Hi wanted to introduce myself as I am going to Italy in July and my father was there at the end of 1944/45. I have been to the War graves at Assisi where there are those from the Rifle Brigade. My father was with the Tower Hamlets Rifle in North Africa and then in Italy. I have been going to Italy ever since I was a child as my father who suffered from PTSD would go back to see his friends. I had a book written about my dad Alan Juniper and I see William Bully did a review on it which I'm glad to see he liked it. All Soldiers Run Away - Alano's War is the title. My dad passed in 2016 and never knew about the book. We get no money from it as that goes to a PTSD charity. I have my dad's service record and Andy Owen who wrote the book for us did n enormous amount of research looking through the War diaries at Kew. Happy to help if I can with any information. If I can I will take some photos of the war graves at Assisi in case some one on here would like
The 2018 book review is on: 'All Soldiers Run Away :Alano's War The Story of A British Deserter' by Andy Owen
Steph, was your father in the Sicilian campaign? I was stationed there for three years, '72-'75. Mostly doing physical therapy and rehabilitation, but that mostly meant other people had to drive so I could gawk when we went on road trips.
Yes he was. He was sent back to his unit in North Africa as they had suffered so many losses at El Alamein they gave him the choice to stay in Detention or go back to his Unit and carry on. I've been to a few of the War graves and the noticeable thing to the one at Assisi is the age of the men. Bayeux they are all very young. The one at Assisi they are older men in their late 20's and 30's. It's not a huge cemetery, it has probably a hundred graves, very pretty
Thank you. The levels of desertion in the 8th Army's last winter in Italy in 1944/45 was absolutely huge (in total, I think in total it was more than a divisional total)... my father (with the 1st/8th/5th Armies from Algiers to Austria) would speak compassionately about some of his comrades who had "walked in the wrong direction" in the heat of battle, some of whom were later imprisoned. My father's memory of an incident on the road to Argenta during April 1945 stayed with him: "At almost the last halt, I was held up by a column of traffic. Directly behind me were trucks carrying reinforcements. I went back to speak to them, as some were returned wounded. I vaguely recognised one and asked him about his company. He claimed to have been with another company and was returning from hospital. Then I remembered. He was the young soldier so shaken by shellfire near Piedimonte the previous May that he had run away the same evening. I later learned he had spent the time since in prison. He had been afraid. So had we all. I was terrified, but had a greater fear: to be seen to be frightened. I was Rosie. It meant baring my teeth in a smile, regardless..." I plan to visit Assisi and Orvieto CWGC Cemeteries in June.
