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IN COMBAT, UNARMED

di James Keith Killby (1916-2018)

Keith and the American soldiers continued their journey but as they neared the front lines they were re-captured when they walked up to someone they thought to be another prisoner, but, who much to their horror, swung around and shouted "halt!" They were questioned and then taken to an ordinary house where three Germans were already present and with whom they slept in the same room as. That night, Keith managed to escape, leaving the two Americans behind. Some forty years later he heard that three brothers from nearby Capracotta had been brought to those Germans from whom he had escaped and were condemned to death for helping P.O.W's. On the way back to Capracotta one brother managed to escape but the other two were shot.

Keith escaped into some nearby woods where he hid for three days and was supplied with food and civilian clothing by the "Contadini". When he left the woods and began his way further towards the front lines, he attempted to find shelter but was turned away from one house by people too frightened to hide him. In the darkness he heard a child crying and walked towards the sound and arrived at a house where he was sheltered and fed. A few days later he was captured for the fourth time and eventually joined a German convoy where he was taken to Rome for two weeks. He finally ended up in a prison camp near Munich where he was imprisoned for eighteen months. In January 1945 a Russian battle was heard coming nearer and nearer the prison, many of the P.O.W’s were then marched towards the West, but Keith was taken by train to the Swiss border where he was finally released.

  • J. K. Killby, In Combat, Unarmed. The Memoir of a Wolrd War II Soldier and Prisoner of War, a cura di M. Angus, Monte S. Martino Trust, London 2013, p. 4.

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