An Extraordinary Italian Imprisonment : The Brutal Truth of Campo 21, 1942-3 by Brian Lett

Author:Brian Lett [Lett, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-11-30T08:00:00+00:00

Month 8

March 1943

DINNERS AND TUNNELS

St David’s Day fell, as always, on the first day of March, and a group of Welsh officers in the camp decided to give a St David’s Day dinner. With the improvement in conditions and the weather morale was good and the hosts of this dinner did their very best to make it a success. It took a lot of hard work and considerable self-sacrifice to put on. The chairman of the Welsh organizing committee was Second Lieutenant J. Tegid Jones, Royal Artillery, and the secretary was Second Lieutenant J. B. Evans, Royal Army Service Corps. Invitations were carefully written out and presented to the chosen guests. Gordon Lett was one of them and his invitation, in Gothic script, read: Gwyl Dewi Sant, Mawrath 1st 1943. The Welsh Officers in the Camp request the Pleasure of the Attendance of Major G. E. Lett, RIASC, at Dinner, at 7pm, on Monday 1st March 1943, in the Tunnel Room, Block C, on the Occasion of the Commemoration of their Patron Saint, St David.

The dinner had to start early, since all the prisoners faced a curfew of 10.00 pm, after which time they had to be in their own rooms. The venue of ‘The Tunnel Room’ was of course a joke, but there were at the time a number of tunnels under construction in various parts of the camp, including Block C. Kenwyn Walters, who proposed the toast to St David in Welsh, recalled that about twenty people attended. Rations had to be saved and extra wine bought in to ensure that everyone dined well. Menus were prepared, written by hand, with a Red Welsh Dragon prominent on the front cover. The fare was flatteringly described: Hors d’oeuvres variés, was followed by Galatine de Boeuf Oignons, Goulash Hongroise, Trifle, and Welsh Rarebit. Galatine was simply cooked meat supplied in tins by the Red Cross. One of the guests, the SBO Lieutenant Colonel Gray, proposed the loyal toast and amongst the speeches Major Gordon Lett replied on behalf of the guests. Many of the guests signed the menu as a souvenir, as they might have done in peacetime. One of those present was Lieutenant David Alwyn Roberts, 68 Anti-Tank Battery, Royal Artillery, 18 Indian Brigade. Roberts was 27 when wounded and taken prisoner at the Quattara Depression in North Africa on 2 July 1942. Roberts, like Arthur Green, compiled a fine collection of pictures and mementos from Campo 21, of which the author is fortunate to have been given a copy. It includes Roberts’s signed copy of the St David’s Day menu.

Despite this fine sounding dinner menu, and the efforts of the prisoners to lay on such occasions (more dinners were held over later months), the inmates of Campo 21 constantly lacked adequate food. John Speares speaks of powerful men being reduced to a bag of bones. Both of the England cricketers in the camp, Bowes and Brown, each lost over four stone in weight whilst in captivity. Sam Webster, now arrived in camp, was another large man, 6ft 2in.

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