Cecil “John” Mallen
3rd Field Regiment, RA, 8th Army
Cecil “John” Mallen (1919-2017) was born on 1 May 1919 in Ipswich, Suffolk. During the Second World War, he served in the 3rd Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery in North Africa, fighting against the German Afrika Korps. In June 1942, after a series of clashes, his regiment was overrun, and John, with his fellow soldiers, was captured by the enemy. They were brought to Sicily by sea, and John was placed in PG 54, Passo Corese.
When the news of the Armistice broke out, the Italian guards offered the prisoners the chance to escape without opposition. John, together with his fellow PoWs Jack Royal, Smudger Smith, W. Batchelor, Cliff Connor, Ken Barnes, and Bill, quickly rushed out of the camp but soon realised that the guards, who supposedly were to accompany them in their escape, had remained inside. The group, fearing the Italians might shoot at them once outside, split into three groups and looked for a hiding place nearby. John and his companions marched during the night for two weeks, during which they scraped together as much food as they could:
A good time of the year as every Italian was a smallholder with a few animals and vines, olives and vegetables – very much self-supporting. We evaded Italians as we were not sure if they were anti-British. But eventually we arrived at the village of Montebuono. We came across a young chap and fortunately our sergeant, ‘Smudger’, was able to speak a few words of Italian. He told us that they did not care for Mussolini and that they were out of the war. He took us to his home and his parents came out and shook us by the hand. The war had finished for them. The other families adopted one each of us. I was taken in by Shar Ezio (spelling may be incorrect), his wife and daughter.
After a momentary hesitation towards the Italians in Montebuono, the group was welcomed by the locals, and John took residence with Ezio and his family, which included his wife and their eleven-year-old daughter, Camilla.
During the following weeks, the Germans declared a proclamation threatening death for any Italian who was caught helping an escaped PoW in their home. The news forced John and his companions out of the village, and they returned to the fields, living in small groups. Once the Germans left and the danger had passed, the Italians sent them a message to return to the village. While John and his companions still did not trust the Italians entirely (they feared they had Fascist sympathies), they decided to go back to Montebuono and stayed there for six weeks.
At this point, the group splintered, with some heading north to reach Switzerland and others going south to cross the frontline and rejoin the Allied Armies. One of them, Ken Barns, was soon recaptured and taken to Germany, where he remained for the rest of the war. John, on the other hand, decided to remain in Montebuono, hiding in a small cave in the woods and in Ezio’s barn, next to his house.
I remained in the area as I found what I considered to be good hideaways – one was a cave in an area of dense woodland and the other was a barn. It was just bare ground in the cave and I had just one blanket that I had been given. As I was still in the area I could still contact my Italian family through another person. The next night after I had done this, the 11-year-old daughter arrived in darkness, at my cave. ‘Giovanni, I heard… Camilla’ And there she was with a big basket strapped onto her back loaded with meat, cheese, bread, a bottle of wine and a big bunch of grapes. Dear oh dear…. that was very welcome. Just imagine, though, a young girl going a mile and a half in the dark and taking that risk.
His hideout was reachable by Ezio’s family, who brought him food and other necessities for his survival. In particular, Camilla, Ezio’s daughter, trudged for about two kilometres to bring him food during the night. His second hideout, the barn, was closer, and the animals there helped to keep it warm:
My next hiding place was a barn – a big cow shed where cows were living at night and what better hiding place than a manger? I would tuck myself in the edge of the manger, a pile of straw over me. Warm – big cows generate a lot of heat in this confined space! They kept away from me and they gave out a lot of body heat. I would only go there at night of course and leave very early in the morning and wander round in the hills and woods.
During this period, a group of American bomber pilots, also escaped PoWs, took refuge in the mountains near Montebuono. One day, early in the morning, John decided to resume his journey, as there were no more German soldiers around. However, he suddenly heard gunshots in the valley, which were later discovered to have been an attack by Italian SS against the American escapees. This disheartened John, who renounced his plan to leave Montebuono for the foreseeable future. In fact, he would remain in the village for the following ten months.
I spent just under 10 months in the Italian countryside until June 194[4]. When the Germans were retreating, I spent a couple of weeks with Italian partisans who were disrupting troop withdrawals, although they had to be careful as if they fired they showed their position.
While with the partisans, John observed the withdrawing Germans until, one day, he spotted a British jeep in the valley. He quickly jumped on the road, trying to identify himself. However, since he was wearing Italian clothes, they only gave him a few cigarettes and took the name of his Italian host family.
From the mountains I watched the German army retreating. When they had all passed, lo and behold there was a British jeep. I had made my way down to the road and I jumped out in front of them waving my arms. I was in Italian clothing and they thought I might be a spy. They gave me cigarettes – my first English ones for a long time – but as they were Reconnaissance, checking the road ahead was clear of Germans, they just took my ID and my Italian family’s address and went off. Finally a letter came from Rome to say that I could report there to Allied Screening for repatriation.
John thus went to Naples and was finally able to return to the United Kingdom at the beginning of November 1944.
Camps related to this story
Sources
pegasusarchive.org