Unknown British soldier's body found on Monte Spaduro

This file may be worth a check if you haven't already:

WO 361/786 Italy: Coldstream Guards; missing personnel

 

I've just checked the battalion diary-It mentions Guardsman Foot and makes for interesting reading. I'm now curious as to how he died, perhaps a war crime?

 

Thanks Drew.

This is now very interesting indeed. I'm posting another map - my own additions to the US 1943 map showing Spaduro and the places mentioned in the Coldstream war diary. The question is, where would the Germans have been taking him?

The soldier was found without any weapon other than a hand grenade. The person who found him told me that his posture did not suggest that he had fallen under fire. He was lying face down facing uphill.

This thread should really now go onto the Spaduro thread, I think.

Vitellino

 

Yes, thanks.

 

Is there any record or evidence suggesting how he died? Ie a bullet wound to the head?

 

He's in the mortuary in Imola hospital. The MOD haven't divulged any particulars regarding the autopsy. They have conducted few DNA tests without success.

I have now checked out 56 Recce's War Diary for that week. They were on the right flank of 2 Coldstream Guards. On the 19th A and B Companies were down in the gully below where the body was found, from where they sent out patrols. On the 22nd the " Boche patrol disappeared into a wadi to the west of the Salara Ridge and were last seen moving in the direction of Little Spaduro".

Too much shouldn't be read into any of this but...

(Edited to include piece from 56 Recce's War Diary)

 

I'm rubbish at this sort of thing but I'm wondering if there is a war crimes file at the National Archives on this chap. Have you checked all the WO 309, 310, 311 files etc for any possibilities? Sometimes they are titled by location rather than name as the soldier wasn't known at the time of the investigation.

 

I'll check them sometime today and get back to you.

 

I've looked through the titles of all the war crimes in Italy files and it seems to me that there's nothing which links up with this event.
Most of the war crimes involving servicemen are concerned with prisoners of war, very few with soldiers. Also, the localities don't correspond.

 

Dear Vitellino, sorry if I say this, but I think is dangerous share maps, specially if soldier former grave signed on it. There are many grave robbers...

 

A British soldier found by friends is unknown because a grave robber already discovered the grave

 

Buongiorno Matteo,

potrebbe scrivermi in italiano per favour per capirci meglio? Mi potrebbe mandare un messaggio privato.

Grazie,

Vitellino

for everyone else,

I have asked Matteo to write to me in Italian sending me a private message as I am not at all sure what he is getting at.

 

stiamo parlando di un problema molto particolare soprattutto in Russia, i "grave robbers", i ladri di tombe. Segnalo tutto ciò per l'incolumità dei soldati inglesi,americani,brasiliani,canadesi e tedeschi morti in Italia e dispersi da oltre 70 anni, in balia di questa gente senza scrupoli.

We are talking about a very particular problem especially in Russia, the "grave robbbers", the tomb thieves. Report it all for the safety of British, American, Brazilian, Canadian and German soldiers dead in Italy and missing for over 70 years, at the mercy of these unscrupulous people. So don't share informations which can help them!

 

At Salerno a British was;

• first, victim of German MG42 and Mortars in 1943
• second, grave robber's victim in 2015
• He is buried since March 2017 as Unknown thanks to this "trash" historian, the latest category in history researchers.

I know that in this website there are many passionates of history like me but some people can make a false profile and read our topics, I know that because I know their tactics.

Thanks for attention
Matteo00

 

It has been suggested by Matteo00 in a private message to me that it would be better not to post maps, photographs or anything else which might lead grave robbers and other unscrupulous persons to start searching for soldiers' remains on the Gothic Line or elsewhere.

I have explained that I have been collaborating with the Italian carabinieri (military police) and the MOD for over two years in an attempt to find the identity of this soldier, who was found in the spring of 2015 (see my first post on this topic) with a number of personal possessions which are now in the custody of the police and were handed over by the person who discovered him, now a friend of mine. How the grave can be robbed now I don't know.

Regards,

Vitellino

 

Sorry but are there other soldiers in the area still MIA?

 

The problem is for all soldiers, not one. Instead the real problem are metal detector researchers. We don't know if a person is respectable or not.