S.A.S. in Tuscany, 1943–1945

By Brian Lett

While always dangerous and daring, SAS operations are by no means invariably successful and when they go wrong, they do so very badly. The first of the three operations covered in this book, SPEEDWELL 2, saw six men drop blind into Northern Tuscany on 8 September 1943, by chance the day of the Italian Armistice. But with no radios or air/ground support their courageous three week operation ended in disaster; four were captured and executed and only one got out. The second and third operations, GALIA (winter 44/45) and BLIMEY (April 1945), provided contrasting results. GALIA, 34 men led by Captain Walker-brown, tied up many thousands of enemy troops for nearly two months under extreme winter conditions an extraordinary achievement, thanks in measure to cooperation with an SOE mission led by Major Gordon Lett, the authors father. BLIMEY sadly achieved little and the reasons for the success and failure of these two operations are carefully analyzed.This book adds valuable new information on SAS operations in WWII.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781844686360

Brian Lett

Brian Lett is an author specializing in Second World War history. His previous books include titles on the SAS and other special forces. He has lectured extensively on irregular warfare in World War II, including to the British Army. He is a recently retired Queen’s Counsel who practiced at the Bar of England and Wales for forty-seven years.

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This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, and of those forgotten heroes, the civilian population of the valley of Rossano, and of the surrounding villages of Tuscany, Liguria and Emilia Romagna, whose loyalty and self-sacrifice made my father's survival possible. Many of those families remain in the Rossano valley today, including the Deluchis, the Sperindes, and the Tognarellis, and I hope that this book will help to assure them that my family's debt of gratitude to them is not forgotten.

My father, in the prelude to his books, Vallata in Fiamme and Rossano, quoted two verses from Rudyard Kipling. Still today, they sum up the story of his life in the Rossano valley:

I have eaten your bread and salt.

I have drunk your water and wine.

The deaths that ye died I have watched beside,

And the lives ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share

In vigil or toil or ease, –

One joy or woe that I did not know,

Dear hearts across the seas?

The other heroes of this book are the men of the 2nd Special Air Service Regiment, of the Special Operations Executive, and of the International Battalion of Partisans, too many of whom sacrificed their lives in the fight for freedom. The enduring cheerfulness and courage of the British soldier, even in the most extreme conditions, has always been and remains a remarkable fact of life in the British Army. As a civilian who has not served, my admiration for them, and the sacrifices that they make, remains unbounded.

title

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

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Copyright © Brian Lett 2011

ISBN 978-1-84884-446-9

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Map

Introduction

PART 1: Operation Speedwell 2

1. Preparations

2. Into Action

3. Foster and Shortall Are Captured

4. Hitler's Commando Order

5. The Executions at Ponzano Magra

6. Pietro Massimo Petriccioli

7. Challenor's Escape

8. Dudgeon and Brunt

9. La Cisa

Plates

10. Aftermath and Investigation

11. The War Crimes Trial

Postscript

PART 2: Operation Galia

12. Escape!

13. Rossano and the Partisans

14. Planning and Preparation

15. The Arrival of Operation Galia

16. Attacks and Disasters: The First Week

17. Stirring up the Hornets' Nest

18. Rastrellamento!

19. ‘Normal Service Resumed’

20. Exfiltration

21. Handover

PART 3: Operation Blimey

22. Third and Last

Epilogue

Source Material and Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

My gratitude goes first, of course, to my father, who left for me such a substantial and unusual inheritance. Without exception, his friends, both in Italy and in this country, have welcomed me also as a friend, and what they have told me, together with my father's archive, have proved invaluable in the writing of this book. I am indebted to them all.

In the best British tradition, I will not embarrass my father's and my many British friends by listing them here. They know who they are. They know that they have my sincere thanks. However, the Italian way is different, and I will list some of the originals and their descendants whose help and support enabled my father to survive those difficult times, and whose friendship I have been particularly grateful for: the Deluchi, Sperinde and Tognarelli families of Rossano, Dany Bucchioni, Otello ‘Avio’ Braccini, Origliano ‘Falco’ Montefiori, Luciano and Gemma Bracelli, Laura Seghettini, Mario Trivelloni. Some are still with us, some are gone. Osvaldo Sperinde was the driving force behind the erection of the monument to Foster and Shortall at Ponzano Magra, the late Mario Trivelloni was the driving force behind the erection of the monument to Dudgeon and Brunt at La Cisa.

