John Simkins
The Trust’s close collaboration with the Milan-based Parri institute is flowering with the staging of three events in Italy to draw attention to the excellent website www.alleatiinitalia.it
Created by Parri’s researchers, with financial support from MSMT, the portal gives a comprehensive picture of all Italy’s prisoner of war camps and contains stories about some of the escapees and some of the Italian families who sheltered men on the run, at great risk to themselves. The website, accessible in both English and Italian, fits neatly with the Trust’s own online archive of PoW memoirs and is intended to bring more attention within Italy to the Allied presence during the Second World War.
The first of the three events took place on November 6th 2025 at Fontanellato, the site of PG 49, at which I and Phil Cooke, the Trust’s chairman were present. The remaining two will be held at Bari and PG 65 Altamura-Gravina in February and at PG 64 Colfiorito in Umbria in March.
The full-day programme at Fontanellato, generously hosted by the municipality at the magnificent Rocca, or castle, that dominates the small town, was rich and varied. The audience in the morning included junior schools and, in the afternoon, inhabitants of the town and high school students. Amazingly, no fewer than 300 families in the surrounding area had a hand in protecting or supplying the 600 PoWs who escaped from Fontanellato after the Armistice. The talks were presented by Igor Pizzirusso, of Parri, and the institute’s researchers – Costantino Di Sante, Nicola Cacciatore and Eugenia Corbino – explained how to make best use of the website’s various functions. All of them are leading authorities in the history of anti-fascism.
Many of the Trust’s supporters are descendants of the PG 49 escapees and it was on the strength of this that Phil and I had been invited to speak. Professor Marco Minardi, author of the history of the escape (L’Orizzonte del Campo, published in English by MSMT as Bugle Call to Freedom and available through Amazon) set the scene by putting the escape in the context of contemporary events.
I then gave a talk about the Trust, focusing on the story of one of the escapees – Captain Anthony Simkins, my father. Thanks to Pietro Bettati, of Fontanellato, and through accessing documents of the Allied Screening Commission at the National Archives in Washington, it had been possible to identify two families who sheltered my Dad shortly after the escape. I was now able to meet descendants for the first time – a happy and emotional moment for both me and them.
Renzo and Diego Leonardi, the son and grandson of Attilio Leonardi, my father’s host, were in the audience in the morning. They received thunderous applause when asked to stand up. In the afternoon, I met Francesco Natella, the grandson of Aberado Boriani, who had been the first to offer my Dad hospitality. In his memoir, Dad wrote: “This family was surprisingly kind, a taste of what we would encounter throughout the journey. They generously gave us food, beds, and dressed us in civilian clothes so we could move around less suspiciously. I think we stayed two days in this welcoming refuge. We left in the evening; the head of the family accompanied us part of the way and gave us his blessing before returning home.”
Shortly after staying with the Boriani and Leonardi families, my father and his companion, Captain Morris-Keating, realising that the Allies would not arrive at Genoa any time soon, turned south and walked down the Apennines. Unfortunately they were recaptured and taken to the Reich.
Student testimonies
Phil then talked about the Trust’s student bursaries and, during the day, five former award winners described their experiences – fortunately, all their memories were happy ones! The most senior of the five was Francesco Trivelloni, who is fondly remembered by Trust supporters who came to reunions in Fontanellato in 2013 and 2018, when he was mayor. Francesco had a bursary in 2005: he amused everybody by relating that, knowing scarcely a word of English and without a smart phone in those pre-social media days, it took him 90 minutes on his first day to find the Underground station, going round and round it in vain.
Capping a day of great interest and emotion, in the afternoon some descendants of helper families testified. Ubaldo Arduini recalled that his father, also named Ubaldo, was asked on the night of the escape to drive some of the fugitives out to the embankment where they slept rough for the first couple of days. “Why did people take such risks for nothing?” asked Ubaldo. “It was done for love.”
Carla Tedeschi then told how her father had escorted Lt. Dennis Vian to the Swiss border, disguising him in a priest’s clothes. Years later, to the family’s great surprise and pleasure, Vian turned up at their door differently equipped, this time with a wife and a sports car.
Setting the seal on the day, Phil Cooke and the Trust were presented with a knapsack, bearing the name of Lt. Hill. It had been residing in the home of a local family for more than 80 years and has now, in one sense, come home.
