tents at the former and huts at the latter. At Derna an Italian commandant with ‘reprisal mania’ kept the prisoners short of water, allowed guards to loot and bully, and generally kept conditions as uncivilised as possible. At Barce a well-disposed commandant did all he could to provide them with necessities and to see the sick properly cared for. From Derna most of the officers were flown to Lecce, in Italy.

The end of their journey brought most of the other ranks to a camp a few kilometres south-east of Benghazi in a small stony wadi with steep sides, about 50 yards wide and 350 yards long. An oasis thickly planted with tall, shady date palms, it became known to the prisoners as the ‘Palm Tree camp’.¹ There were two main compounds, one for Free French and coloured troops and the other for British, the latter an area of about two and a half acres, which soon held over a thousand prisoners and a little later 2600. Within the wire there were buildings for a cookhouse, storehouse and orderly room; there were also bivouac

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groundsheets for about 500 men, numbers of which were grouped together to form makeshift shelters somewhat after the fashion of sprawling bedouin tents.

Barbed-wire fences lined the tops of the gully sides, and the guards ‘looked down on [the prisoners] as though it was a bear pit’. There was no sand and men slept on stones or hard rock with a top layer of dirt, many without coat or groundsheet; during the camp's most crowded period ‘you could hardly step between the bodies’ at night. Fleas and mosquitoes helped to make rest difficult. Latrines were dug on the slopes, but space was limited and there were always too few; in time the sewage seeped down into the central sleeping and eating area and a constant stench hung about the windless wadi. The place was partly redeemed by a plentiful supply of water from a spring, and there were even cold showers of a kind.

The food compared favourably with that of other transit camps: in the morning sweetened black substitute coffee, a quarter pound of tinned meat and more than half a pound of bread of inferior quality, and at night a cup of rice stew and half a lemon. Men brought some variety into their daily meals by cooking up the various elements of the ration, until the commandant placed a ban on fires to prevent the camp buildings disappearing as fuel. The one cookhouse which served the whole camp was difficult to control; unguarded rations quickly disappeared and others were sold at exorbitant prices, for under such circumstances money and treasure lose their value by comparison with food.¹ Most men derived too little nourishment from the diet and became weak and listless. A great number soon had dysentery, spread by the swarms of flies, and there were never-ending queues for the latrines day and night. It was fortunate that there were British doctors at the camp to do what they could with the limited medical supplies for the hundreds of cases of digestive disorders and desert sores which daily lined up for treatment.

There were a number of books which circulated by a system of barter, and a few men had packs of cards or made them from cigarette cartons. Some made draughtboards, and chessmen from green dates or the rubber fittings of a steel helmet. Men talked over their capture and experiences in this campaign or in others. Some were bitter about their capture: ‘It's hardly worth fighting for people who use you as an anti-tank weapon.’ Others were more philosophical: ‘Not having a clear perspective of the whole show, I shall not attempt to judge’. Apart from those on the war, there were endless discussions on food and

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the possibilities of escape. Rumours swept the camp periodically about a British breakthrough or the interception by the Royal Navy of ships taking prisoners across to Italy. At night some men found it possible, while gazing at the brilliant stars and moon through waving palm-fronds, to forget the filth and misery of the camp and substitute a romantic picture of happier circumstances.

There were no lights on the perimeter of the Palm Tree camp, and several men got away in the dusk but were recaptured in a few days. Two New Zealanders clung underneath the daily wood truck as it went out the gate,¹ and thereafter there was some competition to go out in the same way; but the next two who attempted it were caught and chained to the camp gates for a night, though the guards who released them gave them cigarettes and grapes. Security was tightened up and sentries became quick on the trigger, sometimes no doubt made jittery through prisoners rattling the wire or throwing stones at it. There was some firing into the compound as well as along the perimeter, and at least one of our men was shot through the thigh while lying asleep.

In early August after over a fortnight in the camp, commanders of the groups into which the men had organised themselves decided, on the assumption of a lengthy stay, to try to secure better rations and amenities from the Italian commandant, who was described as ‘easy-going’ and not ill disposed to the British. But ten days later the camp was suddenly cleared and the prisoners transported by truck, 600 to a waiting ship and the rest next day to the main Benghazi prisoner-of-war collection centre.

The influx of prisoners following the fall of Tobruk and the swift Axis advance had extended the collection centre just outside Benghazi into an enormous encampment spread over a rectangular area covering 25 acres or so of the adjoining desert. By August 1942, when most of our men went there, drafts to Italy had reduced its population from 15,000 to about 10,000 prisoners, but over the whole area a mass of low bivouac tents still spread into the distance. The prisoners were segregated to some extent according to nationality and colour into huge pens. The thousand or so New Zealanders, with some others from the Palm camp, were almost immediately crowded into a small, well-used, and therefore dirty and (as it turned out) lousy compound, where drafts were held before being embarked for Italy. Transfer of some of these to another pen eased the overcrowding, but it was nearly a month before a ship was available.

