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Local Hero
Jan. 21st, 2022 07:28 amI managed to find out a little about my Grand-Uncle. As seems inevitable when it comes to his generation, it's the war of course. Here he is:
Of his service, we know little as yet. The only story we had was about his death, a vague rumour that he was shot trying to leave a POW camp in Italy 1944, but that doesn't add up because the Italian armistice was in 1943. Yesterday the mystery was solved.
War office records place him at Fontanelatto (PG49), where it was demonstrated once again why, if we must ever give account of the glories of European cultures to stern aliens, we may all have to point to Italy. There were many worse places to wait out the war than Fontanelatto. The prisoners were treated well, wine was served with lunch, and each inmate got a ration of Vermouth a day, plus the locals seemed to have been very kind. Prisoners might have faced worse at home.
News of the armistice reached PG49 on the 8th September 1943. Next day they walked past an Italian guard of honour to a hole cut in the wire by order of the camp commandant. Time came when that gentleman paid for his gallantry with hard labour in a German concentration camp, but on that day the prisoners were free.
It wasn't that straightforward however, courtesy of British Intelligence. Earlier that year, M19 had issued Order P/W 87190, requiring all allied prisoners in Italy (about 80,000 in number)to stay where they were in the event of the allies taking Italy. This did not play out well. Following orders meant that after the armistice, something like 50,000 prisoners were immediately recaptured by the Germans and shipped to camps in Germany and Poland, where many died. Of the disobedient, it's estimated that about 5000 went north through the Alps to Switzerland, between 6000 and 7000 went south to try to join up with the advancing allied line, leaving a considerable number unaccounted for. And here we find Grand-Uncle John, unheard of until a report pops up in the Belfast Telegraph, Thursday March 29th 1945; It's a PDF, [edited to add] which I couldn't link to or copy, annoying because I want a record of this somewhere that doesn't rely on my cranky old laptop. But eventually
Five columns from the left, below BELFAST TEACHER RETIRES and flanked by a daffodil sale, there he is; ULSTERMAN GIVEN PUBLIC FUNERAL BY ITALIAN VILLAGE.
Fought alongside the partisans against the Germans, died after a battle, given a public funeral, buried at Bedonia cemetary. Right name, right parentage, right rank, right branch, and now I have it confirmed, right address of his father. He was re-interred and even now his body lies among the rows of Commonwealth graves alongside so many whose stories have been lost. But a part of me wonders if he would have preferred to stay where he was, honoured by those who saw his last days and seem to have cherished him. I wonder how the brutish Thomas Alexander Harrison, himself a soldier, felt about his eldest son treated better in a far-off land than in his father's house. Doesn't matter. If I find out more about John's battles I'll record them here and tell the family. But for now, here ends the tale of the boy whose mother ran away, whose father threw him in the workhouse. Some part of me cried that he couldn't have lived to be happy and old; but there are worse fates to face than dying surrounded by people who love and respect you, who see the heroism in you not for an accident of birth, but for what you do, what you lay down your life for.
Rest In Peace Grand Uncle John.
Of his service, we know little as yet. The only story we had was about his death, a vague rumour that he was shot trying to leave a POW camp in Italy 1944, but that doesn't add up because the Italian armistice was in 1943. Yesterday the mystery was solved.
War office records place him at Fontanelatto (PG49), where it was demonstrated once again why, if we must ever give account of the glories of European cultures to stern aliens, we may all have to point to Italy. There were many worse places to wait out the war than Fontanelatto. The prisoners were treated well, wine was served with lunch, and each inmate got a ration of Vermouth a day, plus the locals seemed to have been very kind. Prisoners might have faced worse at home.
News of the armistice reached PG49 on the 8th September 1943. Next day they walked past an Italian guard of honour to a hole cut in the wire by order of the camp commandant. Time came when that gentleman paid for his gallantry with hard labour in a German concentration camp, but on that day the prisoners were free.
It wasn't that straightforward however, courtesy of British Intelligence. Earlier that year, M19 had issued Order P/W 87190, requiring all allied prisoners in Italy (about 80,000 in number)to stay where they were in the event of the allies taking Italy. This did not play out well. Following orders meant that after the armistice, something like 50,000 prisoners were immediately recaptured by the Germans and shipped to camps in Germany and Poland, where many died. Of the disobedient, it's estimated that about 5000 went north through the Alps to Switzerland, between 6000 and 7000 went south to try to join up with the advancing allied line, leaving a considerable number unaccounted for. And here we find Grand-Uncle John, unheard of until a report pops up in the Belfast Telegraph, Thursday March 29th 1945; It's a PDF, [edited to add] which I couldn't link to or copy, annoying because I want a record of this somewhere that doesn't rely on my cranky old laptop. But eventually
Five columns from the left, below BELFAST TEACHER RETIRES and flanked by a daffodil sale, there he is; ULSTERMAN GIVEN PUBLIC FUNERAL BY ITALIAN VILLAGE.
Fought alongside the partisans against the Germans, died after a battle, given a public funeral, buried at Bedonia cemetary. Right name, right parentage, right rank, right branch, and now I have it confirmed, right address of his father. He was re-interred and even now his body lies among the rows of Commonwealth graves alongside so many whose stories have been lost. But a part of me wonders if he would have preferred to stay where he was, honoured by those who saw his last days and seem to have cherished him. I wonder how the brutish Thomas Alexander Harrison, himself a soldier, felt about his eldest son treated better in a far-off land than in his father's house. Doesn't matter. If I find out more about John's battles I'll record them here and tell the family. But for now, here ends the tale of the boy whose mother ran away, whose father threw him in the workhouse. Some part of me cried that he couldn't have lived to be happy and old; but there are worse fates to face than dying surrounded by people who love and respect you, who see the heroism in you not for an accident of birth, but for what you do, what you lay down your life for.
Rest In Peace Grand Uncle John.
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