Walking today in the Maiella National Park is a very different experience to 80 years ago. We all walk here for the pure pleasure of enjoying this wonderful natural resource but in the harsh winter of 1943/44 it was a matter of life and death.
Escaping Allied prisoners passed along this trail to use rocky caverns and shelters in the Orfento valley while hiding from the Germans. Constantly on the move with warmth and food in short supply, and in very poor physical condition after more than a year in captivity, they struggled to stay alive despite the help of the local Abruzzesi who risked their own lives by helping them.
These POWs had staged a mass escape from the camp in Aquafredda (near Roccamorice) on September 11th 1943, taking advantage of the confusion in the immediate aftermath of the Italian capitulation three days earlier, and their only goal was to avoid capture and cross the Maiella to reach the British forces on the other side of the Gustav Line.
John Evelyn Broad, a corporal from New Zealand, was one of these men and he kept a diary throughout his 7 months as a fugitive which he turned into an autobiographical book after the war titled 'Poor People Poor Us'.
His 1946 book tells the story of this period when he and two fellow Kiwi soldiers (Ted Bartlett and Bert Tulloch) depended on the simple humanity of the impoverished Abruzzo contadini to stay alive and eventually reach freedom.
The book lay dormant in its original English language version for decades until about ten years ago John Broad's son Harry, a New Zealand journalist, got a call out of the blue from a local historian in Caramanico, Cristina Parone, who wanted to translate his dad's book into Italian.
On completion the story became widely known in Abruzzo for the first time and it led to a visit by Harry Broad to Caramanico in 2017 for three days of celebrations at the opening of this new Freedom Trail.
Note that there is another much longer San Martino Freedom Trail that follows in the footsteps of the Allied POWs who escaped from the larger camp at Fonte d'Amore taking a different route from Sulmona to Campo di Giove, over Guado di Coccia then down to Palena, Pietransieri and across the Sangro river to reach the Allied front line.
POW escapes took place all over Italy during this period and many of them have been compiled in a brief historical record by the University of Wellington in New Zealand. Though few details remain about most of them, a glance through the records shows that all of the successful escapes required a great deal of assistance from Italian civilians who risked their own lives to help complete strangers.
The Trail
This Freedom Trail is a loop marked L on the map for Libertà that stays close to the river and as there are several crossing points you can choose how far you want to go. I joined the trail from the Spiritual Trail 'S' just north of Caramanico Terme but the best place to start is in the neighboring hamlet of Santa Croce at the Visitor Center where you have to check in before embarking on any of the hikes in the Orfento river valley. This is because the Orfento valley is a protected nature reserve within the confines of the Maiella National Park.
The loop to Grotta San Nicola taking the B6 connector trail to the S trail (which the L follows) on the north side of the river and then back along the south side of the river via the B2 trail (which the L now follows) is about 5.5 miles and it is not an arduous or particularly difficult walk.
Do not however go further east than the Grotta San Nicola on the B2 trail because somewhere after that point the B2 becomes a very difficult trail requiring special alpine equipment to complete.
I consider it essential to carry the official Maiella Carta Escursionistica hiking map (Scale: 1:25,000) when walking anywhere in the Maiella and on this particular trail it's the north sheet that's required.
Ponte San Cataldo is where the short connector trail B6 meets the S (which is also the L trail heading east). From this junction the Grotta di Cantrella is reached quite quickly and it is here that Broad, Bartlett and Tulloch spent their last seven weeks from February to April 1944.
They had firewood but very little food, and up here at 2,500 feet above sea level snow fell incessantly throughout March. They were all exhausted by this time, water dripped on them continuously and one of Bartlett's boots had fallen apart leaving his foot exposed to frostbite.
The first bridge you come to, Ponte del Vallone, provides an opportunity for a shorter route back on the southern side of the river or, continuing on, after another 20 minutes you reach Ponte San Benedetto which is close to both Grotta San Nicola and Grotta di Quattrino. The New Zealanders took shelter here on occasion and both caves were used by the local contadini to store wood and food and also sheep that they hid from the Germans.
The walk back along the southern side of the river on trail B2 that is shared also by L has spectacular views of the limestone cliffs below the village of Decontra high up on the other side of the valley (top photo). Twenty minutes after leaving Ponte del Vallone you reach La Masseria farmhouse where they spent a large part of January 1944.
From the Masseria back to Santa Croce is not very far as can be seen on the detailed map at the bottom of this article.
Broad's diary entry for January 9th 1944 reads: "the Germans want 95 sheep today and it is possible they will make a house-to-house search.....". They crafted a hiding place here and rehearsed the procedures for when German patrols approached as the Masseria is not very far from Santa Croce.
During this period when the three New Zealanders were in hiding and constantly on the move the Germans had massively strengthened their manpower and defenses all along the Gustav Line, the most famous part being Montecassino which the Allies took almost 5 months to capture; described in excruciating detail by Rick Atkinson in The Day of Battle.
The German troops imposed great hardships on the local people in the Maiella in what was an unusually cold winter, taking their food and livestock and pressing the people into forced labor as well as summarily executing any that were suspected of assisting Allied escapees. The victims included the Sperduti family and others whose names are now recorded as civilian casualties on the official war memorial in Caramanico.
On April 15th 1944 John Broad and his companions made the arduous 7 mile crossing over the highest Maiella peaks to reach the British 8th Army at Fara San Martino.
Even though John Broad's life ended prematurely in 1969, shortened by the beatings he received at his first POW camp in Benghazi, he never forgot the generosity and compassion of the Abruzzesi in the Maiella who had saved his life and the lives many other New Zealanders. Shortly after his return home in 1945 he created the Italian Relief Committee which shipped 20 tons of clothing to the impoverished contadini who were suffering terribly from a lack of the basic necessities of life in the immediate post war period.
The L trail is not a brand new or separate trail. Instead it follows the S trail north of the river to Grotta San Nicola and Grotta di Quattrino and the B2 trail south of the river.
Comments