Download or read book World War II Italian Prisoners of War in Chambersburg written by Flavio G. Conti and published by Arcadia Publishing Library Editions. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, the US government interned more than 1,200 captured Italian soldiers at the Letterkenny Army Ordnance Depot located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. These troops collaborated with the United States in a collective effort to defeat the Axis powers. They formed the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion, and their work consisted mainly of stocking and shipping materials--ammunition, military vehicles, weapons, and machinery parts--to the war fronts in the European and Pacific theaters of operation. For entertainment, the soldiers formed an orchestra and band and for sport, several different company soccer teams. As a sign of their faith, they built a chapel and bell tower, which are still used today. Many POWs forged deep friendships with Americans, and after the war, a few married their sweethearts and returned to live in the United States. Today, warm relations still continue between children and grandchildren of the POWs and the wider Chambersburg community.
Download or read book Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania written by Flavio G. Conti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-10-19 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October 1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair, and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall, bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however, oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the positive legacy of this encounter.
Download or read book World War II Italian Prisoners of War in Chambersburg written by Flavio G. Conti and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, the US government interned more than 1,200 captured Italian soldiers at the Letterkenny Army Ordnance Depot located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. These troops collaborated with the United States in a collective effort to defeat the Axis powers. They formed the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion, and their work consisted mainly of stocking and shipping materials--ammunition, military vehicles, weapons, and machinery parts--to the war fronts in the European and Pacific theaters of operation. For entertainment, the soldiers formed an orchestra and band and for sport, several different company soccer teams. As a sign of their faith, they built a chapel and bell tower, which are still used today. Many POWs forged deep friendships with Americans, and after the war, a few married their sweethearts and returned to live in the United States. Today, warm relations still continue between children and grandchildren of the POWs and the wider Chambersburg community.
Download or read book Italian Prisoners of War in America 1942 1946 written by Louis E. Keefer and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1992 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only study to date on Italian POWs in the United States, this book records the history of the 50,000 Italian prisoners of war who were captured in North Africa during fighting in the desert and shipped to the United States as POWs. After Italy surrendered to the Allies and declared war on Germany, 35,000 POWs worked with the U.S. Army as cooperators in Italian Service Units serving on Army posts throughout the United States. The 15,000 non-cooperators remained in stockades until their release in 1945 and 1946. The text itself is more than 50 percent oral history and is based largely on interviews with nearly 50 former POWs, their friends and families, and the U.S. civilian and military personnel who worked with them. Many of the POWs returned to the United States after the war (some as male war brides). Every individual interviewed has a colorful, vivid, emotional story to tell of his experience with bullets and bombs, with the dead and the dying, and about the trauma of captivity. The interviews and archival data indicate that the United States treated its POWs very well for the most part, with a couple of dreadful exceptions, and that the POWs' participation helped us to win the war. Italian-Americans interested in their heritage and students of World War II will find these unique stories compelling and informative.
Download or read book Prisoners of Jan Smuts written by Karen Horn and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2024-04-10 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equally skilled in a variety of trades other than in the art of love, the Italian prisoners of war (POWs) who were incarcerated in South Africa during the Second World War are a source of great fascination to this day. Who were these men? And what made some of them attempt dramatic escapes, while others wanted to stay behind after the war? The first Italian POWs arrived in the Union of South Africa in early 1941, most of them being held in Zonderwater Camp outside Cullinan or in work camps across the country. The government of Jan Smuts saw them as a source of cheap labour that would contribute to harvesting schemes, road-building projects such as the old Du Toit's Kloof Pass between Paarl and Worcester and even to prickly-pear eradication schemes. Prisoners of Jan Smuts recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five prisoners who had documented their experiences in memoirs and letters. While many POWs seemed to appreciate the opportunities to gain new skills, others clung to the Fascist ideas they had grown up with and refused to work . Many opted to remain in South Africa once the war had ended, forging quite a legacy. These included sculptor Edoardo Villa, who left an important mark in the local and international art world, and businessman Aurelio Gatti, who built an ice-cream empire whose gelato was to delight generations of South Africans.
