Monte San Martino Trust
The Monte San Martino Trust was founded by J. Keith Killby in 1989 to acknowledge the bravery of Italian people who hid Allied servicemen on the run from prisoner of war camps after the Armistice with Italy in 1943. It grants educational bursaries in the UK to young Italians, funds research, supports Freedom Trails and has an online archive of PoW memoirs. It is a registered charity.
2026 July Newsletter
Welcome to our July newsletter, which updates you on our activities since our last issue in January. As you will read in the Chair’s message, by Prof Phil Cooke, we have been very busy!
This year, half of the 40 Italian students we are welcoming to the UK are descendants of brave families who protected escaped PoWs and other refugees. In one of the articles, we tell some of their stories.
Our latest news
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Audacious escapes
Letitia Blake attended the launch of Karen Farrington’ s book, The Great Italian Breakout, which brings stories of resilience and resourcefulness to a wider audience.
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Isabella Insolvibile, Allied Prisoners of War in Italy, 1940–1943
Malcolm Gaskill reviews a book by Isabella Insolvibile that lays bare the shortcomings of the Italian state in its treatment of Allied prisoners of war. Translated by Andrea Hajek (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)
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A family story comes full circle
A brave Italian family, an unidentified US airman, and the research that unmasked him and led to his granddaughter visiting his helper’s descendants. Anne Copley puts the jigsaw together.
Educational bursaries
Italians aged 18-25 are eligible for four-week English language study courses at London or Oxford. More than 700 bursaries have been granted.
Research
The Trust has two websites, one of which is an archive containing 200 memoirs by former PoWs. The Trust stimulates research into the Allied presence in wartime Italy by families seeking to discover more about an ancestor’s experience as a PoW, and also by academics. It works closely with the Milan-based Parri Institute and the Italian faculty of Cambridge University and supports the digitisation of Allied Screening Commission files in Washington DC to make them accessible.
Freedom trails
With its sister organisation, the WW2 Escape Lines Memorial Society, the Trust conducts walks in Italy along routes taken by escaping PoWs and commemorates the bravery of their rescuers. It also supports efforts to reconstruct PoW camps.
Donate to our work
The Trust is entirely dependent upon the generosity of the public and is run by volunteers. We have several ways you can support the charity and become part of our community.
Meet Nermina
Former student and trustee
“I must say that it was one of the most amazing experiences in my entire life. It largely enriched me, not only from a cultural point of view thanks to the excellent lessons of the English course, but also for many other aspects, starting with meeting a fabulous host family that made me feel home since the first day, cultivating new friendships with people from all around the world (now I have a friend from Mexico, isn’t it crazy?) and visiting a lot of interesting places…”
Our online archive
The memoirs of Allied servicemen on the run in wartime Italy, accounts of the brave Italians who hid them, and information about the PoW camps are all to be found in the Trust’s invaluable archive.
Join our community
Get updates on the Trust’s campaigns, events, projects, book releases and PoW archive uploads.
