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Private J. D. Caves: The Long Journey Home

Excerpt from Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War

Excerpt from Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War

This passage describes the work camps which Denis hoped to be included in, but was excluded on medical grounds.

Unlike Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy did not immediately employ British prisoners of war as an auxiliary labour force, although she was perfectly entitled to do so under international law. Instead British prisoners merely did their own camp fatigues, or work necessary for the erection of additional barracks in their camp, or an occasional odd job in the locality that did not involve sleeping away from their quarters. The reasons for this are not clear. But it was probably the strain on prison-camp accommodation in the summer of 1942, combined with German encouragement, which brought about the formation of work detachments living apart from but still under the administration of the main camp. There is some evidence that German officers experienced in the organisation of work by prisoners of war and in the running of work detachments visited Italy at this period in an advisory capacity, for Germany had been employing prisoners for some two and a half years. At first the detachments were small (about 50-odd) and were employed mostly at farms and vineyards, especially at harvest time, though some were employed on the construction of new prisoner-of-war camps. In late 1942, however, the Fascist Government began to realise the value of such a reserve of unskilled labour for engineering and industrial projects as well as farming, particularly when the drain on their own manpower became heavier. But by the time the Italian authorities had really got round to organising the employment of the masses of fit men held in their prisoner-of-war camps on work useful to the Italian economy, and had begun to set up completely independent work-camps in the areas where they were most needed, the regime was collapsing and with it the whole Italian war effort.

Campo 57 in 1943

Campo 57 in 1943

The first of the independent work-camps set up in Italy was Campo PG 107 at Torviscosa. The seven sub-camps of Campo PG 107 formed in the spring of 1943 were smaller parties employed on agricultural labour. Campo PG 107/4, for example, on a state farm at San Dona di Piave on the Adriatic coast north of Venice, consisted of 50 page 83New Zealanders employed on haymaking, weeding, and digging. Their quarters were cramped though quite comfortable, and they did well for food on the farm.