Lino Papiri

Lino Papiri, a young man from a well-off family, served in the Italian army before the Armistice. Beginning on 8 September 1943, he sheltered numerous escaped prisoners at a family farmhouse located near POW Camp 59 in Servigliano, just a few kilometres from his home, providing them with food, clothing, and strategic information.

Captain (later Major) Millar, a medical officer at the Servigliano camp, stayed at the man’s farmhouse for about a month, later testifying to his reliability: 

In general, during my month I knew him, he helped a large. Number of ex-prisoners, and I can strongly recommend him as a friend and a courageous man, to whom we owe a great deal for his contribution to many British soldiers’ liberty.

It is Millar himself who, in October 1943, introduced him to Captain Power of the A-Force. Captain Power’s mission was to evacuate former POWs from the area by sea; however, the first attempt failed. Papiri invited Power and his four companions to stay at his home and immediately began searching for a boat to help the Allied soldiers cross the lines. When the group decided to head to the coast to finalise the operation, Lino accompanied them:

Against at great risk to himself, and considerable hardship, he marched 30 miles to the coast with us in a single night and helped us to find a hiding place and food with a peasant. The, without food or rest, he went on to the coast at Grottammare, where he spent the day making enquiries. He found a man who could arrange a schooner. 

Papiri’s contacts proved successful, and on 16 November, Power and his group managed to secure two small boats. Several prisoners in the area were gathered together. About fifty of them succeed in reaching the Allied lines aboard one of the boats, despite the heavy presence of German forces in the area.

Regarding Lino Papiri’s role as a collaborator, the Allied Commission wrote:

Signor Papiri started to help Allied escaped prisoners of war shortly after the Italian Armistice and worked tirelessly, and with complete disregard for personal danger until Novembre ’44. He sheltered, fed and cared for some 150 escapers […]. Signor Papiri also gave invaluable help to an Agent whose task it was to escape back to Allied territory. […] He made all the arrangements for the successful evacuation of a large number of these men by sea, completing several trips to the coast in order to procure suitable boats. After obtaining two schooners he acted as conveyer, bringing the men from their various place of hiding and seeing them safely on board before returning home.