I am not, and have never been, a soldier or a partisan. I am humbled by the extraordinary courage, daring and endurance of the men about whom I have written in this book, and remain indebted to them, as all in this country and many in Italy are, for the sacrifices that they made. Although in Part 3 of the book, I may seem to have been critical of Major Henderson and Captain Scott for not having achieved more on Operation Blimey, there is no doubting their very considerable courage and commitment. They parachuted into Rossano behind enemy lines, and lived and fought in German occupied territory in very difficult conditions. They deserve and have my very genuine respect.

I was, in part, provoked into writing this history of Operations Speedwell 2, Galia and Blimey by a serious inaccuracy contained in an obituary of Lieutenant Colonel Bob Walker Brown, DSO, MBE, published by a national newspaper shortly after his death in 2008. The obituary rightly paid great tribute to Bob himself. He was a truly remarkable soldier, who I was privileged to call my friend in the latter years of his life, and his achievements on Operation Galia, which I hope that I have fairly described in this book, were outstanding. However, the obituary dismissed Chella Leonardo, the Italian guide murdered by the Fascist Militia in Montebello di Mezzo, as a traitor who had betrayed the soldiers of Operation Galia, and suggested that he had been executed by the SAS. Although following my written protest, the newspaper concerned apologized and published on their website my rebuttal of that libel, regrettably many will not have seen the website, and will have believed what the newspaper had printed. Thus is the truth of history distorted.

I am confident that in this book I have accurately recorded all that went on on the three operations that I have dealt with. The original material that I have listed below supports that.

I must also pay tribute to the work of the Monte San Martino Trust, which is a charity set up by British ex-prisoners of war in Italy to serve as a lasting memorial to the extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice of the ordinary Italian people who helped them. The Trust gives bursaries each year to young Italians, so that they can come to Britain for a month's study of the English language and the British way of life.

Finally, I must record my thanks to and love for my wife Angela, who has proved to be of the greatest help during the writing of this book, and who is a far better author than I am.

Brian Lett Devon

Map

Introduction

Tuscany and southern Liguria, in the north of Italy, was the battle area for all three of the Special Air Service (SAS) operations described in this book. In order to explain the environment in which the SAS was operating, a short summary of prevailing conditions in Italy from the late summer of 1943 is required.

Italy was and is a very diverse country, with most of its wealth in the industrial north. In historical terms it was a still a young country in 1943, having been unified for little more than seventy years.

By July of that year, Italy had been under the rule of the dictator ‘Il Duce’ Benito Mussolini and his Fascist party for over twenty years: it was 29 October 1922 when Mussolini was invited by the weak King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, to become Prime Minister and his Fascist party first effectively took control of the country's affairs. Over the next two years, he and his party worked to increase their hold on the country until, in June 1925, Mussolini felt strong enough to announce to the Chamber of Deputies: ‘We are not a ministry; we are not even a government, we are a regime.’

Violence was a significant feature of Fascist politics, but Mussolini was also a sufficiently astute politician to appreciate the value of appeasement and accommodation. He did not seek to depose the constitutional monarch, Victor Emmanuel III, who remained weakly on the throne throughout the Fascist period, and he reached an accommodation with the Roman Catholic Church in February 1929, which avoided any open conflict between church and state.

However, the Fascists did take control of the press and the radio, and enforced a strict censorship of all news items. They also took control of local administration. The mayors were renamed podesta and were no longer elected, but appointed. Thus all town halls came under Fascist control. Youth was important to the future of the Fascist regime, so Mussolini took over control of the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations. But Mussolini did allow each region to retain its local identity and customs, always of great importance to the local people.

For many younger Italians, by 1943 Mussolini's Fascism was all that they had known, or could remember. Anyone aged under twenty-one had known nothing else and those under twenty-five could remember little else. They were used to Fascism, and could live with it, even if they did not agree with many things that Mussolini did. Patronage and corruption were rife.

