The Monte San Martino Trust held its annual Fontanellato lunch on 3 November 2009 at the Royal Overseas League Club, London. It was a well attended and highly enjoyable occasion. Among the 70 guests were eight "originals" - former prisoners of war who had been held at Fontanellato camp and at other camps in Italy. The guests also included Minister Giovanni Brauzzi, Deputy Head of Mission at the Italian Embassy, and Lt Col Jeff Price, Assistant Military Attache at the US Embassy.
The Grace was said by the Rev Bill Bowder and The Toast of Thanks to the Italian People was given by Major Maurice Goddard, a PoW at Fontanellato, who along with his companion Erik Hampson crossed the River Sangro to reach freedom in December 1943.
The guest speaker was Mr Robert Hann, who delivered a fascinating address on the subject of SAS Operation Galia, which was launched at the beginning of 1945. Mr Hann's book on the Operation, published in November 2009*, tells the story of the mission and of what happened to its participants - among whom was his father, Stanley Hann, of the 2nd SAS Regiment. Stanley's widow, Mrs Lillian Hann, and Mrs Winnie Church, the widow of Jimmy Church, who was on the mission, were also present at the lunch.
*SAS Operation Galia, by Robert Hann. Published by Central Books, £9.99. Available from Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN. Tel 020 8986 4854. Robert Hann is the winner of the 2008 Impress Prize for New Writers.
Below is an edited version of Robert Hann's address.
"Like the vast majority of people present, I too am the son of an escaper who was aided by the Italian people. My dad, Stanley Hann, along with 27 or so other SAS troops, was parachuted into the Rossano valley, northern Italy, two days after Christmas 1944, in order to attack German lines of communications and work with Italian partisans in the area. The parachute drop, carried out in daylight, was intended to deceive the enemy into believing that a full brigade of 400 men had landed behind them.
After fighting a 9-week guerrilla war in the most atrocious conditions, with no winter camouflage but instead wearing khaki jump suits and hob-nailed boots, they escaped over the marble mountains of Carrara with the help of Italians.
My book, Operation Galia (a fictionalised account written from the perspective of one of the parachutists) attempts to tell the story of the mission and includes the story of what happened to one of the unlucky SAS men who was among a group captured by the Fascists on New Year's Day 1945.
This is the story of Jimmy Church, who told it to me the day after my own father's funeral. I had known Jimmy all my life and knew nothing about Galia then. I listened in stunned silence.
He explained what he and my Dad had been up to all those years ago and how he had been captured and how, as a PoW, he was interrogated, put against a wall, blindfolded and asked this question repeatedly as the firing squad took aim: ‘How many, how many?' - meaning how many paratroopers were there in the mountains. Jimmy said that he and his fellow SAS only gave one answer. ‘We told ‘em there are thousands of us... and thousands more to come!'
Mock executions became almost commonplace and after a while the bluff lost its edge although, as Jimmy said, you never knew for sure when it would be your turn. ‘The Poles, Russians and Czechs - they never came back.'
Today, for the first time, I have met Brian Lett [former Monte San Martino Trust chairman and leader of the Rossano Freedom Trail march in 2009], whose father Gordon was the leader of the International Brigade of Partisans in the Rossano Valley. Brian and I discovered our Dads shared a special bond, the pair being part of a small group who were surrounded and cut off in an isolated mountain village called Sero by the enemy forces scouring the mountains for the men of Galia and anyone who had helped them. They only survived by the skin of their teeth, taking prisoners as they made their escape.
I have had the great fortune to meet Ted Robinson, a Wireless Operator, 3rd Squadron, 2nd SAS and one of the Galia squad, who unfortunately was not able to be with us at the lunch today. It is fitting that his words are the final words in my book and today:
‘It has stirred many emotions to reminisce about events all those years ago. Companionship and friendships were forged between the SAS and the true partisans, which were essential to our survival.
"I would particularly like to thank the people of the villages of Rossano and Buzzo, and especially the two brave young women of Buzzo who brought cooked food - my first-ever proper minestrone - to our hideaway when the Alpini troops were hot on our heels, moving like strings of pearl through the snowy mountains.'
I would like to close by thanking the Trust and Brian Lett for all you have done for me. I am sure the Trust will continue its fine work for many years to come."
Below: Major Maurice Goddard, former Fontanellato PoW (left), and Sir Nicholas Young, Trust chairman, at the Royal Overseas League Club before the 2009 Fontanellato lunch
Below: Keith Killby, the Trust's founder (left), with Robert Hann, author of SAS Operation Galia and the guest speaker at the 2009 Fontanellato lunch
