Bridge at Allerona -- looking for info on American GI and/or British officer who survived POW train

Hello everyone,

Is it possible for me, a civilian, to view the transcript of an American soldier's debriefing by the army? We are trying to locate information about my friend's father, Omer Twitty. He was captured during the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, but managed to escape while being transported to a German POW camp (he was on the train that was bombed at the Bridge at Allerona -- thank you, Lesley, for providing that important part of the puzzle), thanks to a brave British officer who over the course of the next few months saved Omer's life half a dozen times.

We can't find any record in the papers left by my friend's father, but we have to think the name of that British officer is mentioned in his debriefing by the Army. We would love to get ahold of the British officer's family and let them know what a hero he was. We would also like to have the whole account of what happened to them, because what little we know is pretty harrowing.

I did a search at the NARA and didn't come up with anything for him. Is there someplace else we should be looking? Does the Freedom of Information Act even extend to debriefing records?

Thank you for any help you can give me with this. lwd suggested I post this question here, and said you all were the best people to ask.

 

Having a title and opening that would grab the attention of our British experts was thinking. For instance is there enough info to come up with a short list of British officers? While they discourage double posting here if you can come up with a different approach to the problem then posting that isn't going to be a problem (at least I don't think it is). In any case the people here are some of the best at this sort of question and everything I've seen has encouraged people to ask them.

So an title like "Trying to locate British officer who was an escpaed POW in Italy" might have been a better title. It's been my experiance that the more details in the thread title the more likely you are to get quick and helpful responses.

As an asside note that one of our posters on this forum was in the Briitsh army and served in Italy during this period.

Good luck with this.

 

lwd, you are a rock star! I hope you know how much I appreciate your help with all of my questions. I will post this question again with a more specific title and see what happens. Maybe I should re-word the message, so it's not exactly the same post.

Thanks you again for everything you're doing to help me.

 

This is an edited version of a message similar to my first -- the threads got merged and I'm afraid to delete it, in case it takes some of the replies with it!

Any ideas on how I could locate info about the British officer who escaped the POW train at the Bridge at Allerona, that was with Omer Twitty? They were two in only a handful of Allied soldiers who survived the train bombing and evaded capture, and it took them months to work their way back down to British forces in Italy. Along the way, the British officer, thanks to his fluency in Italian, kept them from being captured and saved Omer's life at least half a dozen times.

We are trying to find out if it's possible to view the transcript of Omer's debriefing by the army in Algiers, but in the meantime, lwd suggested approaching this from the British angle. Is there a way to research who this person might have been, going on what little information we have?

 

Hello. Are you talking about the Bridge at Allerona by any chance?

Lesley

 

Hi Lesley,

Thank you for your help! I just looked up the Bridge at Allerona, and it sounds like you have the correct incident (that seems like a mild word to use for what happened). I had assumed that the train had made it to Germany, but the date and the story lines up with Omer's experience. So they never made it out of Italy...

Omer had said that only a few people had escaped, but now I see he was talking about the ones in his train car. The British officer was the one who told Omer to get as far back on the train as he could (they both ended up in the back of the next to last car), and they survived the blast, but the rest of his friends who were in the car ahead of him were all killed. There must've been many more near the front of the train who survived, along with whoever was in the car behind Omer and the British officer.

Any idea where the British soldiers might've been captured, that they would end up on the train with the Americans from Monte Cassino? It will still be tough to locate this officer, but maybe it can narrow down the search a bit.

(I just changed the topic line to Bridge at Allerona -- thanks again for getting the correct info to me!)

 

I'm sorry I cannot help more with the name. Have you seen these stories?
http://bombedpowtrain.weebly.com/index.html

 

Thanks so much for the link to those stories, Lesley. I'm going to read through them for clues to my mystery soldier!

And thank you again for all your help.

Kind regards,
Adrienne

 

POW Resources:
http://www.rafcommands.com/old-site/air-force-pows/
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/british-prisoners-of-war
http://powvets.com/pow-search/

Failing that: http://www.redcross.org.uk/en/About-us/Who-we-are/Museum-and-archives/Resources-for-researchers/Records-of-prisoners-of-war

 

Thank you for clearing that up for me, Lou. I couldn't figure out where my other post had gone!

Fred Wilson, thank you for the links -- I will check them out!

 

aacinca
- if you open the first post here using "More Repy Options" - that allows you to edit the title. KISS. (Short, readable understandable url.)

Aka: Omer Twitty POW Research, Monte Cassino 1944

 

Thanks for the suggestion, Fred. I shortened up the subject a bit, and led with the event.