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Many of those in the camp had been there since the fall of Tobruk, had plenty of gear, and had made themselves as comfortable as circumstances allowed. Most of our men had the clothes they stood in when captured and various implements and odd garments they had since been able to acquire while moving about. At Benghazi there was much trading ‘over the wire’, both with the Italian guards for food and with the coloured troops who worked at the docks and brought back firewood, food, and cigarettes. Cigarettes (of which there was an issue of ten to fifteen a week) became the medium of exchange between prisoners for such transactions,¹ as in so many other prisoner-of-war communities, and indeed among some civilian populations as the war brought enemy governments tumbling and enemy currencies soaring to ruin. Some prisoners at Benghazi went into business buying food from the sick and selling it later at a profit to men hungry from a working party; but most were good comrades enough to reject the idea of profit-making and to make exchanges at the ruling values.

Food varied in different compounds and at different times, but in general there was a small tin of meat, half a loaf of poor bread and six ounces of British biscuits, a small amount of sugar and substitute coffee, and some rice every few days. For food rationing purposes men were formed into groups of fifty, as they were for water, which was issued to individuals from German cans² filled by an itinerant water truck twice daily. No cooked meal was supplied, nor even hot water, and men set to work in syndicates to build stoves from stones, mud and old tins, to acquire firewood and to plan their own cooked menus. Hours of ingenious endeavour were spent devising and carrying out dozens of ways of serving the never-varying ‘bully and biscuit’ as rissoles, pies, and stews. Besides making the food more palatable, all this domestic activity had the virtue of helping to occupy men's minds and to prevent them from brooding on their present miseries.

Indeed, as time went on there was little in the situation to keep men cheerful. The nights began to cool and there was no hope of blankets or clothing from the Italian quartermaster's store. Sandstorms and rain found out the inadequate little bivouacs. Men were lousy, but did not have the water to wash properly and so wore as little as possible during the day, spending part of it delousing by hand the garments they were not wearing. Dysentery

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began to make its appearance and soon spread from the open latrines, which in one compound began to overflow and form a small lake. Besides the dysentery cases all were losing weight; many became lethargic through malnutrition and experienced the blackouts and rheumaticky pains common to such a bodily state. In their low condition men's nerves frayed easily under the strain of their cramped existence, and quarrels sometimes flared up quickly. A fortunate few of the sick were taken to Benghazi hospital, where they were well looked after, but there was no space there for many others who were ill enough to warrant admission.

Those who troubled to write about their situation drew a picture of this kind:

… unshaven, lousy, dirty, old ragged clothes hanging from bones, with our little improvised tin-can mugs, wooden spoons, bits of stick and wire.¹

Yet even in these primitive conditions some order and internal organisation were created. Anti-social acts were kept down as far as possible by the senior warrant officer, who dealt out summary justice as in a regimental orderly room, and punished thieving, for example, by depriving the culprit of rations for twenty-four hours. In the various compounds lectures and concerts, and later an arts and crafts exhibition, were arranged to make the best use of what little recreational material there was. A South African padre held inspiring devotional services. Apart from this, men organised themselves into small living-groups—consisting often of regimental comrades or friends in civilian life—for mutual self-help and the division of the daily tasks; and they made their own pastimes with games of chess or cards and the exchange of whatever books they had with them. Without some such order and comradeship life at Benghazi would have been indeed nasty and brutish.

When the Benghazi pen had been reopened following the recapture of the town by Rommel's forces in January 1942, there had been a number of escapes. On one occasion a New Zealander² had knocked the guard unconscious and opened his compound gate to let out all those inside. Though some of them were recaptured in the course of their journey to the east, he himself, with the help of food, water, and shelter from Senussi, and later alone in an Arab disguise, had got through to the British lines north of Mechili in April.

By the latter half of 1942 all the compounds were well guarded by machine-gun posts, sentries and patrols, which made a breakout very difficult. Beyond the perimeter fence there was little

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or no cover, and most men were in no physical state to commence a cross-desert trek; the few who attempted it were quickly recaptured. One or two men succeeded in escaping from the Torelli hospital. In late September two patients, a New Zealand sapper¹ and a British Army infantryman, let themselves down from an upper story in the early hours of the morning while the sentry was asleep. They slipped into the Arab quarters of the town and were hidden and helped by the Senussi² from then on. They headed south-east, staying at night in an Arab camp where they were supplied with food and shelter. Dodging enemy columns and keeping on with determination, they made their way south to Gebel Akhdar, where they were finally picked up by an LRDG³ patrol 18 days after leaving hospital.

