Lawrence Bains

107° South Nottinghamshire Hussars Yeomanry

Lawrence Bains (1920-2015) was born on 11 May 1920, in the London borough of Hornsey. After graduating from the Stationers’ Company School, he secured a position at an insurance company in London. As the war broke out, he enlisted in the Middlesex Yeomanry as a petty officer in the signal corps. Between 1941 and 1942, he participated in the amphibious operations of Operation Torch in North Africa and was later assigned to the 107th South Nottinghamshire Hussars Yeomanry, which was deployed in Palestine and then in Libya. He was part of the garrison in Tobruk, fending off the Axis’ advance until December 1941. However, during the spring of the following year, the enemy surrounded his division in the desert in El Adam, south of Gazala, and Bains and his comrades were captured by the Germans. Before being handed over to the Italians, he was forced to march through the desert in terrible conditions because of the torrid heat and held at a prison camp in Tunis. He witnessed the death of other PoWs who fainted because of the heat and were left to die in the hot desert sand.

After that, he was brought to Naples and then to PG 66, Capua. Later, he arrived at his final destination: PG 53, Sforzacosta, where he remained until the announcement of the Armistice on 8 September 1943. In total, he spent one year in PG 53, learning a bit about Italy and the camp’s life. He became the camp’s librarian, curating the makeshift library put together by the PoWs. The news of the Armistice was greeted with joy by the prisoners, and the officers even organised a celebratory parade during which they sang various patriotic hymns, including the British national anthem. Although the Italian guards of the camp were disappearing day by day, the prisoners were told to stay put and wait for the Allied troops to arrive. However, Bains was unconvinced by this strategy, as he feared that waiting might give the Germans the chance to surround the camp and deport all the prisoners to Germany. Therefore, the next day, he and a few other prisoners gathered what supplies they could and left the camp, trying to find their bearings in an unknown land.

I knew no Italian geography except schoolboy geography. You knew the leg of Italy, it was obvious. I knew the Apennines went down the spine. I didn’t realise they were somewhat oblique and not down the centre, from the top left to the bottom right so to speak, nor whether they were… We knew we were near the river Chienti, not Chianti I’m sorry to say but anyway. But we, but whoever heard of the river Chienti, you know, it didn’t help us much. We knew we were on the Adriatic side. We could see the south, the sun was obvious and so on. So we thought we would head off south that way.

Bains and his companions headed south, and immediately, he started worrying about their survival. The need for food and shelter, especially at night, was pressing and forced the group to approach the locals, who, unexpectedly, gave them a warm welcome, providing them with food and wine to drink.

Domani, everything was domani. And for prisoners to try and hurry us up avanti, avanti, avanti, avanti, and we got that, but not, not much else. We just didn’t know any. And the first people we met were in the evening and we said “well, we’ve got to sleep somewhere”, and we saw a fairly isolated farm and we went there. We didn’t know what reception we would get at all. Had no idea, but we were four young chaps and looked pretty tough I suppose and so they said we could sleep in their cow shed and they gave us a meal. We had never had a meal like it for months. It was only bread, bread and some salami stuff and cheese or something, but it was, it was a banquet to us. And wine.

After a night in a cowshed, the group resumed their journey from Urbisaglia along the main road, but they were soon advised not to go south, as it would take too long for them to reach Allied-controlled territory. During that period, Bains, who had been trained in electronics while in the army, became a skilled repairman and often the locals would greet him shouting “Viva l’inglese!” (“Long live the Englishman!”). He enjoyed the hospitality of multiple families. One day, after sleeping in a stable, he and his companions were about to depart from the area definitively, when they ran into the Rozzi family, who would shelter them for a while.

The first people I had ever met who actually had no money. How I had, of course, when I was a young chap in, in insurance I wasn’t earning much and I was a bit hard up and I knew other people who were hard up and I knew some who were in debt even, but I had never met anyone who hadn’t any money and I couldn’t see how they survived. But they were, they said they were entirely subsidence and self-supporting. They had a little surplus and they sold their bit of surplus grain and wine and that would pay for their, an odd dress or trousers or whatever it was and that was about all. And they lived very poorly indeed. And we had a room upstairs. They had their bedroom upstairs. There were two women in their early thirties and their old father. They slept in one bedroom and he slept in another, and there was another big vacant room that they fitted up a bed of straw and mats for us and we all skipped down there.

