Anthony (Tony) Deane Drummond
Major, 1st Airborne Divisional Signals
Anthony Dean Drummond in 1943 Source: Pegasus Archive
Major Deane-Drummond, Royal Corps of Signals, was among the first officers to join the 11th Special Air Service Battalion. In December 1940, he was chosen to participate in the Colossus operation, the first airborne infiltration of British paratroops in southern Italy. Their objective was to destroy the bridge-channel of Tragino, the main branch of Puglia’s aqueduct, which supplied water to the region, its harbours, and the Bari, Brindisi and Taranto military bases.
Initially, the operation, led by General T.A. Pritchard, seemed successful. The Tragino bridge and the nearby channel on the Ginestra stream were mined and destroyed. The unit then split into three groups, each trying to reach the coast and meet with a British submarine to evacuate.
Deane-Drummond was in Pritchard’s group. They tried to cover roughly 80 km in five days. However, their ambitious plan soon came up against reality. The weather and the terrain were against them, and the area was densely populated by “enemies”.
Near Teora (Avellino), they were intercepted by a local who quickly alerted the authorities. Although they were only armed with handguns, the British prepared to face the assault, but they soon were forced to abandon that plan as many civilians, including a number of children, had gathered to watch the event, and they feared that a battle would put a lot of people in danger. Pritchard thus decided to surrender. As Deane-Drummond recalled: «I have never felt so ashamed before or since that we should have surrendered to a lot of practically unarmed Italian peasants». The other groups were similarly captured by Italian forces.
During the following days, they were moved to Naples and put in the military gaol. They were then transferred to the city’s airfield, where they remained for two weeks, enjoying good treatment from the Italians. This, however, changed rapidly.
On 28 February 1941, they were transferred to PG 78 Sulmona, where they spent the following two months in a tiny hut, separated from the other PoWs and watched constantly by a guard: «The next two months were hell. It hurts us more than most because we were used to an active life with plenty of exercises.»
Only on 1 May, after the American military attaché’s protests, were they moved to the camp itself and allowed to join the rest of the Allied officers kept there.
At last the great day arrived, and we were led up to the top compound. I remember we were held up for about twenty minutes before being let in […]. Then, we all trooped in through the gate, feeling very self-conscious and awkward. After having seen nothing except each other for so long, it really was quite extraordinary to be once more in contact with the outside world, or so it seemed to us at that time.
PG. 78 Sulmona Source: A. Dean Drummond, Return ticket
At last the great day arrived, and we were led up to the top compound. I remember we were held up for about twenty minutes before being let in […]. Then, we all trooped in through the gate, feeling very self-conscious and awkward. After having seen nothing except each other for so long, it really was quite extraordinary to be once more in contact with the outside world, or so it seemed to us at that time.
On the night chosen we dropped over the inside wall of the camp, and, carrying the ladder, a spare bulb and a coil of wire we went straight through a corridor in a building in which the Italian guard room and canteen were situated. This let us out into the space between the walls and the wire. We marched straight up to the light which shone on the ledge and propping the ladder against the pole, unscrewed the bulb. The sentry called out to us, and we shouted back in Italian, “Electricians”. We then sidestepped along the ledge. While we were doing this the sentry became suspicious and fired, hitting Capt. Lea in the leg. He had to give himself up while I continued.
As I walked rapidly away it gradually dawned on me that I had actually succeeded in getting out and I was now on the high road to freedom.
His objective was to reach Switzerland. During the following days, he walked to Pescara, where he bought a train ticket to Milan. He had a fake passport and a few medals which he used to pass as a German. Once he reached Milan, he realised there were no trains for Como (where he wanted to cross the border) until the following day. He thus decided to sleep in the station, blending in with the other passengers. The next day, he reached Como with little trouble, but while looking for a place to rest, he was spotted and stopped by two border guards who asked him for his pass. The guards were suspicious of Deane-Drummond’s worn-out shoes and run-down appearance and brought him to the checkpoint in Ponte Chiasso, where he was rapidly identified. It was 13 December 1941.
I was put into another room, with two guards watching me, and a meal was soon bought in from a local restaurant. I remember its savor to this day, but my enjoyment was tempered by the thought that I had got so near and yet so far. Even there I was within twenty yards from Swiss soil and this might be my last chance in the war to be so close, and it would certainly be six months before I should be able to have another try. I have never been so depressed, before or since. My world, which had been getting brighter and brighter. Was now inky black.