Most of the drafts which left Benghazi by ship contained men of various Commonwealth units. Some 600 of those who moved in the first batch from the Palm Tree camp were shipped almost immediately in August, and another party went on 8 September. Then followed a long gap in the transport schedule, occasioned no doubt by dangers to shipping in the Mediterranean from the RAF and British submarines; and with rumours of a British success, men who had begun to wonder about their chances of survival set their hopes on rescue by Eighth Army. In October the Italians moved a large number of South African and British troops to Tarhuna and other camps near Tripoli, but most of the remaining New Zealanders were left to be taken over to Italy by sea. In early November there were signs that Benghazi was being evacuated in some haste, by the middle of the month the last party from the main camp had gone, and on the 16th patients from the hospital who could be moved were taken off in an Italian hospital ship. A few managed to hide up, and remained with the seriously ill and a few medical personnel until the town was occupied by British forces.

A certain number of New Zealanders had been taken in the parties of South African and British Army prisoners transported overland into Tripolitania.⁴ After a three-day journey by truck they were housed in a concrete barracks at Tarhuna, 20 miles south-east of Tripoli. This had been in use as a prisoner-of-war transit camp during the Libyan campaign of the previous year, though only a few New Zealanders had been held there. Many

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of those sent there in 1942 were suffering from dysentery or ‘Gyppy tummy’ and most were in a weakened state after their spell in Benghazi. Tarhuna would have been much worse if it had not been for an Italian officer interpreter, who did what he could towards improving conditions, ensuring regular issues of food and cigarettes, and even supplying clothing to combat the increasing cold of November nights. After three weeks our men were moved to Suani Ben Adem, a camp close to the port of Tripoli which had achieved an infamous reputation in the preceding months. Here, in this open space of one and a half acres packed with 1500 men, were cases of dysentery, scurvy, beriberi, desert sores, and septic bites from the lice and fleas with which the sand of the area teemed. Only the worst cases were taken to hospital, and many died there or later in Italy or on the trip over. After a week the New Zealanders crossed to Naples in the holds of a ship under foul and insanitary conditions similar to those of previous drafts.

Almost all officers were flown from one of the North African airfields to Italy, most of them landing at Lecce, where they were given temporary accommodation before going north to the transit camp at Bari. The drafts of other ranks from the Benghazi collection centre were packed tightly into the holds of the limited number of merchant ships available. In one ship 350 were crowded down below on the steel deck of a hold measuring about sixty feet by forty. There was no room for all to stretch out, and most men took off their boots as it was impossible to move without treading on someone's body. The convoys usually sailed straight to Piraeus, thence through the Corinth Canal to Patras, and across the Adriatic to Taranto. After four or more days and nights of the hot, humid atmosphere below decks, the innumerable lice that swarmed from body to body, and the meagre dry rations,¹ many men, some of them suffering from dysentery, arrived ashore at Taranto in poor shape: A diary entry reads:

We had touched bed-rock. I am sure that as a body the men were in the lightest condition they ever reached…. We presented an appalling spectacle … lousy animated bags of bones draped in torn and greasy rags.

Here their hair was shaved off, they were given hot showers, and their tattered clothes were put through a fumigator at a large naval barracks. The process seems to have been carried out quite efficiently. Rations were issued, and the men were taken across the harbour by launch to a waiting train.

Those who had left by the first draft in mid-August were not so fortunate. They too were packed into the holds of a cargo

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vessel, the Nino Bixio. On their second day out the ship was hit by two torpedoes, one of which exploded in a hold full of prisoners, causing dreadful carnage. Though there was little panic on board, a few of the Italian complement as well as prisoners jumped overboard. Some of these perished almost immediately; others reached rafts and drifted about the Mediterranean for weeks without food and water. A New Zealand survivor of one such voyage, who was picked up and taken to Benghazi hospital where he recovered, told a grim story of deprivation and death. As it turned out, the Nino Bixio did not sink but was taken in tow by an Italian destroyer. The injured were brought up on deck and attended to by three medical officers, whose prompt and energetic services saved much further loss of life. When Navarino, in southern Greece, was reached the dead were buried, the remainder were put ashore, and those fit enough were shipped to Bari after a short stay at Corinth. This fresh disaster to a ship carrying prisoners of war cost the lives of 118 New Zealanders.

In late August the survivors marched into Campo PG 75 at Bari, which was then being used as one of the main transit camps for British prisoners from North Africa, and was receiving nearly all our officers who had not gone to hospital and a good number of our other ranks as well. The unsavoury reputation for brutality and general ill-treatment achieved by this camp in the first few months of its history had resulted in a change of commandant at the end of March, though the previous holder of the post had remained as guard commander. The new commandant had been quite favourably disposed towards the prisoners, and there had been just sufficient time to set the camp more or less to rights and to transfer all those who knew it at its worst before the first visit of a delegate from the Swiss Legation on 13 May 1942. On this occasion ‘no complaints were made … by the internees’;¹ but it is clear from the evidence accumulated by the War Crimes Commission that had the visit been allowed a month or two earlier or later there would have been no lack of them. When the camp numbers had risen sharply in June and July 1942, the new commandant was unfortunately replaced by two more senior officers, one of whom, in charge of the officer prisoners, proved particularly difficult to deal with. And the general commanding the area, a quick-tempered, highly excitable little man with anti-British feelings, remained to influence the camp during its whole history.