Although Fascism had thrived in the towns and industrial centres, at first it had little effect on most of the peasant farmers of rural Italy – the contadini. It never made much difference to the contadini who was running the country, their life remained a very hard one. Their main battle was with nature and changes of government did not substantially affect their daily lives. Fascism was generally unpopular in the countryside, but most forms of government were. However, the contadini's attitude changed as the war progressed. Rationing was speedily introduced in Italy and the Fascist Government taxes became increasingly oppressive. By the late summer of 1943, the Fascists were detested in most rural areas.

Militarism was a fundamental part of Mussolini's vision for a Fascist Italy and his first objective was to expand Italy's African ‘empire’. Italy ruled in Eritrea, Libya and a part of Somalia. In 1935, Mussolini decided to invade Ethiopia, and to annexe it to Italy's African empire. He began the invasion, with vastly superior forces, on 2 October 1935. Eventually, on 5 May 1936, Italian troops entered the capital of Addis Addiba, and the war was won. Ethiopia became a part of what Mussolini now grandly called ‘Africa Orientale Italiana’ – Italian East Africa.

Mussolini, and his Commanding General, Pietro Badoglio, had used poison gas during the Ethiopian campaign, which led to international condemnation but no action against Italy. At home in Italy, victory seemed to come at a relatively low price, and did the Fascist regime no obvious harm.

On 17 July 1936 the Spanish Civil War started. Italy supported Franco and the Falange (Fascist) movement and Mussolini ordered his troops into action in support of Franco. Notoriously, he ordered the killing of prisoners taken, particularly anti-Fascist Italians. By the end of the Spanish Civil War, Italy had suffered considerably more casualties and loss of planes, guns and equipment, than in her Ethiopian campaign. Italy got virtually nothing in return for her support for Franco, once he had secured victory.

Germany had also supported Franco. Mussolini was at pains to cement a friendship with Hitler's Germany and on 1 November 1936 he announced that, henceforth, Italy and Germany would be together in an ‘Axis’. In December 1937, Italy joined Germany and Japan in leaving the League of Nations. Then on Good Friday of 1939 Italy annexed its protectorate, Albania.

However, when war began in September 1939, Mussolini did not at once commit Italy to join in on Germany's side. Italy's status was that although it was Germany's friend, it was a ‘non-belligerent’ friend. This was a wise decision which Mussolini should have stuck to, since Italy was in no condition, economically or industrially, to enter a world war.

Nevertheless, on 10 June 1940 Italy did enter the war, declaring itself to be the ‘first ally’ of Germany. At this stage, Hitler and Germany had enjoyed huge success, having overrun Norway, the Low Countries and France – Mussolini no doubt thought that the war was effectively won and that it was time to join in and grab some new territory for himself. Internationally, it was believed that Britain had no chance of resisting German military might and, of course, the United States of America was as yet no part of the war.

Mussolini believed that Italy could now seize Greece, which it had long coveted, without great difficulty. Using Albania as a launching pad, Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, Badoglio remaining the Chief of General Staff in command of the Italian armed forces. The invasion was a total failure. By mid November, the Italians had been thrown out, Badoglio was sacked, and the Germans had to come to Italy's assistance, prosecuting the war with their usual ruthless efficiency and securing victory.

Italian troops were ill equipped compared to those of most European nations. They often lacked effective weaponry, clothing and even boots. They were also badly led. Not surprisingly in such circumstances, many of the Italian armed forces performed poorly in battle. Because of their alliance with Germany, they were obliged in due course to fight on the Russian front as well as in North Africa and Greece. In a letter to his wife dated 3 August 1943, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, soon to become Supreme German Commander in Northern Italy, commented, ‘Why did they start the war with their miserable armament?’

The average Italian conscripted soldier had no real interest in the war and just wanted to survive and to go home. (Much the same could be said later of the US 92nd Negro Division, when it was sent to fight in Italy.) The Italians suffered a number of resounding defeats and extensive losses. The British Army in North Africa killed and captured many thousands. It was generally only when the Germans arrived in support that the Italian military enjoyed success, and then the credit went to the Germans.

