British and Allied Liaison Missions during the Italian Campaign

3rd October 2018

British and Allied Liaison Missions during the Italian Campaign

I am a 3rd-year PhD student at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow) working with professor Philip Cooke. The work revolves around the Italo-British relationship during the Second World War with special interest towards interaction on the field between Italian partisans and British or Allied officers.

As part of the project, I would like to create an on-line database of the British and Allied Liaison Missions parachuted behind enemy lines in Italy to help the Italian Resistance. In my opinion, these missions have been forgotten for too long and their impact and importance in the Italian campaign had been almost disregarded.

The database would consist of an interactive map of Italy, with markers indicating the dropping zone of each mission. Each marker would be interactive, bringing up a pop-up box with the basic information on the selected mission (personnel, dates, pictures, etc), plus the actual operative zone. The box will also contain an interlink to access a detailed page on the mission, with the description of its activities, a biography of its members and a bibliography (where possible) to help scholars and visitor to know more about it.

This would allow for an easy-to-access tool for both scholars and the general public to grasp the role of British Liaison Officers (BLOs) in the Italian campaign as well as restoring their action to its legitimate place in history. Many of the agents, in fact, simply returned to their lives and their stories were left untold.

I am contacting your association because your members may be interested in the project or have materials, such as photos or diaries, as well as the possibility to contact family members of the BLOs to gather similar materials. Any help that your members could give would be greatly appreciated.

Nicola Cacciatore

Editor’s note: If you feel that you have any information that would help Nicola’s project please contact me in the first instance and I can pass on the information to Nicola.
Robin Hollamby, National Vice Chairman.