In 1941 work had been begun on the construction of stone barracks which were eventually to replace the original wooden huts. These were of a standard Italian military barrack design and

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were to hold 200 officers and 2500 men. Progress was slow and the new buildings were by no means completed by June 1942, when there occurred the large influx of prisoners from North Africa resulting from the fall of Tobruk and the military events mentioned above. Eight of the new barracks were, however, put into use and soon contained some 450 in each, with sleeping accommodation in two-tier bunks so close to one another that there was just room to pass. Many of the other rank prisoners who were pouring in, as many as two thousand arriving in one day, were packed into the orchard area and given the usual Italian groundsheet tents and heaps of straw. Others, still more unfortunate, were herded together and kept for a week or two in a dry canal bed just outside the camp, without hut, tent, or any other protection from the weather, and with no proper sanitation. One of these men when asked to describe Bari camp understandably replied that there was ‘nothing [there] which could properly be called a camp at all’. The over-crowding was excused on the grounds that Bari was a transit camp only; yet some prisoners of war remained there for seven months.

The scale of food rations differed little from that mentioned in the account of this camp at an earlier period, except that there was half as much meat and a little more cheese. It seems doubtful if even this meagre amount of food was supplied in full, for several officers describe their diet as consisting to all intents and purposes of a small loaf and two servings of skilly daily, with a tiny piece of meat once a week. For this and the extra fruit and vegetables supplied for their messing, officers had to pay approximately four shillings a day.¹ From a canteen those able to pay the prices could buy irregular supplies of dried and fresh fruit and occasional cakes. Issues of Red Cross parcels were similarly irregular and inadequate.²

Many men had not recovered from the dysentery and other complaints contracted in North African transit camps, and most had been weakened by a lengthy period on short rations. There was a general prevalence of lethargy and cases of fainting on long roll-call parades; a ten-minute walk was the limit of most men's physical effort. Medical officers, although given space for a sick-bay, had little gear or medical supplies with which to treat the sick; one of them speaks of medical facilities in this period as being ‘almost non-existent’. To make matters worse, lice

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infestation was common owing to the absence of proper delousing arrangements, and a shortage of water caused the latrines (normally adequate) to become stagnant. There were several unsuccessful attempts at escape,¹ followed by brutal treatment with rifle butts and wire manacles and mass reprisals in the form of withholding Red Cross supplies. With few books and only what makeshift recreations men could devise, Bari camp had few good words said about it by those who knew it in the summer of 1942.

In September most of the New Zealand officers were sent to Sulmona, and shortly afterwards numbers of our other ranks moved north to Gruppignano. Heavy rain in October made it necessary for other ranks who were in tents to be moved into the barracks, thus making the latter more overcrowded than at any previous period. More other ranks were transferred elsewhere, however, and of the New Zealanders only some thirty remained as part of the permanent staff of the camp doing cookhouse and other duties. There was little change in the food and no issue of Red Cross parcels for one period of 13 weeks.

In the New Year conditions began to improve. Issues of Red Cross food became more frequent, and plenty of hot water was available from the cookhouse for drinks. Italian uniforms marked with a yellow band, as well as underclothing and socks sent through the Red Cross, were issued to those who needed them. Each man had three blankets and sheets, though the latter were later withdrawn from other ranks as they were not being supplied to Italian prisoners in British hands. Pay was received regularly and mail started to arrive fairly well. Besides occupying themselves with indoor games and various arts and crafts, prisoners had organised lectures on accountancy and other subjects and classes in Italian and other languages. There was a weekly lecture on current events and a camp news sheet with items of topical interest. As the weather became warmer and sunnier in late February, men were able to divest themselves of their clothing and set about disinfestation in earnest. A New Zealand sergeant wrote, ‘Things seem to be improving all the time’. At the end of February the camp was visited by a papal nuncio, who insisted on reading complaints written by officers relating to past treatment in the camp. Five days later 2300 prisoners were transferred to other camps, leaving only the permanent staff of 139 and some Greeks. Most of the New Zealanders were transferred to Campo PG 85 at Tuturano, ready to be sent out to work, and Bari became a kind of base camp for neighbouring work detachments.

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Some of the drafts from Benghazi which arrived at Taranto during September were sent after disinfestation to a new camp three miles north-west of Altamura. It was on a gentle slope in the middle of a plateau of parched and stony land, but the barrenness of the compound was relieved by a shady almond grove which cut across one corner. Like Bari, this camp was only half finished: an administration block and latrines were built, but the only accommodation for the thousand or more prisoners consisted of the groundsheet bivouacs standard in Italian transit camps.¹ Although the amount of food was very small, it was all of excellent quality by contrast with what had been issued at Benghazi, especially the bread, cheese, and fresh vegetables. With this diet, the crystal-clear water and the fresh upland air, men's digestive complaints began to clear up and their appetites if possible to increase. After three or four days one Red Cross food parcel was issued to roughly each ten men, much to their delight and amazement, for in two hungry months spent in North Africa since their capture they had almost forgotten that milk, butter, jam, chocolate, and other such foods existed.

