[Folgore1]

My grandfather served in the Italian Army in North Africa and was captured by the British sometime in early 1942. He was onboard the HMS Laconia that was sunk on Sept 12 1942 off of South Africa by U156. The Laconia was enroute to Canda to drop off I believe approx 1800 Italian POWs. My grandfather survived the sinking and was rescued from the water by the crew of U156. I'm looking to obtain his military service records from the Italian govt. My father remembers my grandfather receiving a decoration for surviving the sinking. I would also like to obtain passenger manifests or other records from the English govt that would have listed my grandfather and others from his villiage as passengers / POWs onboard the HMS Laconia. Does anyone have any idea how to obtain this information?

[BRY]

Apparently the English do not keep too many records of the POWS they held. :shock: Don't bother with ICRC,my experience with that outfit is that they are not very friendly as concerns Axis soldiers,but I won't get into that.Possibly the point at which U156 disembarked these men?

I used to be in regular contact with a man named Perri whose father was on the Laconia.When he was first captured he spent three days,no shirt,no shoes,shoulder to shoulder in the sun.

Bry

[Folgore1]

How about a contact group or person in the Italian Goverment?

[Folgore1]

What is the ICRC? Not familiar with that group

[BRY]

Do we have a sticky for the Italian gov contact?ICRC

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.ns ... enDocument