Italian POW Camp PG62/51 Plemo Val Camonica

Discussion in 'Prisoners of War' started by Trevor Smallman, Jul 10, 2013.

  1. I have since 2008 been researching my dad’s army career and the Italian prisoner of war camps he was help in and in particular, the last camp where he and his fellow prisoners escaped from.

    This camp was situated at Plemo in the Val Camonica where they worked on a canal construction for hydro power or that was the intention.

    The camp was given the reference PG62/51 as it was a satellite of the main camp at Bergamo PG62 where they were all transferred from.

    Recently I have been made aware by a contributor Vitellino to the WW2 Talk Forum of a part of a report that appears in the book ‘’A strange Alliance’’ by Roger Absalom which gives aspects of Escape and Survival in Italy 1943-5.

    I have now obtained the MI 9 report of a Lance Corporal Raymond Edward Butters 7899828 as the information in the book was tributed to him.
    He was in the Royal Tank Regiment with a reference in the report of being a member of the 4th Battalion.

    He was in the camp on the 8th September 1943 when the armistice was declared between Italy and the Allies with the others

    His report is by far the most detailed of the six I have from those who were in the camp at that time and as three of the reports were given at Caux this could have been how he sourced most of his information and is shown based upon this in his report as they were done in the latter part of 1944

    From his report he was a prime contributor to the escape as a go between the prisoners in the mountains and the village priest at Plemo who then arranged for most of the prisoners to escape into Switzerland which dad (so far) was not one and took a different path.
    The report shows that there were 50 prisoners in the camp at the end of the Italian use from the 8th September 1943 however it is believed that it was taken over by the Germans as a transit camp after.

    In the last few days I have received some information from the Swiss which shows that L/C Butters was from Winchester in Hampshire but has limited information and forms part of an alphabetical log sheet and misses some detailed information I have of four of the others which includes civilian occupations, addresses etc. and photographs taken by the Swiss.

    I would be grateful if anyone has any other background information on Lance Corporal Butters as I have located and are in touch with the families of all the other prisoners known at the moment, mostly obtained from the WW2 Talk site.

    If anyone has comes across any other POW reports from the Plemo camp PG62/51 I would be grateful if they could contact me.

    At present I am constructing a document of the camp which includes the photographs taken during a visit in 2009 which includes Italian documents, certificates etc. plus and location maps

    It is the intention shortly of putting it on WW2 Talk however it is quite a large file and I would need assistance on how to upload it.(42MB so far)
     
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  2. Varasc

    Varasc Senior Member

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  3. Hi Marco,
    Thanks for your comment and link and actually I am in touch with the site specifically about Plemo and I have been told that I need to find at least one original document with the name and number as provenance before it can be added to the list.
    I have two Italian eye witnesses as you would say, one who used to visit it as a boy and trade with the prisoners and the other a professor who as a boy knew it as well and has wrote as short paper about it.
    He has now found for me a paper on the Padre which also states that there were two camps in the Lower Val Camonica one which we know as Plemo plus another from the site above at Rogno.
    On the six MI 9 reports I have only one Lance Corporal Butters give the name and number as originally typed and dictated the rest have pen amendments to the originals hence me trying to find more about him

    Trevor
     
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  4. Varasc

    Varasc Senior Member

    I understand Trevor, I'll keep your interesting search well in my mind! :)
     
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  5. I have recently returned from Italy and was the guest of the town of Fucine and the Savoldelli family and was taken to the area in the mountain called Cervera where dad turned up with a fellow prisoner John Dallamore and was hidden for a few days by Angela Savoldelli and during this time the fascists came searching for prisoners and the family hid them deep within a hay store and despite using pitch forks the fascists did not find them.
    The function was organised by the main town of Darfo Borio Terme and was a church celebration together with the towns folk and the Alpini to remember all those who died in the quest for freedom.

    During the trip I had the good fortune also to meet up with a family Vielmi at Plemo who were involved from the start with Don Pietro Salari on the escape of the fifty prisoners (according to Butters report) and many owe there lives to these families all over Italy for what they did, without any thought of the danger to themselves and many paid the until mate cost with there lives.

    On the very last morning I met another family high above Alprica on the mountain route to Tirano another family who came to dads aid and that was the Bignotti family at St Cristina and again they helped him and the next morning the uncle took him down the mountain to a place called Dosso and showed him where to cross the river Adda in safety and the path beyond that took him above Campocologno into Switzerland.