Fortunately the New Zealanders and Australians were moved before the rains made the camp into a sea of mud. During their stay the mild autumn ‘enfolded [them] with sweet peacefulness’,² and the pleasant Italian vistas helped to restore mental calm after the upheaval and strain they had hitherto experienced. The guards were easygoing and, apart from interminable roll-call parades, interfered little in the prisoners' daily lives. There was a general urge for mental occupation, which bore fruit in classes in languages and in informal lectures and debates under the only almond tree inside the compound. At night open-air concerts in the improvised parade ground gave men a chance to let off pent-up emotion in the community singing of sentimental and patriotic songs. In early October our men were moved north to Gruppigano by train—a crowded and uncomfortable two-day journey through the smiling Italian countryside.

Some of the last shiploads to leave Benghazi in November were sent after arrival at Taranto to Campo PG 85 at Tuturano, which earlier in the year had temporarily held some of our prisoners captured in the previous desert campaign. The camp had been enlarged by the erection of more wooden huts, and a small additional overflow compound had been added. Originally intended as a transit camp, it developed during this period into a base camp for working parties in the neighbourhood; and

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although many of the first arrivals were sent north to permanent camps, others were retained, and some were sent from other camps for work among the almond and olive groves, the vineyards and the farms of southern Italy.

To the new arrivals from Benghazi in November the camp was ‘like heaven’. They were shown to a bunk in a reasonably comfortable hut and issued with a palliasse and two blankets, some Red Cross food and fifty cigarettes. After a week they received a new British battle dress and an old Italian uniform as a change.¹ Letters and cards for writing home and five Italian cigarettes were given out regularly. There were drawbacks: the huts were still infested with lice and fleas, and the Italian nonworker's ration was insufficient to build up their lost strength, so that there were still cases of dysentery and a prevalence of giddiness following exertion. But the Italian doctor did what he could with the scanty medical supplies at his disposal, and there seems to have been a general disposition on the part of the camp authorities to do their best for the prisoners.

In March 1943 there were nearly 5000 on the camp strength (including 300–400 New Zealanders), of whom 1700 were already out in work detachments and many other preparing to go. The large numbers in the main camp marred the efficiency of many camp services, and numbers of prisoners were again sleeping in tents. Heavy rains made crowded tent life very trying, and a Swiss Legation inspector who happened to arrive at this period mentioned that ‘tents were leaking and looked most uncomfortable’, and that there were ‘large lakes all over the place.’ In many men's minds there arose a conflict about accepting a place in a working party: one man described it as ‘trying to decide which comes first, duty to one's self or to one's country.’ Those who went out to work received double rations, were given preference for Red Cross supplies, and had at least the illusion of greater freedom; but, they reasoned, working for the enemy must be helping his war effort. In the upshot they had no say in the matter, for when the supply of volunteers ran out the Italians simply detailed parties by name. Some New Zealanders were sent to farming camps in the neighbourhood, and in May 200 went to a new work-camp at Aquafredda, attached to Campo PG 78 at Sulmona.

One party of fifty were sent in April to a large estate specialising in viniculture. They were billeted in a large storeroom and were employed for nine hours daily on general farm labour,

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working in parties of from six to fifteen men, with a guard and a civilian overseer. Most of the guards were easygoing and work was not too strenuous. Pay was at the rate of four lire a day, and went in cigarettes and toilet articles bought for them in the local village by the guard commander. Double rations, extra fruit and vegetables smuggled in from the farm, and exercise in the open air soon made them all very fit, and brought their bodily condition up to what it had been before capture.

Most of the shiploads of prisoners leaving from Tripoli at the end of 1942 were disembarked at Naples and sent to the camp at Capua, a few miles away. At the beginning of the year, when a number of New Zealand other ranks had spent some weeks in it, Campo PG 66 had possessed tent accommodation only. But in its new character of partly transit and partly permanent camp, it now had eight stone and twelve wooden barracks in one of its compounds and further barracks under construction in others. In general, tents were used only for prisoners in transit, though these sometimes comprised a very large proportion of the camp population, which rose on occasions to 8000 officers and men. The camp now took in an area about one and a half miles long by over 500 yards wide.

Our own men passed through in one of the comparatively empty periods of the camp and were housed in barracks. There was a good stock of Red Cross food parcels, though not enough clothing. The canteen sold fruit and toilet articles and there was a kitchen garden at the disposal of the prisoners. As Capua had previously been regarded as a transit camp, not many books or other recreational material had been sent there; but officers received Italian newspapers and other periodicals and organised lectures and classes. It was generally agreed that, although the completion of the barrack buildings was taking an unconscionable time, the commandant and his administrative staff were doing their best for the prisoners. After three or four weeks there most of our other ranks were moved north to Gruppignano, to join other New Zealanders from Bari, Tuturano and Altamura, as well as many taken in the previous campaign.

