600 MILES’ WALK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 28 September 1944, Page 7

600 MILES’ WALK

ESCAPE IN ITALY MOTUEKA OFFICER’S STORY The man who engineered Brigadier G. Clifton’s escape from an Italian prison camp near Milan, and subsequently dug his way to freedom himself through a tunnel, is back in New Zealand. He is Major H. M. Evans, of Auckland and formerly of Motueka. He walked 600 miles through Italy, came to know the Apennines so well that he was temporarily a guide for Indian soldiers, and after making his way to Rome returned to the Dominion with a recent furlough party. Taken by 32 German tanks while he was with Brigadier Hargest at Sidi Aziz. Major Evans was sent to Bardia. From there, with other officers, he was taken to Benghazi by sea in an Italian | submarine whose commander, remark- j ably enough, had married a Hamilton I (New Zealand) girl, and spoke English well. Next the prisoners were placed on board an Italian cruiser for Brindisi. They spent four and a-half months at Bari, which Major Evans described as “a shocking place.” Men fainted there from weakness and hunger. TUNNEL EXCAVATED Eventually-Major Evans found himself in a prison camp near Milan. Cutting a hole through a brieked-up win- i dow he made a rope of sheets by which | Brigadier Clifton lowered himself to j the ground and made his escape, only | to be captured again within 24 j For that Brigadier Clifton, who was later transferred to Germany, received 30 day’s solitary confinement. Using all manner of improvised tools. | Major Evans and others managed to dig i a tunnel 44 feet long to beyond the prison wall. It took four and a-half l months to excavate and the spoil was distributed around a cabbage patch J right under the noses of the Italian j guards. They walkqd round it all day j long without an inkling of what was! going on. Eight other officers escaped | with Major Evans, who was recaptured three and a-half days later. He was walking down a road in the dead of the night and wearing clothes made from blankets when an Italian cyclist patrol came up quietly behind him. When Italy capitulated to the Allies some of the prison guards deserted. Others stood by and watched the prisoners knock down the barbed wire fencing in broad daylight. They did not interfere, and 100 of the senior officers from the prison camp set off for the mountains. Major Evans walked 600 miles until he reached a point east of Rome and met the Mahrattas, a group of Indian soldiers, whom he guided for four days. He was the first ex-prisoner-of-war to enter Rome and just as he mounted the steps of Army headquarters he met Brigadier Weir, his former O.C. Before finally reaching safety, and while hiding in the mountains. Major Evans sent an Italian messenger 40 kilometres to Rome with a letter to the British Embassy in the Vatican. Through the Vatican. 43,000 lira were sent to him. He used this money to buy clothing, food, boots and medicines for himself and 35 others who were escaped prisoners of war. After reaching Rome he took 270 lira, all that remained, back to the Vativan, and offered an account of his stewardship. He was told not to bother about it, and, in effect, to “keep the change.’ ’ The prisoners of war, said Major Evans, could not say too much about the wonderful parcels received from I the Red Cross—New Zealand, Canadian and British. It made all the difference, he added. Major Evans, who is a brother of Mr L. A. Evans, formerly a resident of Motueka, was farewelled by the Motueka Patriotic Committee.