PG 87 - CardoncelliSheet by: Isabella Insolvibile
General data
Town: Benevento
Province: Benevento
Region: Campania
Location/Address: Contrada Cardoncelli - Benevento
Type of camp: Prisoner of War camp
Number: 87
Italian military mail service number: 3400
Intended to: NCOs – Troops
Local jurisdiction: Difesa Territoriale Napoli
Railroad station: Benevento
Accommodation: tents
Capacity: 4000
Operating: from 07/1942 to 11/1942
Commanding Officer: Col. Amleto Garattini
Brief chronology:
Summer 1942: the camp was prepared
November 1942: the camp was closed
Allied prisoners in the Benevento camp
| Date | Officers | NCOs | Troops | TOT |
| 1.9.1942 | 2 | 169 | 1703 | 1874 |
| 30.9.1942 | 3 | 320 | 3675 | 3998 |
| 31.10.1942 | 3 | 172 | 1833 | 2008 |
Camp’s overview
The camp was a tent encampment surrounded by barbed wire, intended for NCOs and privates, and the precarity of the accommodation was self-evident. PoW living conditions were particularly harsh because every storm caused the sewers to overflow and flood the tents. Drinking water was scarce, and therefore hygienic conditions were poor. Likewise, the prisoners did not receive much to eat. Moreover, punishments inflicted by the guards were severe and often in breach of the Geneva conventions. According to a witness, as a punishment for stealing some bread, a prisoner was tied for hours, bare-chested, in a small space between the barbed wire so that even the slightest movement caused him to wound himself.
The camp was also riddled with parasites, and the PoWs were often sick; especially common were malnutrition and dysentery. Moreover, the camp was built in an area where malaria was endemic, and some prisoners claimed, after the war, to have been infected.
According to British sources, the camp was closed in November 1942 after an inspection. A prisoner detained there during August described it as «generally speaking, accommodation was disgusting. Very little food. Bad sanitation. Poor health services. Few clothes. No cigarettes were issued […] The camp was eventually closed owing to its bad state». [TNA, WO 344/12/1]
According to Italian sources, instead, the camp was closed simply «because the prisoners […] had been transferred to other camps». [ACS, MI, DGPS, A5G, II GM, b. 117, f. 59]
After the war, an investigation was launched on the camp’s conditions, but nothing is likely to have come of it. The camp was dismantled, and today no traces of it are left.
Archival sources
- Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, IAC, UIV, Sez. Segr., b. 518
- Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, A5G, II GM, bb. 116, 117, 118 e 140, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
- Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Aeronautica, Gabinetto, b. 70, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
- Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, L10, b. 32
- Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, M7, b. 3131
- Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, H8, b. 79
- The National Archives, WO 311/322
- The National Archives, TS 26/754
Bibliography
- Insolvibile I., I prigionieri alleati in Italia 1940-1943, tesi di dottorato, Dottorato in "Innovazione e Gestione delle Risorse Pubbliche", curriculum “Scienze Umane, Storiche e della Formazione”, Storia Contemporanea, Università degli Studi del Molise, anno accademico 2019-2020,
- Jones D.I., Fuga da Sulmona, L’Aquila, Qualevita - Liceo Scientifico "Fermi" di Sulmona, 2002
- Morante F. , Prigionieri di guerra del 1942. 4.000 inglesi a Benevento, in «La Provincia Sannita», XXXIV-n.s., 1, 2014 pp. 25-27
Donal I. Jones