Download or read book Italian POWs Speak Out at Last written by Carlo Ferroni (PhD) and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wars may be examined on many levels. On the grandest scale one can see them as the movements of masses of troops across a map with arrows and denotations of decisive battles. With a finer lens one can attempt to comprehend wars from the statements of national leaders or the strategic feints, thrusts, and parries of generals who order individual units across the battlefield. As valuable as these frames are in seeking to understand the reality of war, it is only by adding the perspectives of the individual soldiers that one can try to complete a thorough portrait of human conflict. That most critical and fine of lenses is the focus of this book. This is the story of World War II from the individual soldier's view as told by the men who fought for Italy on the Axis side and finished the conflict as prisoners of war (POWs). Through their accounts readers see the war as they experienced it.
Download or read book German and Italian Prisoners of War During World War II written by Vivian Inez Martin and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Captive Enemy written by James Richard Keen and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book PRISONERS OF WAR II Future Status of Italian Prisoners written by and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book They Were Just People Like We Were written by Derek R. Mallett and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stalin s Italian Prisoners of War written by Maria Teresa Giusti and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reconstructs the fate of Italian prisoners of war captured by the Red Army between August 1941 and the winter of 1942-43. On 230.000 Italians left on the Eastern front almost 100.000 did not come back home. Testimonies and memoirs from surviving veterans complement the author's intensive work in Russian and Italian archives. The study examines Italian war crimes against the Soviet civilian population and describes the particularly grim fate of the thousands of Italian military internees who after the 8 September 1943 Armistice had been sent to Germany and were subsequently captured by the Soviet army to be deported to the USSR. The book presents everyday life and death in the Soviet prisoner camps and explains the particularly high mortality among Italian prisoners. Giusti explores how well the system of prisoner labor, personally supervised by Stalin, was planned, starting in 1943. A special focus of the study is antifascist propaganda among prisoners and the infiltration of the Soviet security agencies in the camps. Stalin was keen to create a new cohort of supporters through the mass political reeducation of war prisoners, especially middle-class intellectuals and military élite. The book ends with the laborious diplomatic talks in 1946 and 1947 between USSR, Italy, and the Holy See for the repatriation of the surviving prisoners.
Download or read book PRISONERS OF JAN SMUTS Italian Prisoners of War in South Africa in WWII written by Horn Karen and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Equally skilled in a variety of trades other than in the art of love, the Italian prisoners of war (POWs) who were incarcerated in South Africa during the Second World War are a source of great fascination to this day. Who were these men? And what made some of them attempt dramatic escapes, while others wanted to stay behind after the war? The first Italian POWs arrived in the Union of South Africa in early 1941, most of them being held in Zonderwater Camp outside Cullinan or in work camps across the country. The government of Jan Smuts saw them as a source of cheap labour that would contribute to harvesting schemes, road-building projects such as the old Du Toit's Kloof Pass between Paarl and Worcester and even to prickly-pear eradication schemes. Prisoners of Jan Smuts recounts the stories of survival and shenanigans of the Italian POWs in the Union through the eyes of five prisoners who had documented their experiences in memoirs and letters. While many POWs seemed to appreciate the opportunities to gain new skills, others clung to the Fascist ideas they had grown up with and refused to work. Many opted to remain in South Africa once the war had ended, forging quite a legacy. These included sculptor Edoardo Villa, who left an important mark in the local and international art world, and businessman Aurelio Gatti, who built an ice-cream empire whose gelato was to delight generations of South Africans.
Download or read book Prisoners and Partisans written by Malcolm Edward Tudor and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Best Day of My Life written by Frank Andreani and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2004-12 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a true story that reads like an Italian Angela's Ashes, the best day of his life was the day that 32-year-old Frank Andreani returned to his birthplace, the United States of America. Surviving a grueling youth and conscription into WWII on the wrong side, Frank delivers a dramatic picture of rural Italy, Rome, and seven years of captivity in English POW camps.
Download or read book POWs Or Paesani written by Anne Marie Reardon and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Italian POW Camp at Hereford During World War II written by Joe D. Rogers and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Taste of freedom written by Robert Jackson and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