Bains was profoundly impressed by the Rozzi’s poverty, a condition shared with the vast majority of the local farmers, who lived off subsistence farming and had no money. Even when the crops were abundant, the produce was not sold; instead, it was bartered. Despite the general destitution, however, the Rozzi allowed Bains into their home, providing him with even a private room, thanks in part to the help of a wealthy student, Franco, who supported the Rozzi in this endeavour. However, rumours of Nazi incursions in the region grew stronger and stronger and Bains decided to leave the Rozzi despite the bad weather conditions. After a night spent in the open, with snow up to his knees, he reached a stable from which he could see the village of San Ginesio.

I heard the farmer moving about in the morning, so I came down the ladder. He was a bit, he wasn’t all that surprised to see me because it was a funny time. All sorts of oddments roaming about the country – prisoners, jail birds, partisans, all sorts of odd people, so it wasn’t so surprising. So, he quite calmly invited me to breakfast and I met his wife and son and daughter and chatted, chatted the best I could. My Italian was improving a little, but not very good. And I stayed there several days. He said “well, you can’t stay here because when the snow comes it’s too vulnerable”, which indeed it was. And then I received a visit, unsought by me, by Giovanni Lucarelli who had a farm on the ridge overlooking the road, or nearly overlooking the road, and he spoke a peculiar form of American English.

Thus Bains spent the following period with the Lucarelli family at their farm in San Ginesio. Besides the family head, Giovanni, Bains met other farmers who lived in Contrada Cerreto, a tiny hamlet adjacent to the village, comprising a total of six houses. This would become his world until June 1944.

I made that my base until the middle of June when I eventually came home. And they were wonderful to me. They were like my own parents you know […] The Lucarelli’s happened to be in this tiny hamlet with about five houses, but other families soon got to know as a new prisoner arrived, and so the English, the English prisoners came up and said, “oh hello, who’s this”? And I introduced myself and we all met and so on and so on. So, they knew, as you rightly say, the news spread. Everybody knew which houses had prisoners and so on, and nobody was ever given away.

Right before the village was liberated by the Allies, Bains grew increasingly anxious and distressed, fearing the Germans would recapture him. Meanwhile, the Lucarellis were also worried about German raids in the area. To alleviate this situation, Bains decided to leave the house for a while and find shelter elsewhere, eating and sleeping at various local families who always welcomed him warmly. During one of these stays, he learned that the Germans were in the area, looking for escaped prisoners and was forced to flee to a makeshift hideout:

I ran like mad, and I met another prisoner and we found a potato field, potato plants and he said “well, I’m going to crawl in amongst these and lay low”, and I said “well, they’ve got hounds with them, they’ll smell us out. No, I’m not staying”. So I went down, and I knew the local country and I knew there was a little stream down below so I went down to the stream, it was only a few inches thick, deep, but walked along it, destroyed the scent, climbed up the other side and went. But, you know, you could hear the shots, you could hear the shots, it was very bad.

It was the first of a series of German raids, and Bains was often forced to leave the Lucarellis until, finally, came the news of the liberation of Rome. Soon after, the villagers learned of the German withdrawal from the region and the arrival of the Allied troops.

Bains headed to Sarnano and then to Ascoli Piceno, where he rejoined the Allied Armies, after two years on the run and nine months spent in the hamlet during which he had lived with, and as, the local farmers.

We lived as and with the peasants. I mean I’m not a technical farm chap. As I said at the beginning I’m very much an urban Londoner and that kind of thing, but I helped with the farm. I used to draw the water and chop the wood, I could do that. I was never allowed to drive the oxen. The old, Marco, would never let me drive the oxen. “Lorenzo [Lawrence] is a good chap but he just doesn’t understand”, and he would never let me go and draw the wine from the big cask down below.