As the tide of war turned, civilian casualties in Italy resulting from Allied bombing also increased. By May 1943, the war in North Africa was lost and the Allied air forces were concentrating on the islands and mainland of Italy. The Italian island stronghold of Pantelleria, strategically placed in the Mediterranean between Italy and North Africa, fell on 11 June 1943 and its neighbour, Lampedusa, quickly followed on 12 June. On 10 July the Allied Army landed in Sicily.

Italy was now facing total disaster and Mussolini finally lost control. In the early hours of 25 July, he was voted out of power by his own Fascist Grand Council and conduct of the war was formally handed to King Victor Emmanuel III. Victor Emmanuel appointed the ex-military chief Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Prime Minister and Mussolini was placed under arrest.

A relevant factor in Mussolini's failure to successfully prosecute the war was Italy's traditional relationship with Great Britain and the United States, it having long been friendly with both. Many thousands of Italians emigrated to those countries each year and some later returned home having made their fortune. Venice, Florence and Rome had for centuries been popular with British visitors. Not far from where SAS Operations Speedwell, Galia and Blimey landed was the Gulf of Spezia, on the north-west coast. This is locally known as the Gulf of the Poets, in honour of Shelley and Byron, who used to disport themselves in the waters there. Further, a proportion of the Italian aristocracy had married into English families.

During the First World War, Italy had fought with the British and Americans. She joined a little late, in 1915, declaring war first on her neighbour, Austria, and then on Germany in 1916, but suffered alongside her British and American allies. Italian casualties during the First World War were 578,000 dead and 530,000 captured, for whom there was a 20 per cent mortality rate in the Austrian prisoner of war camps.

There was, therefore, no innate hostility before the Second World War between ordinary Italians and the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, as Fascist Italy liked to refer to British and American forces. Most Italians had regarded the British and the Americans with greater affection than they had the Germans. However, Italy had been dominated by Fascist propaganda for more than twenty years and since 1940 British forces had been killing Italians, including many civilians. Thus, by September 1943, there was no obvious reason why any Italian should still regard the British and Americans as friends.

It was not difficult for any observer to foresee that once Mussolini was deposed, Italy would withdraw from the war as soon as it possibly could. The question was what the Germans would do. Would they withdraw from Italy, or would they take over, treating Italy in the same way they had treated so many countries whose territory they had invaded? It may be the case that Mussolini's fall, on 25 July, took Hitler and the German High Command by surprise, but they reacted quickly. As is now accepted, they began planning for Italy's surrender long before the Armistice was eventually announced on 8 September 1943.

It should also be remembered that, by this stage of the war, the Italians held within their borders approximately 75,000 Allied prisoners of all ranks. These were mainly soldiers who had been captured in North Africa, but also airmen who had been shot down and sailors who had fallen into enemy hands when their ships were sunk. Those captured by the Germans in North Africa had been handed over to the Italians to look after and they had been shipped to mainland Italy. In effect, Italy had under restraint within its borders 75,000 trained and experienced enemy servicemen. If Italy withdrew from the war, the future of these men had also to be considered – the Germans had no wish for them to be returned to active service.

Field Marshal Rommel was closely consulted by Hitler as to the Italian situation. What troubled Rommel the most was the possibility that the Italians would try to close the Brenner Pass and the other northern passes into Italy and to hold Italy intact for the Allies to occupy.

On 29 July, four days after Mussolini had been deposed, Rommel ordered General Feurstein, a stocky black-moustached Austrian who was a first-class mountain warfare specialist, to move his 51st Mountain Corps through the Brenner Pass into Italy. By 31 July, much of Feurstein's Corps had passed into Italy without resistance. All the passes were then seized and secured by the Germans, and troop movements into Italy continued. On 15 August 1943, Rommel was appointed Supreme German Commander, Northern Italy. He remained in post until replaced by Field Marshal Kesselring on 21 November.

