BOUND FOR ITALY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 7, 9 January 1943, Page 6

BOUND FOR ITALY

TWO MEN IN A BOAT A NON-SCUTTLING CAPTURE * LONDON. A remarkable story of how two young men, stated to be British subjects, attempted to cross the Channel to France was told at Folkestone when Lorenzo Ogni, aged 20, arid Nicodemo Vanucci, aged 18, appeared on remand before the magistrates charged with stealing a 15ft punt and its contents, valued at £35, and also with two breaches of the Defence Regulations. One breach was that they had unlawfully proceeded from the United Kingdom to a destination outside without leave of an immigration officer, and the other was with unlawfully attempting voluntarily to enter enemy territory. They pleaded guilty to the two offences against the Defence Regulations, but denied the theft of the boat.

Mr. E. G. Robey, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said that the accused arrived in Folkestone and stayed for tv/o days at a restaurant. On the evening of the second day they left the hotel and found a fishing boat, the Argonaut, which had not been immobilised by its owner. They put to sea, but subsequently were picked up in the Channel and landed at Portsmouth by one of H.M. ships. When questioned, they stated that they had met in Scotland and had come to London, and then to Folkestone, with the intention of getting back to Italy, where they hoped to join their families, and, incidentally, to find their way into the Italian army. They were born in the British Isles of Italian parents. They told a security officer that they considered themselves more Italian than British.

The magistrates found them both guilty on all charges, and sentenced each of them to three months' hard labour for the theft of the boat, and three months on each of the other two charges, the sentences to run concurrently.