Once captured, Deane-Drummond was transferred to PG 41 Montalbo and sentenced to 35 days in solitary.
Montalbo was an old castle built on the top of a little hill overlooking the Po plain. An officer punishment cell had just been built adjoining one wing of the castle. At that time Montalbo had only been opened a few months and was for the exclusive use of about eighty officer prisoners of war. Immediately on arrival I was put straight into the cell […]. Life was very uncomfortable, except for the food which was comparatively good and came from the officers’ kitchen in the main camp. No books were allowed, nor were writing materials or even pencils. I only had half an hour’s exercise each day and that in a kind of bird cage outside the door of my cell.
On 20 January, he was moved again to Sulmona, from where he had escaped three weeks before. After a month there, the Italians informed him that he and the other seven PoWs, including Major Pritchard, considered “dangerous” because they had attempted to escape, would be transferred to PG 27 San Romano (Pisa).
San Romano was a former monastery used as a prison camp and, besides the eight British officers, it housed Greek PoWs. The monks still used half of the building.
After two months there, Deane-Drummond and Pritchard decided it was time for another escape attempt:
The corridors, off which led our bedroom cells, had once upon a time communicated with the rest of the monastery, and we discovered that the wall of an end cell led into a deserted passage on the monk side. […] Although the wall was only of one brick thickness and of fairly soft texture, it was not easy matter to make a hole. We had just pushed the point of our instrument through the brick, when a light was shone on the hole from the other side and somebody was shouting in Italian. Unfortunately we had chosen the one night in the week when a monk cleaned out the chapel. On this particular night it had been raining and to avoid getting wet he had decided to take the disused corridor.
The border between Italy and Switzerland, drawn by Tony Source: A.Dean Drummond, Return ticket
A month later, at the end of April, the officers were informed that they would be transferred south. Deane-Drummond, still hoping to be able to escape and reach Switzerland, pretended to be sick. Before his departure, he was moved to Florence, to the Careggi hospital, where he remained for about a month. Since he was confined to a small room on the fourth floor, guarded constantly by a carabiniere, he decided to escape using a tiny ledge under his room’s window. On the morning of 15 June, he climbed down and managed to slip into another window, ran down the stairs and exited the building on the ground floor.
Deane-Drummond then reached Florence train station and bought a ticket to Milan. He reached Varese and started walking towards Porto Cesio for about 10 km, hoping to reach the Swiss border. Finally, he decided to reach Como to cross the border near Ponte Chiasso. He actually reached his objective on 19 June. He planned to dig a hole under the barbed wire and cross the border. He started his work at night:
Several things then happened at once. The bell above me gave a very small tinkle, a branch crashed down nearby, the sentry stopped singing and the noise of shunting goods wagon in Chiasso suddenly became very loud due to a change in the wind. I prayed the sentries would stay where they were […]. My luck was in and after five minutes’ complete silence except for the rain on the leaves, and the noise of the shunting, I crawled back across the track once more. On this occasion I was not going to be stuck under the wire, and worked away for ten minutes before the gap was big enough. My hand reached through to Switzerland, this time much farther, and I was able to grasp a tree root and draw myself through without shaking the fence above me. I was now in Switzerland and free!
After his return to the United Kingdom, Deane-Drummond continued to serve as an officer in the Second Airborne Brigade deployed in North Africa in 1943. Later, he was promoted to Major and, in September 1944, took part in Operation Market Garden in Holland, during which the enemy once again captured him. On 22 September 1944, his German captors put him in a house used as a goal near the village of Velp. Unseen, he hid inside a wardrobe in the building, covered by wallpaper and locked from the inside. He emerged from his hideout only on 4 October, when all other PoWs had already been transferred. He was sent back to the United Kingdom on 22 October 1944.
After the war, Deane-Drummond remained in the army, taking part in numerous missions abroad and receiving many awards.
Camps related to this story
Sources
A. Deane-Drummond, Return Ticket, Collins, London, 1953
Pegasus Archive https://www.pegasusarchive.org/arnhem/deane_drummond.htm (01/2024)