PG 145 - Montorio al Vomano

Sheet by: Costantino Di Sante

General data

Town: Campotosto

Province: L'Aquila

Region: Abruzzo

Location/Address: Poggio Cancelli - Campotosto

Type of camp: Work camp

Number: 145

Italian military mail service number: 3300

Intended to: troops

Local jurisdiction: IX Army Corps

Railroad station: L'Aquila

Accommodation: huts

Capacity: 300

Operating: from 07/1942 to 08/09/1943

Commanding Officer: Captain Giuseppe Corsi

Brief chronology:
5 July 1942: the preparation of the camp began, carried out by the Presidio Militare of L’Aquila.
27 July 1942: 300 Serbian PoWs were transferred from Teramo.
End of November 1942: the camp was temporarily closed.
End of April 1943: the camp was re-opened and South African and New Zealander prisoners were transferred to it as well.

Allied prisoners in the Campotosto camp

Date Generals Officers NCOs Troops TOT
1.8.1942 300 300*
30.9.1942 32 167 199*
30.10.1942 32 164 196*
31.5.1943 299 299[1]
30.6.1943 5 348 353
31.8.1943 5 345 350
* Yugoslavians. [1] South Africans and New Zealanders.

Camp’s overview

PG 145, officially, was in Montorio al Vomano, in the province of Teramo but, in reality, it was built in Poggio Cancelli near Campotosto, in the province of L’Aquila. It is probable that the confusion derived from the fact that the camp was on the border between the two townships, and because the PoWs worked in the Teramo province to build a hydroelectric reservoir.
The huts were built close to the Campotosto lake in 1942, in response to the request, made to the High Command in March 1942 by the Società Anonima Terni, to use some PoWs in the digging works for the dams of the hydroelectric plant on the Vomano river. The camp became operative on 27 July, when the first 300 Serbian prisoners arrived.
The camp itself was situated some 1,300 metrres above sea level at the foot of the Gran Sasso massif. Because of the frigid temperatures during the winter and the inadequate insulation of the wooden huts, the camp was temporarily closed from the end of November 1942 until March 1943 and the prisoners were transferred to other camps.
In the spring of 1943, it was reopened and PoWs arrived from different camps. 150 British prisoners (South Africans and New Zealanders) came from PG 129 Macerata. 50 Yugoslavian PoWs were transferred from PG 65 Altamura-Gravina but were sent back on 28 June as the Società Anonima Terni deemed them unfit for the job. As a replacement, 100 more South Africans and New Zealanders were transferred from an unspecified camp. Finally, 200 more British PoWs arrived on 23 July.
British sources noted the hostility of the camp’s commander, Captain Giuseppe Corsi, who was vehemently anti-British and subjected the prisoners to brutal treatment. On 19 August, as a result of a work accident at the Poggio Cancelli construction site, an Italian worker died and PoW William Thomas Holt was injured. The latter would be hospitalised at Amatrice.
After the Armistice, the prisoners were freed by the camp’s commander and avoided recapture by the Nazi-Fascists. Some of them took part, on 25 September 1943, in the «battle of Bosco Martese».
Today, nothing remains of the camp.

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