Except for a few captured at Minqar Qaim, who had arrived at Bari in early July and had gone with a number of South Africans and British Army officers to a camp at Chieti, all the New Zealand officers at Bari were sent in September to Sulmona. Officers who had been at Campo PG 78 for some time were living in comparatively comfortable quarters with ‘good hired civilian furniture and proper beds’; but the new arrivals were put into large huts with concrete floors and given sailcloth stretchers and

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one wooden stool each. At this period many of the brick buildings were getting into a bad state of repair and were very crowded,¹ especially the accommodation for other ranks, some of whom had to sleep on the floor until March 1943. There was, too, the difficulty experienced in many Italian prisoner-of-war camps during the summer months that the water supply either failed or had to be restricted to a few hours each day.

On the other hand Sulmona had a regular canteen where fruit, jam, sweets, and cigarettes could be bought, although at excessive prices. There was now a football ground on which nearly everyone could get at least one game a week; and over the long period of its existence the camp had built up a good theatre organisation which produced some very good entertainments. In October, following their plan of segregating Dominion prisoners into camps of their own, the Italian authorities transferred the New Zealand officers to the new camp at Modena.

About forty of the New Zealand officers captured in the desert campaign of November 1941 remained at the monastery camp at Padula for the summer of 1942 before going on to Modena. The thriving black market which had provided such large additions to the diet (and the cost of living) suddenly collapsed after a raid by carabinieri and a full-scale inquiry involving many of the camp's administrative staff. The new commandant (for such inquiries were almost always the prelude to a change of command) was a colonel of carabinieri and considerably more strict than his predecessor. The discovery of an escape tunnel was followed by the closing of all the ground-floor sleeping rooms and consequent overcrowding elsewhere. The perimeter barbed wire was heavily guarded and equipped with searchlights and numerous machine-gun posts. Nevertheless in September a successful tunnel enabled a party of thirteen to break out, including two New Zealanders;² and with a little more luck the remaining 18 of the escape team would have got away too next day but the tunnel was discovered. The first party were all recaptured within three weeks and were shortly afterwards sent to Campo PG 5.

Both Padula and Poppi for many months had large numbers of medical officers and padres, far in excess of camp requirements; but it was not until July 1942, after the large increase in the numbers of prisoners and camps in Italy, that they were moved to hospitals or other ranks' camps where their services were needed.³ Finally in October all but a few of the New Zealand officers were sent north to join their countrymen at Modena.

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The amenities of Campo PG 38 at Poppi, which in early 1942 held between 80 and 90 New Zealand officers and a few other ranks, remained good throughout its history, owing to a well-disposed Italian staff. The orderlies received workers' rations of bread (400 grammes) and the officers more than that supplied in most other officers' camps (200 instead of 150 grammes). Although the summer brought difficulties in the water supply, outdoor exercise and a plentiful supply of Red Cross food, together with fresh fruit and vegetables, made everyone healthy and fit. And the now regular arrival of mail¹ and parcels set at rest many of the worries that arise when contact is lost with those at home.

The Italian staff was alert to discover any activity on the part of the prisoners which might lead to an escape. Besides searches by carabinieri, the camp guards and interpreters were frequently in and out of the living quarters, and with the small numbers in the camp it was not difficult for them to detect anything suspicious. In July, however, a bold and hastily improvised attempt by two New Zealand officers² gave them their freedom for three weeks. They lowered themselves at dusk one evening from an upper story on a rope made from sheets tied together, having first been swung clear of an intervening barbed-wire fence by assisting officers operating inside the building. The sentry who fired at them had a faulty rifle, and in the darkness and sudden downpour of rain which quickly followed they were able to elude the numerous guards and dogs which went off in pursuit. Keeping to the hills they reached La Spezia, but were there apprehended by carabinieri and sent back to camp. Soon afterwards they were transferred to Campo PG 5, which was then receiving prisoners who had attemped to escape or had committed other breaches of discipline. In October all the remaining New Zealand officers were transferred to Campo PG 47 at Modena.

This was a new camp, both in the sense that it now housed prisoners of war for the first time and also in that it consisted of buildings completed only in 1942. They were stone barracks of the standard Italian horseshoe-shaped bungalow type, well adapted to the hot weather which predominates in the district for most of the year, though not so easily heated in winter. Bathrooms, lavatories, and shower-rooms were lavishly faced with marble, the kitchen was well fitted up with modern equipment, and there was a comfortable, well-equipped infirmary. By the end of the year the camp held about 900 officers and 200 other

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ranks,¹ of whom 217 officers and 20 other ranks were New Zealanders, and almost the whole of the remainder South Africans.