    On the 8th of September it will be seventy years since the armistice was declared and us the descendants of those prisoners must never forget the sacrifice those Italian people made who in dads words '' had little more than us'' as they stepped up the mark in the name of humanity.
    The Bignotti family's father was in the Italian army but it made no difference as they did not know where he was but they helped and it turned out he was a prisoner with the British

    ''LEST WE FORGET''
     
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  6. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Thank you for sharing your story with us Trevor. I can imagine it was quite an emotional one for you too.

    Lesley
     
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  7. During the trip I was given two names of Greek Cypriot Soldiers who were in the camp and warned of the German approach after the 8th of September and later disarmed them towards the end of the occupation and lived in the further up in the Val Camonica
    I have not a lot to go on so I hope you can help.
    I hope the spelling is correct

    KATYARIS: Greek Cypriot Army

    DIMITRIS : Greek Cypriot Army
     
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  8. susan jones

    susan jones New Member

    I can't believe that I accidentally found this about the Italian POW camp . Raymond was my dad and I have been trying for years to find out if this was true. Susan
     
  9. Hello Susan,
    Welcome to the site and you are in the hands of lots of experts in all manner of fields of World War 2 and much more.

    I have been searching for Rays family for some considerable time and without doubt his report is the most detailed I have and hence I presume its use in the Absalom,s book.
    Please drop me a PM and I will sort out what I have on your father as the six prisoners above is now sixteen confirmed with one being particularly active see the post on Tom Horton

    Trevor
     
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  10. vitellino

    vitellino Senior Member

    Hello Susan,

    Was your father Raymond Butters? I put Trevor on to him,

    Regards

    Vitellino
     
  11. susan jones

    susan jones New Member

    Hello Vitellino
    Yes Raymond was definitely my father but it I didn't know him and unfortunately he died about 1962. I had been told about him being a prisoner of war and escaping into Switerzerland from a school friends mother but never knew if it was true. I really don't understand how he was involved in the escape.
    Trevor says he will email all he has about Raymond so perhaps I might understand more when it comes
    How did you come to be interested in this camp and escape?

    Regards
    Sue
     
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  12. Sue,
    That was correct Vitellino made me aware in 2013 of Roger Absalom's book called ''A Strange Alliance: Aspects of Escape and Survival iin Italy 1943-5'' (pub. Olschki 1991) and has helped me many times since.

    I am putting together some information for you including his E&E

    Extracts from your father Escape and Evasion report are featured in the book which opened up other avenues of research
    Extract
    ''Corporal Raymond Butters, POW and his fellow prisoners received some help from the local priest in another of the sub camps of Bergamo, PG 62/51 Plemo. A week following the liberation
    'An Italian whose name I never got to know, who had worked as supplier for the NAAFI in Malta from 1920-40....gave me some money, and found a guide for me and the other 23 men, who had to cross the Swiss Frontier to the west of Tirano, where 7 members of the group were recaptured (before arriving a Campo Cologno on 23 September '43).

    Of the fifty men who left for Swizerland, divided in two groups, 36 arrived and
    'of the remaining 14, five died as a result of falls, hunger or cold, another four went to live with Italian civilians, and the others were recaptured and taken to POW camp at Darfo.' WO 208/4243.''


    It has a lot of detail and I do not know how he came by the numbers other than other sources indicate there were more in the camp.
    His Escape and evasion report was given at Caux.sur.Montreux like others at Caux and I presume he gathered the information
    at Caux

    The background to his Swiss ID picture is the same as three others I have so I presume he crossed in the same area on the 23/9/1943
     
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  13. vitellino

    vitellino Senior Member

    Hello Sue,

    Unlike Trevor and you I don't have a relative who was a prisoner of war in Italy but I am involved in researching prisoner of war camps in Italy as a result of my interest in World War 2. ( How I became interested in WW2 here in Italy where I live is a very long story.) I became interested in Plemo when I read a post of Trevor's.

    As to how your father was involved in the escape, having been taken prisoner of war by the Italians (or by the Germans who then handed him over to the Italians) - I presume in North Africa though I haven't seen his Escape and Evasion Report - he was held in various camps in Italy and was sent to work camp at Plemo where he was almost certainly the senior serviceman, being a corporal.

    One of the camps he was in was PG 75 (Prigionieri di Guerra - prisoners of war) at Torre Tresca near Bari in Puglia ( the heel of Italy), but as this was to all intents and purposes a transit camp he would then have been sent north to Campo PG 62 at Bergamo and from there to Plemo.