The Allied prisoners of war inside the Italian camps had their own ways of obtaining information about what was going on in the outside world. The only newspapers they were officially allowed to read were Fascist ones and the public radio broadcasts within the camps were from Fascist radio stations. However, many of the camps had hidden radios which could receive BBC broadcasts. Written messages could be smuggled into the camps concealed in goods contained in the Red Cross parcels and on occasions information was obtained from friendly guards or recently captured prisoners. It is interesting to note that the prisoners themselves, when they heard of Mussolini's fall, anticipated that the Germans might be reluctant to leave Italy. To do so, would, of course, have opened the back door to Europe for the Allies. As Rommel put it in a letter to his wife, ‘It is better to fight the war in Italy than here at home.’

Major Gordon Lett, a regular soldier and North African veteran, delivered the weekly news lectures in the prisoner of war camp at Chieti every Sunday. On 1 August 1943, in a lecture entitled ‘E Finito Benito’, he gave a short history of Mussolini's reign and then moved on to summarize the events that had led up to his fall on 25 July. He drew a picture for his audience of the scene at the final meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. He described Mussolini as being furious at having to be there at all, his ministers terrified at the prospect of the fields and cities of Italy being turned into blood-sodden battlegrounds. He told how the meeting soon descended into confusion and anger. Finally, a motion was proposed that all power was to be returned to the King of Italy, who was to be trusted to ‘liquidate the crisis arising within the country, and to decide on all matters of defence and internal relations’. At 3.00 am on 25 July, a vote was taken. There was a clear majority against Mussolini. Benito was ‘finito’ and Marshal Badoglio had taken over.

Looking to the future, Lett told the meeting:

The fate of Mussolini is at present obscure. One rumour has it that the mob found him in the Palazzo Venezia, and murdered him on the spot. Another says that the Duce committed suicide after handing in his resignation. A third says that he is under arrest awaiting trial by the state.

The situation at present, then, can be summed up as follows: the Italian government wants to extricate Italy from the war as quickly as possible. The Allies want to get on with the destruction of the German armies without unnecessary delay. The Germans have to make up their minds – and doubtless have already done so – as to what they are going to do about it.

Meanwhile, for us, what seems to be this unnecessary waiting for freedom is tiresome enough, and it is bound to become more so before the end. But, you will realize, I hope, that it cannot be avoided. I cannot believe that the Allies are prepared to give the Germans more than a week in which to clear out of Italy. It is natural to expect some opposition from them, they might even decide, as a last resort, to hold the Plains of Lombardy for another month whilst they evacuate all they can in the way of war material, troops, and perhaps even prisoners from Italian camps in that area.

So, to conclude, we must endure the irritations and delay of the coming week as patiently as we can. There is a chance – just a faint chance – that the termination of the war between Italy and the Allies might be announced on the radio tonight. If, on the other hand, no such declaration is made tonight – and I would emphasize again that it is only a very slender chance – then it seems to me that we may expect Allied intervention on a very large scale before next Sunday.

Lett's predictions were subsequently proved to be over optimistic, but it is clear that even the prisoners of war appreciated by early August 1943 that the Italians were now bound to withdraw from the war and that the Germans might not be too keen to leave Italy. It was obvious, too, that the Germans would not wish to lose control over the great numbers of Allied servicemen being held in Italian camps.

The prisoners were understandably apprehensive as to how the Italian public presently viewed the Allies. They were able to listen daily to Allied bombing raids on Italian towns, ports and airfields, often not far away from the camps, and knew that these would inevitably result in an increasing number of Italian casualties, both military and civilian. They expected the population to be hostile to them if and when they got out of the prison camps. Despite having deposed their dictator, throughout August 1943 Italy remained in the war, and therefore the Allied campaign against Italy continued.

Extraordinarily, Allied High Command seem neither to have appreciated that the Germans were almost bound to stay in Italy, nor how perfect the Italian terrain was for defensive action. All indications are that they believed that, once they had landed on the mainland, the Italian Campaign – if one remained necessary – would be won well before Christmas 1943.

The invasion of Sicily had begun on 10 July. Fierce fighting lasted for thirty-eight days before victory was gained. Regrettably, the majority of the German forces on the island were able to withdraw to mainland Italy. In August of 1943, consideration was being given by Allied commanders to the impending mainland campaign and how SAS troops could best be used to support the invasion of mainland Italy. The SAS had already proved themselves to be a very effective weapon of sabotage and disruption during the North African campaign.