Food, well cooked and abundant, included large amounts of fresh vegetables; there were plenty of Red Cross food and medical comforts parcels on hand; and there was a well-stocked canteen selling a variety of articles from good watches to vermouth and other wines. The internal running of the camp was left almost entirely to the prisoners of war and was very highly organised. A library was built up from books brought from other camps, together with some local purchases and, later, books from private and Red Cross parcels. A educational scheme was soon in action, embracing classes on a wide diversity of subjects, conducted by members of various professions, including specialist teachers and university lecturers. A small stage was erected in the canteen, where an active theatre group produced a Christmas pantomime and thereafter a succession of musical and other shows. A large clay area in between the barracks provided ample space for basketball, teniquoit, even football and baseball matches, and a full-scale sports meeting. For those uninterested in games there were boxing, wrestling, and other forms of physical training, or daily walks along the roads through the pleasant countryside. In the sunny and healthy climate of the area and the stimulating atmosphere of a large group with plenty of ideas to exchange, there was no reason at Modena for physical or mental stagnation.

This all seemed too good to last, and indeed, following escape attempts by several officers in the new year (one of whom was successful in reaching Switzerland), the Italian commandant became reluctant to listen to any complaint or grant any request, whether about lighting or heating or any other matter, on the assumption that it might relate to future escape activity. Air Force officers had their uniforms taken away on the grounds that they might be used for civilian disguise. Books arrived from the censor with their covers ripped off (later merely slashed open) in case articles might be hidden in them. There were early morning searches by carabinieri of prisoners' personal effects, and regular testing of each barrack floor for tunnels, before which literally everything in the barrack had to be moved outside. During these inspections the ground outside the barrack was covered with an array of beds, stools, and the heterogeneous collections of improvised furniture and other property which prisoners acquire. Though many found these evictions irksome, they had the merit of being the occasion for ‘spring-cleaning’ which might otherwise have taken place only at much longer intervals.

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There were other annoying measures, categorised by the Italian authorities as ‘reprisals’ for treatment of Italians in British hands. Red patches were sewn on prisoners' clothing; rings and other valuables were confiscated. In January the officers' messing charges were raised by a ‘maintenance charge’ of 8·60 lire a day, to pay for the hire of the property and furniture being used. Not only was this charge made retrospective to the beginning of July 1942, but the whole of the arrears (some 1500 lire a head) was to be deducted from each officer's account in one lump sum. Most of these reprisal measures were common to other camps, though in most other officers' camps the amount of ‘maintenance’ arrears was at least spread over a period of some months.

Although a communication from the senior officers regarding these excessive charges was forwarded to the Swiss Legation in Rome, communications complaining of other matters, and in particular of conditions in the transit camps of North Africa, were held up indefinitely. In this, as in many other camps, the only way of ensuring delivery of such communications was to wait for the visit of a delegate and put them in his hands. In the spring of 1943, following another escape from the camp, there was a new commandant who proved more reasonable; and thereafter administrative arrangements ran more smoothly.

It took some time for matters to straighten out between the Italian authorities of Campo PG 5 at Gavi and those officers and other ranks who were transferred there in June 1942 and subsequently. The camp was described by repatriates as an ‘officers’ punishment camp' or ‘bad boys’ camp', but though the Italian military authorities would admit that pericolosi were sent to it, they claimed that it differed from other camps only in that it was more difficult to escape from. Certainly camp security was taken seriously, for at one period 180 officer and 50 other rank prisoners¹ were guarded by 14 Italian officers and 240 other ranks, including several carabinieri.

The ‘camp’ was an old castle, situated on a hill overlooking the village of Gavi, about twenty miles north-east of Genoa. Formerly used as a civil jail for criminals, its use for that purpose had been discontinued, according to some reports, because it proved too damp and unhealthy in the winter. Officers slept eight or ten to a cell twenty feet long by twelve wide, with one small barred window and one faint electric light. Like most buildings of its type it was woefully short of latrines and poorly off for water; there was no exercise space except the castle courtyards at restricted times, and even the use of the messroom was denied the prisoners.

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Indeed the restrictions for the first six weeks amounted to ill-treatment: there were no letters or cards for writing home, no means of obtaining cigarettes or necessary toilet articles, no Red Cross food parcels, no walks outside the camp. A Swiss representative, who had heard of the camp's existence only by chance, visited it at the end of July, from which time some of the defects began to be remedied. But there were numerous attempts at escape, each with an adverse effect on the camp conditions and each followed by the withdrawal at least temporarily of concessions already granted.

