A FEW years ago the Radnorshire Field Section had World War Two as their theme for the year. In the course of my research into World War Two in Presteigne, I was privileged to meet and interview Luigi Napolitano.
Unfortunately Luigi is not well enough at this time to relate his own tale so with his permission I am retelling it for him.
Luigi was conscripted into the Italian army and fought in North Africa where he was taken prisoner early in the war.
He was imprisoned in a camp in South Africa and when the authorities asked for volunteers to work on farms in Britain, Luigi being country-bred decided that working on the land in Britain had to be preferable to being cooped up in a camp.
Volunteering was not without risk as the journey from South Africa to Britain meant a seven-week voyage by sea with the inherent danger of being torpedoed.
On arrival in Britain, Luigi was brought to Camp No 48, which had been established at Greenfields on the outskirts of Presteigne. While working on a farm near Presteigne he met Betty, whose father worked on the same farm.
Luigi and Betty became friends and then more than friends and eventually they were married. Like several other prisoners of war, Luigi remained in Presteigne.
The site of the prisoner of war camp is now owned and farmed by Luigi and his family. There is one camp building which remains, one of the shower huts.
The camp originally housed Italian prisoners of war who were later joined by German prisoners. The prisoners were mainly used as farm workers, some however were employed to build a factory for the production of medicinal drugs, an initiative started by Presteigne’s GP Dr Walker.
During renovation of this building during the 1980s, a glass bottle was found which had been built into a window frame by the prisoner builders in which was a piece of paper on which they had written their names and the name of their home town. This bottle is preserved in Presteigne Museum.
They also helped in the gathering of herbs to be processed.