The Rome Escape Line
Lt Colonel Sam Derry’s memoir is an intriguing account of daring escapes and the day-to-day struggles of a clandestine organisation operating under the nose of an enemy who is actively hunting it down.
Derry was taken prisoner during the North African campaign, escaped and was recaptured a few months later by the same German unit and interviewed by the same intelligence officer. He was then sent to Italy where he eventually escaped from a moving train while being transported to Germany. This time he managed to evade recapture receiving shelter from an Italian family outside Rome and, being the only officer, he took responsibility for an ever-increasing number of escaped men in the area. He turned to the British legation in the Vatican for help and underwent the surreal experience of going from living in a haystack to having dinner in the splendour of the Vatican. The increased number of escaped prisoners of war coming into Rome following the fall of Mussolini was becoming a serious problem.
The British legation and a Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a Vatican-based cleric, were doing their best to help them, but they needed Derry’s assistance as an officer to organise the men. This developed into a massive underground network of soldiers, priests, diplomats, communists, noblemen and ordinary Italian citizens, all working together without a clearly defined chain of command. Nevertheless, they looked after thousands of escaped prisoners in and around German occupied Rome and also carried out information gathering activities for the advancing Allies.
It was an environment where infiltrators and informants were constantly on the prowl and where one mistake could and did result in the death of the host Italian families and priests who sheltered and aided the escapers. This wasn’t helped by some of the escapers, who were stir crazy from living a life of seclusion, wandered the streets of Rome drunk and dined in the best restaurants, frequented by German officers. Derry shows great patience and firmness in dealing with such infringements. In the midst of all this, Derry goes to extraordinary lengths to help a dour Scottish private who would rather die of an appendicitis than give himself up. Derry’s account encompasses a whole host of extraordinary characters, but the one who really stands out for me is Mrs Chevalier, a widow who, with seven children, manages to hide 5 escaped prisoners, whom it was said were the best fed in Rome.
This is a very touching book that shows the full cross-section of life in an escape-line from the mundane tasks of bookkeeping, to the terror of capture by the Gestapo and being part of what was ultimately a very successful organisation that saved over 4,000 escaped POWs. It is a shame Sam Derry’s story is not as well known as other great escape memoirs of World War II, like Paul Brickhill’s The Great Escape or The Colditz Story by Pat Reid. This might in part be symptomatic of how the Italian campaign in general has been overshadowed by events in Northern Europe.
Alan Bardos is the author of Rising Tide.