    On 8 September 1943 the Armistice which the Italians had signed with the Allies the previous week came into effect. At Plemo the men walked out of the camp - Trevor will tell you more - and your father led a group of escaped prisoners to safety in Switzerland, which was neutral territory. Once arrived in neutral territory or, in other cases, once having crossed the Allied Lines, the 'escapers' were required by M.I.9, the branch of the secret services which dealt with prisoners of war, to account for their movements since their capture and subsequent escape.

    I hope this puts everything into context for you and I am so glad that at last through this forum you have been able to find out what your father did,

    Regards,

    Vitellino

    upload_2017-1-15_19-3-7.png

    The 75 in front of your father's name shows the camp he was in at one period. The other number is his service number and R.A.C. stands for Royal Armoured Corps. Tpr. is short for Trooper though his E& E appears to have him down as Corporal. This list was compiled through the good offices of the International Red Cross, which inspected the camps, and is held in the National Archives in London, Catalogue number WO392/21
     
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  14. I thought it would be interesting to add the camps Raymond Butters was in with his remarks on his Escape ad Evasion report
    One is possibly on the outskirts of Milan
    Prisoner of War/Work camps
    Nr Place Dates How Employed
    PG75 Bari 21.06.1942--- 27.07.1942 No employment
    PG54 Fara Sabina 28.07.1942--- 03.02.1943 A little casual employment
    PG62/42 Campo Lavoro (Falk) Sesto San Giovanni 04.02.1943 ---05.04.1943
    We discovered that we were to be employed
    Making munitions and tank parts, crank shafts for ships etc.
    There were 250 of us. We wrote three letters which were not sent through to the Red Cross.
    One Man was sent to Bergamo Hospital and managed to contact the Red Cross there and we were at once removed

    PG62 Bergamo 06.04.1943--- 19.04.1943 No employment
    PG62/48 Montichiaro Nr Brescia 20.04.1943--- 01.06.1943 Farm Work
    PG62 Bergamo 02.06.1943--- 04.08.1943 No Work
    PG62/51 Plemo 05.08.1943--- 12.09.1943 Interpreter for working party digging canal

    Most detailed report I have
    Trevor
     
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  15. Phil Mills

    Phil Mills Member

    hi Trevor,
    I've been researching the Cyprus Regiment for a while now. Over 400 hundred Cypriots wee taken prisoner in Greece and Crete and many ended up in PG62. I know that you have visited Bergamo and explored the PoW experience in this area. I'm planning on taking two groups of relatives of Bergamo PoWs this August and September to see the sites and would appreciate hearing your advice and experiences, if you don't mind. One of the veterans I've researched closely was at PG62/56 Darfo when he escaped. He stayed in that area from 8 Sept 1943 until picked-up by local fascists in December of the same year.
    Any contacts you may have in that area would be gratefully received. Cheers
    Phil
     
  16. Tullybrone

    Tullybrone Senior Member

    Hi,

    As Trevor hasn’t signed in to the forum for over 2 months you might be best to try and contact him via the forum message system.

    Steve
     
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  17. vitellino

    vitellino Senior Member

    I'll get in touch with him for you,

    Vitellino
     
  18. Hi Phil,
    Vitellino has contacted me and I will put what I have in a document.
    The lower area of the beautiful Val Camonica had several work camps with starting in the north:
    PG62/54 Esine wihich was for work on the canal system taking its water from the River Oglio a friend found what exists of the Guard Hut The water being used for a hydro power station lower in the valley exiting into Lake Iseo which has the largest Island of any lake in europe
    Plemo PG62/51 Tunnel excavation and canal with its guard hut still in existence
    Sacca PG62/52 Agricultural Work with one report stating Drainage farm not identified
    Darfo PG62/56 Canal work with the camp position unidentified at the moment and I have a report of a man whose bravery and daring is amazing.
    The church at Plemo and court yard where the priest fed the prisoners from the camp at Plemo and the local family still has the cauldron. They also had two prisoners mess tins one owner unidentified but the other was found, he was a Palestinian Jew fighting in the British army , I promised the owner that I would find him as he had told Giovanni that he would come back and collect It one day. It was his grand son who had honour chaperoned by my friend Carlo. a couple of years ago.

    Very brave people as it was Cypriot prisoners who warned the camp that the Germans were coming and enabled them to scatter into the mountains

    Trevor
     
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