PG 204 - Hospital Altamura

Sheet by: Isabella Insolvibile

Warehouse of hospital field no. 204 in Altamura (BA) - AUSSME Archive, Fototeca 2 Guerra Mondiale Italia 507/639

General data

Town: Altamura

Province: Bari

Region: Puglia

Location/Address: Scuola IV Novembre (viale Martiri del 1799), Istituto Regina Margherita (Corso Federico II di Svevia) - Altamura

Type of camp: Military hospital

Number: 204

Italian military mail service number: 3450

Intended to: Officers; NCOs; Troops

Local jurisdiction: IX Army Corps

Railroad station: Altamura

Accommodation: military quarters

Capacity: 480

Operating: from 12/1942 to 07/1943

Commanding Officer: Major Florindo Scardapane (Dicember 1942 – April 1943); Major Raffaele Episcopo (May – June 1943)

Brief chronology:
December 1942: Allied PoWs were taken to Altamura hospital
Summer 1943: the hospital was evacuated, and the PoWs were transferred elsewhere.

Allied prisoners in the Altamura camp

Date Generals Officers NCOs Troops TOT
31.12.1942 11 12 108 131[1]
31.1.1943 8 13 131 152
28.2.1943 6 21 148 175[2]
31.3.1943 21 30 180 231[3]
30.4.1943 25 33 219 277[4]
31.5.1943 22 30 203 255[5]
30.6.1943 18 22 210 250[6]
[1] Including 1 American officer. [2] Including 1 American officer and 7 privates. [3] Including 15 American officers, 12 NCOs, and 79 privates. [4] Including 13 American officers, 12 NCOs, and 84 privates. [5] Including 12 American officers, 8 NCOs, and 60 privates. [6] Including 8 American officers, 5 NCOs, and 50 privates.

Camp’s overview

Altamura hospital, from December 1942, was located in two different buildings: the IV Novembre building, away from the city centre, more modern but located in a school and thus not suited to house a hospital (building n. 1 in the Protecting Power reports); and the Regina Margherita kindergarten, in the city centre, a fairly old building that had been used as a military hospital for Italian soldiers since 1941. The latter, therefore, was at least slightly better equipped to be a hospital (building n. 2).
Both sites presented numerous issues. In March 1943, the hospital was still technically “in preparation”. It lacked personnel, rooms, equipment and supplies to the point that even the Protecting Power inspectors, usually pretty lenient, were not satisfied. One reported that:

The installations for washing are very poor, especially in building no. 1. At each end of one floor are two rather small washbasins which may be sufficient for a school but are absolutely inadequate for a hospital. On the other floor are no washing facilities whatsoever. There is no hot water on any of the floors, nor any installation for showers. […] In building no. 2 these accommodations, while not very rich, are much better and can be considered more or less as satisfactory. The same remarks apply to the toilets which are in building no. 1 quite insufficient, in building no. 2 a little better but not good. [TNA, WO 361/1922]


The delegate also commented on the surprise with which his remarks were met by the Italian authorities, giving us a taste of another kind of war that, inevitably, the Italians and the Allies were fighting: «The hospital Commander was rather surprised that so many things were not considered by us as being satisfactory as this building had been for the last two years in use as a military hospital for Italian troops who, as he told us, were quite satisfied» [TNA, WO 361/1922]. In general, the situation, as also certified by the Red Cross in May 1943, was abysmal:

The general impression is that when the patients were brought to this hospital, hardly anything was ready to receive them. Since that time, a great number of improvements have been made, but several things, like washing facilities, toilets, and medical service, have still to improve greatly. We shall take these points up with the Italian higher Authorities. [TNA, WO 361/1922]


In the hospital, there was a shortage of water and hygiene services were rudimentary and unsuited for PoWs who, in the majority of cases, were wounded or even maimed. There were not enough medicines, anaesthetics, disinfectants, toothbrushes, and toilet paper. After the war, a British medical officer denounced the lack of water, the poor and inadequate diet, the lack of spare sheets (patients with purulent sores were forced to lay on the same bed sheets for days), and the presence of parasites. Dr. Redgate proved, with two examples, «the almost unbelievable ignorance and neglect of the average Italian medical or otherwise»:

The place was very verminous over-run with bugs. Once during my visit, the place was fumigated but the Italians were either so terribly ignorant or neglectful that they took the mattresses and bedding out full of vermin while the place was fumigated and then brought the bedding so infected back again. The attempt at getting rid of the vermin, therefore, was quite useless and a waste of time and energy. The Italian Command was utterly lacking in any ideas of cleanliness which was requisite for a Hospital. When I got there, there was a huge pile of Red Cross tins on the premises simply swarming with flies. I need hardly say that such a state of affairs was terribly detrimental in a Hospital, and we told the Italians that it must be removed, and they did so but only to another portion of the premises, saying that they had removed them to that part of the premises because there were not so many flies there. [TNA, TS 26, 784]


In April 1943, the PoWs hospitalised in Bari and Brindisi were transferred to Altamura as the hospitals of the two cities would, from that moment onwards, only hold “unmovable” patients coming from North Africa.
After the war, the Allies opened an investigation on the PoWs’ treatment, but it was presumably quickly closed with no consequences.
Today, building n. 1 is a school, while n. 2 is abandoned.

Archival sources

Bibliography

Stories linked to this camp