Italian POW in Nothamptonshire UK

[sulby]

Hello

I am trying to track down two brothers who were POWs during WWII. They both worked on the same farm together in Northamptonshire and so presumably were both from the same encampment in Northamptonshire/Leicestershire/Warwickshire. I have very little detail about them apart from their first names - Victorio and Umberto. I do know the name of the farm where they worked during 1945.

Where do I start looking for futher details about them? I'm hoping that it may make things a little easier knowing that they were both together and therefore looking for two men with the same surname.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Emmy]

Here is a list of P.O.W. camps hope it will be of some help.
If you click on Article Page 1 It gives a list of the camps.
http://www.online-archaeology.co.uk/Con ... ilkie.aspx

The other option is to contact the Red Cross but I think they may require more details but its worth a try.

Hope this helps
Emmy

[sulby]

Thanks Emmy

I believe that the nearest camps would have been Market Harborough, Rugby or Kettering.

I'm hoping that I can find a few more details before contacting the Red Cross to make the search more worthwhile. I understand that the War Agricultural Committees for each county kept details of the agricultural work that POWs were allocated to. Do you know any more about the details that these files contain?

Are the Red Cross likely to be able to conduct a search just based on first names?

Thanks again

[Emmy]

Hi Sulby,
You said you know the name of the farm where they worked, but you didnt give the name of the farm, (Maybe, but only if you want to, give the name of the farm there's just a chance that someone on the forum may recognise it) but in any case that would be a good start, perhaps you could do a search on Google and see if that farm is still a working farm or look up the WhitePages UK and fill in the name of the farm and the area and perhaps you may just be lucky.

I'm sure you can ask a question on that forum I gave you the link to. I get the impression that they have lots of information re P.O.W.

It seems from the replies to MarieJosephine's posts on this forum (Looking for son P.O.W.etc)that you will have to wait a LONG time to get a reply from the Red Cross and I think you would need more details than you have at present before they would be able to help.

The other option is if you find the correct area/farm you could try to find a newspaper that serves that area and write to/or email the editor to find out if they have a section for reader's letters. (A section for readers letters is in one of the newspapers in my area and quite often there are requests from people abroad searching for relatives in the area with quite a number of success stories)

Good luck
Emmy

sorry I forgot to say so far I dont know anything about the files you mentioned but I'll try to find out- if I can

[Emmy]

Hi Sulby, M.Josephine has just posted to say she sent an email to one of the links I sent her and she has had a very informative reply I'm not sure but it may have been this link, you could give it a try too.

http://www.kg6gb.org/pow_camps_in_uk.htm
There's an email address at the bottom of the page.
Emmy

[sulby]

Thanks

The farm that these brothers worked at it called Watts Lodge Farm, Elkington Road, Welford, Northants. This was a farm belonging to my family and POWs were posted to work there during the war. As far as I am aware, these Italian brothers did not stay in the area.

I will certainly contacting this gentleman at the link you suggest.

I will also take a look at some of the local newspapers from the time to see if they give any clues.

Any other suggestions very welcome as I'm running out of ideas of how to track these two down.

Regards

[sulby]

I am picking this up again as previous searches have got no closer to tracing these two brothers.

Does anyone have an Umberto or Vittorio family connection? They were brothers and were held as POWs in most likely Leicestershire/Northamptonshire/Warwickshire.