Raymond Charles West was captured by the Germans with his entire division on 22 November 1941 at Sidi Rezegh, 59 miles away from Tobruk. He and his fellow soldiers were loaded onto lorries and taken to the Derna prison camp in Libya, where they remained for one day before being transferred to Benghazi.

After two weeks in inhumane and terrible living conditions, West was brought to Italy on the cruiser Luigi Cadorna, which, after a 24-hour voyage, reached the peninsula.

In Brindisi, West was given a bed in one of the prison camp’s tents, and after about ten days, because of the worsening weather conditions, he and other prisoners contracted dysentery. Due to his illness, West was moved to a hospital run by nuns where food was scarce, but at least the place was dry. After staying there for a while, he was transferred back to the prison camp and soon transferred again, this time to PG 59, Servigliano, on New Year’s Day in 1942. One year later, at the end of 1942, West was transferred first to PG 53, Sforzacosta, and then to PG 106, Vercelli, where he was assigned to a working detachment housed in a farmhouse.

When the news of the Armistice reached them, the Italian guards started acting differently, and one day, the officer in charge of the camp informed West and his companions that they were free. However, he added they should be aware of German raids in the area, which were expected in the following days. At this point, West and a group of five prisoners, including George Winterton, who would remain with him for the duration of his escape, decided to leave. They had the support of a local farmer, Giacu, who managed the huts where the PoWs lived and promised to protect them if the Germans came. Accordingly, the next day, the group left on foot, guided by an Italian cyclist working for Giacu, and reached a small village near the mountains. 

Days and weeks passed in relative serenity, as the prisoners and the locals listened to the radio, gathered firewood, and spent time together in the evening. However, one evening, two Carabinieri suddenly burst into the house where the escapees were living to warn them about the imminent arrival of German soldiers looking for them. Most likely, they had been denounced by a local woman, who resented the Allies as the RAF had bombed her home in Turin.

At dawn, the group departed and, near a ruined house, decided to split up to increase their chances of escaping. West and Winterton thus continued marching at a certain distance from the other three. At a certain point, they encountered two Carabinieri on bicycles. The Italians, however, did not arrest them and even offered them cigarettes:

As winter was setting in and the weather was getting bad, West and Winterton took shelter in a hut where some Italians lived and asked them for a place to spend the night.

The house in question belonged to a certain Franco and two women, Biondina and Eleonora, who fed the two escapees and provided for them, patching their ragged clothes. West and Winterton joined a local partisan band, led by an officer named Ercole. However, they left after a few weeks, as tensions within the band were mounting. 

When they resumed their journey, they passed several villages until they encountered a house where other escaped PoWs lived, working in the owner’s vineyard with the local farmers.

In total, four escapees lived in Agostino’s house, each doing a different job. West was in charge of carrying heavy straw baskets filled with manure, hooked to a three-legged contraption so that they could be carried on his back. Life was relatively quiet, with the occasional diversion. One day, a dentist visited the village, treating West’s teeth and granting the escapees’ wish to drink some tea, which he delivered in a little bag. Other Italians also helped the escaped PoWs:

They accepted and collected their packages, which contained clothes they could wear to take the train from Cuorgnè to Turin. The journey was uneventful, and once in the city, West and his companions had lunch and spent the night at the house of a Torinese. The next day, they were sent to the train station to go to Novara, and, as West recalled, a thousand worries assaulted him while he was on the train, especially encountering the police or the Germans. However, despite his preoccupation, the journey was once again uneventful, and they continued to Como, where they met with a man who brought them to a small villa. Here, they had some food and were given pliers. Then, the man guided them on their way to the Swiss border. 

After a short walk, they found a fence, which the man had cut with pliers, allowing West and the rest to cross, safe and sound, into Switzerland.