Sheet by: Isabella Insolvibile

General data

Town: Nocera Inferiore

Province: Salerno

Region: Campania

Location/Address: Caserma Tofano (ex Marselli), via Francesco Solimena 1 - Nocera Inferiore

Type of camp: Military hospital

Number: 206

Italian military mail service number: 3400

Intended to: Officers; NCOs; Troops

Local jurisdiction: Difesa Territoriale Napoli

Railroad station: Nocera Inferiore

Accommodation: military quarters

Capacity: 1000 including 200 officers

Operating: from 02/1943 to 05/1943

Commanding Officer: Major Gennaro Di Nola

Brief chronology:
February 1942: Allied PoWs were transferred to the hospital.
Summer 1943: the PoWs were transferred elsewhere.

Allied prisoners in the Nocera Inferiore camp

Date	Generals	Officers	NCOs	Troops	TOT
28.2.1943		51	66	439	556[1]
31.3.1943		59	71	519	649[2]
30.4.1943		55	58	474	587[3]

[1] Including 7 American officers, 7 NCOs, and 13 privates. [2] Including 14 American officers, 20 NCOs, and 49 privates. [3] Including 15 American officers, 21 NCOs, and 55 privates.

Camp’s overview

Nocera hospital was established in the town’s barracks at the end of 1942. Allied PoWs began arriving in February 1943 and, in the following months, the site housed many PoWs from the Caserta hospital. According to the external observers, hospital 206 was better than Caserta. In particular, the PoW department was positively impressed by the nuns who worked there as nurses. The main problems were, besides the usual shortages of supplies and equipment, the theft of Red Cross packages and the fact that complaint letters were not forwarded to the Protecting Power and the Red Cross.
Hospital 206 was closed officially in July 1943, but the Allied PoWs had already been transferred elsewhere in the previous month.
The Italian army used the barracks until the 1990s. Today it is abandoned.

Archival sources

• Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, IAC, UIV, Sez. prig. ingl., b. 445
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, A5G, II GM, bb. 116, 117, 118 e 140, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Ministero dell’Aeronautica, Gabinetto, b. 70, Verbali e Notiziari della Commissione Interministeriale per i Prigionieri di Guerra
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, L10, b. 32
• Archivio Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito, H8, b. 79
• The National Archives, WO 224/152
• The National Archives, WO 361/1923
• The National Archives, TS 26/707, 709

Bibliography

• Insolvibile I., I prigionieri alleati in Italia 1940-1943, tesi di dottorato, Dottorato in "Innovazione e Gestione delle Risorse Pubbliche", curriculum “Scienze Umane, Storiche e della Formazione”, Storia Contemporanea, Università degli Studi del Molise, anno accademico 2019-2020,
• Satow, H., See M.J. , The work of the Prisoner of War Department during the II World War, London, Foreign Office, 1950

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