Dennis Hutton Fox
2657301 Gdsm, 3 Coldstream Guards, 1 Armd Division
foto per gentile concessione della famiglia di Dennis Hutton Fox / Photo courtesy of Dennis Hutton Fox’s family
Dennis Hutton Fox (1919-2002) was born in Warwickshire. In 1936, when he was 17, he joined the Coldstream Guards against his mother’s will, who wished for him and her other sons to continue their studies. As he needed to be 18 to enlist, Dennis forged his birth certificate. Initially, he was assigned to the Coldstream Guards First Battalion, and later, as he wished to go to Egypt, he was moved to the Third and shipped to the training camp near the Suez Canal.
While he was in Palestine, he learned about the beginning of the war, and his battalion was deployed on the Libyan border, where he had his first experiences of warfare and raids against German positions.
After the long and drawn-out resistance against the siege of Tobruk, on 21 June 1942, Dennis and his battalion were forced to surrender and were captured, along with everyone who attempted to escape from the town. Immediately, he and his fellow soldiers were transferred to the Libyan prison camps, an experience that he would always remember with horror, given the inhumane living conditions in which the PoWs were kept, above all the lack of drinking water and the ban on gathering to drink the water.
We landed at the Naval port of Taranto where, when we came out on deck, we saw for the first time the might of the enemy fleet, both Italian and German, and it was really frightening to think we had been fighting something as formidable as this!!
We were sent to a couple of camps, one of which was called Bendizi, in a cattle truck on one very long train journey which lasted about three days, I think. We had the usual problems of no latrines – it was all a sordid business – and at these camps we lived just in bivouacs up in the mountains. Eventually, we were taken to an Italian camp at Benevento, or ‘The Hell Camp’ as it was known. I may not remember names.
After a stop in PG 85, Brindisi and in PG 87, Benevento, known as «The Hell Camp» for the lack of basic hygienic facilities, Dennis was finally moved to PG 206, Nocera Inferiore.
Here, Dennis made his first escape attempt, taking advantage of the changing of the guard. Dressed up as a Carabiniere, he left the camp and headed to Avellino, where he believed his regiment had landed on the coast. However, near the beach, he was eventually captured by a group of Carabinieri, brought back to the camp, and beaten savagely until unconscious.
The soldiers were not very pleased with us, and the Carabinieri were furious because they’d been made to look like fools because we’d been in their uniform. Also, a couple of soldiers had been shot during the escape, and they blamed us, and so we were taken back to the camp first, stripped naked, and then beaten up until we were unconscious.
After a week in isolation, Dennis was transferred to PG 53, Sforzacosta, near Macerata. After a short while, he decided to attempt another escape, trying to surprise the guards at night. Once again, his plan succeeded, and he found himself wandering in the Marche countryside without knowing where to go or having any point of reference as to where he was.
I remember during this period wandering round the mountains, keeping high, but not so high that it was mountaineering, just away from civilisation. There were isolated cottages and farmhouses and places where one could beg for food occasionally.
Occasionally, he managed to scrape together something to eat and, despite his uncertain situation, he was able to keep his morale high thanks to his recovered freedom. After a long march, Dennis decided to stop near an old monastery. Soon enough, he discovered that the building was the home of two families, the Tassi and the Antonucci.
Mateo [Mattia] was friendly towards me. He had been in the Italian Division of the American Army in the Great War, and he spoke the odd word of English. He indicated that there were a lot of Germans in the area and he hid me in a cave, where members of his family brought me food but I wasn’t allowed to go up to the house. I remained there for about a fortnight, then one night there was a terrible earthquake.
Mattia, the head of the family, invited him to stay in the area and offered him everything necessary to recover his strength after his wanderings and to avoid the German patrols. On 3 October 1943, while in the town and near Colle San Marco, the partisans fought the Germans and a violent earthquake shook the province, terrifying everyone, including Dennis, as he witnessed some parts of the old monastery’s roof collapse. As his accommodation was unstable, the Italians moved him to a cave near their house. However, when the Germans surrounded the area, Dennis remained trapped and was forced to give himself up.
foto per gentile concessione della famiglia di Dennis Hutton Fox / Photo courtesy of Dennis Hutton Fox’s family
Whilst I was in there, I suddenly heard German voices, so I hid away behind a door in one of the rooms. I learned later that a German patrol of parachutists occupied the room opposite where I was hiding and I was trapped! They began to set up their headquarters there and more and more of them arrived!
