THE SON of a British World War II veteran is searching for the family of a Greek Cypriot man who was with his father in an Italian POW camp in 1942 and is hoping someone can shed some light on their time together as prisoners.
“My father spoke little of his time in the army and even less of his time as a prisoner of war. Can this man’s family enlighten me as to that chapter of his life?” police officer Robert Molloy asked yesterday in an appeal through the Sunday Mail.
Molloy’s father, Bill, passed away around ten years ago in his late seventies, and had always been reticent to talk about his time in the army, leaving the family with little to go on with regards to his war-time exploits.
The family lives in Derbyshire but Molloy’s father lived in Duntocher Scotland before the war. He joined the Scots Guards and served with them in North Africa before his capture and imprisonment.
The Cypriot that the family is searching for is named Theofilos Piperides originally from Kaimakli in Nicosia. Molloy only discovered on Friday that the photo of the until-then unnamed soldier in the family album actually had a message on the back.
It said: “Souvenir of our friendship to my friend Bill Molloy from Theofilos Piperides, Kaimacly, Nicosia CY/2583 POW camp 65 Italy”. The message is dated December 17, 1942.
“I found the photo album and the glue on the picture had come adrift,” said Molloy, 47. He said his older sister had the album and it was the first time in years he had opened it up. It was only when the photo came loose he saw the writing on the back.
“It’s all very sketchy what happened when my father was a POW. That’s what I would like to find out,” he said.
What he does know, which was gleaned from the odd piece of information given out by his father when he was growing up, was that his father had run away and joined the army while he was still underage.
“He went to North Africa. He talked about it a little. He was wounded in the leg when Tobruk fell and he was captured in the hospital and taken to Italy,” said Molloy. Tobruk in Libya fell to the Germans and Italians in June 1942.
Molloy’s father was taken to Camp 65 in the town of Gravina in Italy and remained a POW for two years until he and two others escaped. Molloy said he didn’t know whether Piperides was one of the other two men.
All he knows is that his father, who was blond, died his hair black and made it back to the lines. He said his father had parted ways with the other two men somewhere along the way. “They reached a crossroads. My father went one way and they went another. He never saw or heard from either of them again,” he said.
Molloy said he only learned this information by overhearing a conversation his father once had with an American veteran who had come to visit him some years ago.
According to war veterans’ descriptions on the Internet, Camp 65, was not one of the more tolerable POW camps.
“In this camp disease became a problem because we didn’t get a good and regular supply of water. Some other prisoners died of malnutrition and disease,” wrote one vet.
Gravina (Campo 65) was a bad camp,” wrote another. “It was cold and hungry. Men died of starvation. Before the autumn of 1942, when Red Cross parcels began to arrive, the camp was filled with rows of exhausted men sitting or lying down to conserve their meagre energy. The commandant at this time was believed to be corrupt and to be selling food, boots, and clothing intended for the prisoners in his charge.”
Molloy said he had found some general information on the camp from the Internet but nothing would be quite like finding someone who had known his father’s personal experiences during this time, he said.
He said even his father’s only surviving sister noticed that he would not talk about what happened during his time in the POW camp, and all he learned from his aunt was that his father was a “wild child” and had never gone to school.
“Sometimes when we’d rush at the dinner table he would remind us how he had to wait in line for food because they were called alphabetically,” said Molloy. “But for some reason my dad would never discuss his time as a POW.”
After the war Molloy’s father returned to the UK and married his mother Elsie in Derbyshire in 1945. He went to work in the coalmines, Molloy said. The couple had four children, three girls and one boy. Molloy is the youngest.
In addition to satisfying his own curiosity about his father, Molloy said he also wanted to compile a family history for his own children, one of whom is already a military cadet at the age of 15. “He’s always had a strong interest in the military,” he said.
Molloy said he was willing to meet up with the family of Theofilos Piperides if they could be located. “It would be great to find someone who knew my father or even the sons of someone who knew him,” he said. “I would love to know more about the man in the photo.”
