The Final Chapter? Definitely not!
As some will be aware, in November 2022 I decided to bequeath the diary of my uncle, Robert Dickinson, to Casa Della Memoria Servigliano. A decision many years in the making, but finally a fitting home, especially as Robert named the diary “Servigliano Calling” and it was in this PoW camp that the diary was assembled. So, plans were put in place to hand the diary over on 8th September 2023, during the 80th Armistice evets held in Servigliano. The diary is now in the safe hands of Casa Della Memoria and will form a centrepiece within their museum/education centre currently being built within the camp walls. The diary returns within the walls of Campo 59! I had thought my research into my uncle’s life was over, with all avenues extinguished. How wrong could I have been!
On the evening of 23rd January 2023, I received an email from my good friend, Dennis Hill, who runs the Camp59survivors website. He told me he had purchased a new book from Amazon, Some Corner of a Foreign Field, by Janet Kinrade Dethick. One paragraph of this was to change things, but neither of us could have dreamed then what was to unfold over the coming 16 months.
Only Dennis would have known the importance of that paragraph to me, just a few letters and numbers, but it referenced a Special Branch Investigation into Robert’s death held at the National Archives at Kew. I had always believed there to be one, as a document had been found circa 2014 stating closure of investigations, but no further information could be found. In disbelief I rapidly logged into Kew Archives and searched the reference, and up came the description “Special Investigation Branch investigation: death of British soldier Dickinson R, Gunner, 896957, 60th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, an escaped POW, through causes that may constitute a war crime by unknown German soldiers at Piemonte, Italy, 5 March 1945”.
I quickly realised why I had not found it when previously searching. Due to content, the report had been on a 70-year withhold and was only opened in 2017. I had been searching three years too early!
War crimes
That same evening, I requested a document check to be completed.
During the document check I managed to get in contact with Janet Kinrade Dethick. I wanted to understand her sources of information and what she knew. Whilst Janet did not know the contents of the War Crime Investigation, she had copies of additional information held in the Istoreto Archive in Turin.
Robert and the diary are both mentioned in another diary held in the Istoreto, that of Fulvio Borghetti, who assisted with translations for the Allied Screening Commissions applications in the Piedmont region. Borghetti mentions having the diary in his possession and writing that Robert had a tragic death: injured in battle and hidden by his comrades, a pack of police dogs had found him in the night and tore him limb from limb.
In addition, there are two letters in this archive, one from Robert and one from Ron Dix. Both follow the same line and are clearly letters written by each thanking the Bauducco family for sheltering them for 13 months following the September 1943 Armistice. These letters confirmed that the PoW sheltered with Robert was Ronald Leonard Dix (named only as Ron in the diary) and that it was the Bauducco family of 29 Via Armando Diaz, Gassino Torinese, which had sheltered them.
I had always believed that the Italian family name had been Bauducco as there had been a separate slip of paper with the diary that had “Bauducco, V. A Diaz, Gassino” written on it. However, now I had a full name of Ginetta Bauducco. I was not sure if she was “our good lady” mentioned in the diary as the lady of the house or the teenage daughter, Gina, mentioned several times. Robert was careful with names in the diary as the penalty for sheltering PoWs was death.
About two weeks later I was informed the document check was complete, the report was intact and included several distressing photographs. Following the check, I ordered a copy of the report. From what Borghetti wrote in his diary I decided to not include the photographs.
The report arrived and I’m pleased to say Borghetti’s account was incorrect. It includes three witness statements (each being interviewed twice), that of Adofo Arutso (partisan), Bartolomeo Cassetta (Aldo Brosio Brigade Company Commander) and Eugenio Morero (Detachment Commander).
Arutso’s statements had some inaccuracies and he seemed to have exaggerated the wounds Robert received, possibly for propaganda reasons.
Both Cassetta and Morero’s statements are similar, with 18-year-old Morero’s being very detailed. On 3rd March 1945 they were engaged with the enemy (Germans, Fascists and Siberians). Robert received a gunshot wound to the leg and shoulder and managed to drag himself towards a stream. Heavily outnumbered at 1pm, the partisans had to withdraw.
With the leg wound Robert was not mobile, so Cassetta carried him on his shoulders for 3km at which point Robert knew he was hindering their escape. Robert asked to be left and Cassetta hid him in a ditch and left a firearm in the locality. Robert was told they would return in the night to collect him. Around 4am on the 4th March a group of partisans returned to where Robert was hidden. They found him dead, with stab wounds to the throat and chest and shot in the back of the head. Robert’s body was taken to the small municipality of Viale and he was buried in the municipal cemetery.
To verify witness statements, I now requested the photographs that I had not had included with the report. These backed up Cassetta and Morero’s report and Arutso’s could be discounted.
I wanted to know more about the burial in Viale, so the registrar was contacted. The registrar was helpful, but said no information existed, but he passed a letter that he thought might be of interest and said he would send photos later. The letter detailed the inauguration of a monument in May 2001 in Viale to 17 partisans of the Aldo Brosio brigade who fell for their country.
I remember reading that letter for the first time. The writer does not know why it has taken 55 years to honour the memory of those fallen, however is so happy that there will now be a fitting monument to his fallen comrades. Initially they had wanted a monument in a different area, but the mayor was not helpful. He decided to approach Viale, a place where he said they spent quite some time. The mayor of Viale welcomed the idea and locals made on-the-spot financial contributions. The letter was inviting residents to the opening. I got to the bottom of the letter and there was a signature by a 74-year-old, Eugenio Morero! The same Morero who at age 18 had been a witness in the Crime Investigation report.
Not only had Eugenio’s statement brought closure on Robert’s life for the Dickinson family, he had also been responsible for having him remembered as a partisan that fell for his country.
The photographs arrived from the Registrar and one bronze plaque on the monument states Robert Dickinson, Viale, 1945. Morero never forgot his friend and comrade Robert Dickinson!
When the diary was handed over I had hoped a member of the Bauducco family could be present. I had searched in Italy for about 15 years, visited Gassino Torinese and even more recently had a local journalist assisting, but no trace could be found. So, it was not to be.
After returning from Servigliano I had a thought. I was aware Ron Dix never returned from the war, but did he have any family? Through a genealogy website I traced a sister and in 1950 she had a daughter. This daughter was called Ginetta; this could not be a coincidence and I knew I was on the right trail.
Some weeks later I managed to get direct contact with Ginetta and she confirmed that her mother had called her after the Italian girl, Ginetta Bauducco, mentioned in the diary as Gina and a daughter in the household. Both Ginetta’s had met several times in the past and she said her aunt was still in regular contact with her, but last news was that she was living in a care home and in poor health.
After a few more weeks, I was told that Ginetta had died in late 2023, aged 95. However, I was informed that Ginetta had a single son, Saverio. I was eager to make contact with Saverio, but thought patience was the game. After occasional contact with my intermediary, in May I received an email with Saverio’s contact details and the news that he would be happy to be in direct contact.
I wrote a message and waited; a few days later the reply came! Saverio knew of the two British Artillerymen his grandparents had hid from the Fascists Germans for 13 months in 1943/44. His mother Ginetta had told him the stories and as a boy he had been taken to their graves. He said he was so upset that I had missed his mother by months, as she would have been overjoyed to tell me those stories. I now have the name of “our kind lady” regularly mentioned in the diary: the lady of the house was Carola Bauducco, her husband Giovanni.
This month (June 2024) I am visiting Robert’s and Ron Dix’s graves in Milan, as well as Viale and Gassino Torinese (where Ron and Robert were sheltered). Most importantly, I am meeting Saverio. So, a new chapter begins!
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