During the interrogation, he was asked to reveal the names of the people who had helped him, and in that moment, he saw terror on the faces of Mattia and his family. Realising the danger of their situation, he refused to talk and was subsequently beaten by the Germans with the butt of their rifles.
Then, the Germans took me off into Ascoli some miles away and I was put into a civilian prison there, and then put on a truck and taken to somewhere north of Florence, and stuck in a German camp, The Italians were still in the war, but we’d invaded Sicily and so they were moving all prisoners to Germany now.
He was locked in a military prison near Florence, and his destiny was to be deported to Germany. While waiting for his deportation, he was forced to work as a mechanic on German trucks, always under the watchful eye of two sentries who accompanied him during his work.
One evening, taking advantage of the dark, Dennis thought of another escape plan. He asked one of his sentries to go get him a tool and, as he turned back, Dennis slipped away:
Anyway, one evening I messed about until late, and it started to get dark. The guards were chasing me up to get back and that was when I got one of the sentries to go fetch me a tool. I then grabbed some pliers out of the kit I was working from and clobbered the bonnet down on the friendly sentry’s head! I ran like hell for the top of the compound with the pliers and as there were no sentries to worry about I promptly started cutting the wire which surrounded the compound. Well, shots were fired at me and all hell let loose but I managed to get out!
Free once again, he decided to go back and try to cross the Apennines. Again, he was forced to survive as well as he could, stealing food, taking advantage of help from the Italians, and travelling mainly at night to avoid recapture.
I had escaped from this prison camp within a couple of weeks of arriving and I now made my way down through the mountains, not knowing where I was going, but happy to be free! Italy was still at war with us and it was very difficult so I lived mainly by stealing from lonely houses at night and moving on before daylight.
During his march, he learned of the Armistice, but the news that he was no longer in enemy territory did not ease his conditions, as the farmers were terrified by Nazi-Fascist reprisals and, consequently, did not trust his identity as an escaped PoWs, fearing he was a thief or worse:
I just kept walking. I didn’t recognise where I was, I hadn’t any maps, and I hadn’t got a compass. I didn’t even know where I’d been, but one day I saw a lonely monastery, I couldn’t believe it – I was back at San Giorgio!! This was an absolute miracle. Although the earthquake had knocked the place to pieces, the family were still living in one wing. I lay down on some rocks and watched it for about an hour. I couldn’t see any signs of Germans or any people at all – until one of the daughters, Ada, walked in and out of the kitchen 2 or 3 times and I called to her very quietly and she heard me. She was horrified, I think. Anyway, she made me lie down there, and she disappeared into the house. She was gone for about three-quarters of an hour, and then her father Mateo came out, and they escorted me to a cave.
Once again, the Tassi and Antonucci families decided to help him, despite the danger, hiding him again in the cave near the monastery.
foto per gentile concessione della famiglia di Dennis Hutton Fox / Photo courtesy of Dennis Hutton Fox’s family
My cave was very dry but anyone visiting me left great big footprints, so it was pretty dicey, and Mateo decided it was safer for me to be with them in San Giorgio now, because a German patrol was extremely unlikely to come up the mountain in these conditions. The snow lasted until after Christmas 1943, so I had the most wonderful time with this family in San Giorgio without feeling I was putting them in any danger and this is when I got to know them really well – I had got to know them quite well, but, now spending time in their home with them over Christmas, well it was lovely. Maria taught me to use a sewing machine and I used to make clothes with her, and I used to change the beds and help Ada and Yolanda with the housework and meal preparation. We used to all sit and argue round the fire as I got to speak Italian reasonably well by now. It was lovely to mix with pretty women again but, of course, nothing ever happened between me and any of the daughters as I could never have betrayed Mateo’s trust in any way. This family was risking all to save my life – I owed them so much!
Slowly but surely, the bonds between Dennis and the two families grew, and eventually, he was allowed inside Mattia’s home, where he spent Christmas 1943 and the entire winter. He helped with household chores, including sewing, and often his help was required to change the bedsheets and prepare meals. Moreover, the youngest members of the family started teaching him Italian.
Finally, Dennis’s stay ended in the spring of 1944, as the Allies liberated the city of Ascoli and the surrounding province on 18 June. He was free to go to Rome, from where he was repatriated, at first to Liverpool and then to his home, after five years away.