Much has been written about the history of the Special Air Service. In its final form, it was the brainchild of a young lieutenant of the then No. 8 Commando, David Stirling, conceived while in a hospital bed in Cairo in July 1941. His idea quickly received official approval and Stirling got permission to recruit 5 officers and 60 men for what was to be called ‘L Detachment’ of the Special Air Service Brigade. The name ‘Special Air Service’, or SAS as it became commonly known, already existed. 11 SAS had been formed as a parachute commando unit in 1940, and more recently Brigadier Dudley Clarke had been busy dropping dummy soldiers near prisoner of war camps in the Middle East to give the impression to the enemy that British parachute troops were active in the area.

Despite some early setbacks, Stirling's SAS thrived and grew. They remained very much an ‘irregular’ force, and were not always popular with High Command, but their successes spoke for themselves. David Stirling rose rapidly to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was eventually captured in North Africa in January 1943. After interrogation, Stirling was taken to the ‘bad boys’ Prison Camp No. 5 at Gavi in Northern Italy and then, after the Italian armistice, to Colditz, where he saw out the war.

After David Stirling's capture, Lieutenant Colonel Paddy Mayne took command of the existing SAS regiment (1SAS), while Stirling's brother, Lieutenant Colonel ‘Bill’ Stirling, set up a second regiment, 2SAS. The numbers and role of the SAS continued to expand.

One significant mistake in their history, however, was the siting of a 2SAS training camp at Philippeville in Algeria, forty miles north of Constantine, in early 1943. Major Roy Farran, DSO, MC, one of their officers, described it thus: ‘In spite of the beautiful scenery surrounding our camp at Philippeville, it had been the beauty of a fickle jade, for the undergrowth had hidden a dangerous malarial swamp.’ Malaria, a devastating recurrent illness, was to affect many of the soldiers of 2SAS on operations in 1943 and 1944, including at least one of the men of Operation Speedwell.

Thus was the scene set for the first of the the three SAS operations which this book describes.

PART 1

Operation Speedwell 2

1

Preparations

Preparations for Operation Speedwell began sometime in mid- to late August 1943. The 2SAS waited at Kairouan, in northern Tunisia, for their orders. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Stirling's idea was to drop a large number of men into mainland Italy when the invasion began. Their objective would be to sever the enemy's supply lines to the front by destroying rail links. They would operate as a number of very small sabotage units, thus maximizing the damage that they could achieve. The SAS had already proved that in covert warfare behind the lines ‘small was beautiful’.

Major Barkworth, the Intelligence Officer of 2SAS stationed at Kairouan, later described Speedwell as follows:

The object of the operation was to interrupt enemy rail communications across the Appenine passes by which we hoped to reduce the flow of German reinforcements to the areas on the mainland where we hoped the main landings would take place.

Major Roy Farran expressed his view:

All ranks believed that if we had been allowed to drop the whole regiment across the railways leading into the leg of Italy, we would have achieved decisive results, which would have saved thousands of lives in the subsequent fighting. Unfortunately, the prevailing shortage of transport aircraft at that time made it impossible.

As with all commando operations, one of the objectives was to create a state of anxiety amongst the enemy troops and command. Nothing is worse for a fighting soldier than an enemy who creeps in behind his back, and creates havoc in what should be safe territory.

Whatever the reason, Allied HQ approved only a much smaller operation than Stirling had envisaged (the same was to be true the following year on Operation Galia). Operation Speedwell was to comprise only thirteen men, divided into two ‘sticks’. One stick, under Captain Philip Pinckney, was to total seven men and would be dropped near Florence on the west coast. The other, under Captain Patrick Dudgeon MC, was to consist of six men, and would be dropped northeast of the important naval base of La Spezia, again on the west coast. The two sticks were to split into a number of smaller sabotage parties.

The term ‘stick’, used by the SAS to describe a unit numbering anything from six to ten men, was derived from a stick of bombs dropped from an aircraft. Instead of bombs, the SAS dropped men. A typical full stick would comprise a captain, a