In March 1943 the ‘Generals’ camp'¹ at Villa Vincigliata—Campo PG 12—was the scene of one of the most notable escapes of the war. It was notable not so much for its execution, which was matched by many other examples of clever planning and determination, but because the actual break-out was made by two generals, an air vice-marshal and three brigadiers, all above the age of most other men who attempted such exploits, and because two of the brigadiers² succeeded in reaching Switzerland.³

There had been several unsuccessful attempts to escape from the villa by one or two of the officers in the spring and summer of 1942. Finally in September entry was gained to a disused and sealed-up chapel, from which a tunnel leading into the outer garden was begun. All the officers and other ranks in the camp assisted in some way in the tunnelling and other preparations for this attempt. On a wet evening—29 March 1943—the six men went out through the completed tunnel, and by 9.30 p.m. four were on their way to the railway station to catch a night train to Milan, and the two generals had set off to walk to the Swiss border. The latter and two of the others had the misfortune to be recaptured; but the two New Zealand brigadiers travelled by train to Como, and at half past ten on the evening following the break-out they crawled through the frontier wire near Chiasso into Switzerland.

Later in the year, separately and each with the assistance of the French Resistance Movement, they reached the borders of Spain. Brigadier Hargest was able to make his way to the British consulate in Barcelona and was flown to England in December. Brigadier Miles⁴ lost his life in Spain in this last stage of a game attempt to reach Allied territory.

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Only a comparatively small number of New Zealand other ranks were employed as orderlies in officers' camps in Italy,¹ the majority of them having gone to Chiavari or Gruppignano, or later to one of the many work-camps established throughout the country. By the summer the large camp near Chiavari, which then held some 950 New Zealanders, had considerably improved. Besides the large mess hut which was available for concerts and other recreation, gravel paths had been laid down between the huts, a hot-shower unit had been installed (though hot showers stopped in the spring through lack of fuel), and sanitation and water supply had been improved, though the latter was still liable to fail. The food rations remained on the same slender scale, but Red Cross food parcels began to arrive more frequently. Private parcels of clothing and cigarettes also began to arrive abundantly, and the camp which had had to rely largely on the regular issue of five Italian cigarettes became flush with English ones. Some of those with large quantities of cigarettes spent a good deal of time gambling with them; and the demand for such amusements was so great that a kind of gambling alley was set up where most of the better known games of chance were played.

Many spent much of their time cooking up tasty dishes made from the contents of their food parcels, on a great variety of miniature stoves made from empty tins. It was forbidden to use these inside the huts (as it was in other camps), but the commandant set aside an area in the compound where cooking might be carried out. An International Red Cross Committee delegate describes the scene thus:

This is a characteristic picture of Camp 52—little groups of men crouching round a mess tin and giving the most serious attention to the cooking of their ‘supplement’ in their own little ‘kitchen’. The question of fuel for these hearths, however, presents constant difficulties because wood is scarce and the prisoners find in their search for chance combustibles a scource of distraction and interest.

The shortage of fuel no doubt brought about the evolution of the ‘blower’, a circular fan adaptation which had the effect of a blacksmith's bellows. Owing to insufficient facilities and fuel for cooking Red Cross food in both Italy and Germany, the ‘blower’ played an important part in the feeding of great numbers of prisoners of war. So keen was the interest at Campo PG 52 that in July a contest was held to determine how quickly a certain quantity of water could be boiled on one of these contrivances.

The results of hobbies practised in the camp to fill in time were shown at an exhibition of arts and crafts in August. Beside

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numerous models, there were etchings and paintings, sculpture and tapestry work, and a great variety of utility articles, from the stoves mentioned above to spoons and teapots, slippers, knitted scarves and socks, and attaché cases. Such exhibitions were characteristic of prisoner-of-war camps in both Italy and Germany, especially non-working camps, where some form of practical manual activity helped many to get through the long hours of otherwise enforced idleness.

Though the camp space did not allow the playing of any large-scale sports, a boxing tournament excited a good deal of interest. Walks under escort outside the camp, swimming parties to the river, and a life inside the camp spent almost entirely in the open air and sunshine helped to restore men to good physical condition. The library, a full programme of educational classes, music and the theatre provided mental activity. A bulletin of ‘news from home’ compiled from New Zealand letters, which were beginning to take only two and a half months in transit, was circulated—an idea which had been put into practice in other camps too. Although the morale of the camp seems to have been high, there were many who were not sorry to be among the 700 selected in July¹ for farm work, with its prospects of seeing more of the country and getting better food. Parties began to leave in September for Campo PG 107—a work camp—and many others were sent to Campo PG 57 preparatory to being drafted to work. By the new year there was only a handful of New Zealanders left at Chiavari.

By September 1942, owing to transfers from other camps, the largest number of New Zealand prisoners in Italy had been concentrated in Campo PG 57 at Gruppignano.² In July the camp had held only 1600, including some 450 New Zealanders, and the new intake made necessary the opening up of a third compound for which the huts had recently been completed. From then on the numbers rapidly increased until in March 1943 the camp held nearly 4500 (including 1800 New Zealanders) even after some had been sent off to work-camps. Although new sleeping barracks and other necessary buildings were put up, the accommodation never kept pace with the numbers arriving, and in spite of the use of recreation barracks as sleeping quarters the camp became very overcrowded.