Hello and welcome to this edition of Between the Lines, the podcast that desiphers the

handwriting, unfolds faded pages and dips into the details of Diaries, log books and letters

written during this same week. There are thereabouts. In 1943, some 80 years ago.

Let's start with a quick recap of the situation.

The North African campaign has come to its conclusion. There's some mobbing up to do,

but attention is turning very slowly now towards the war in Western Europe. This is the week,

the British First Division, takes the small Italian island of Pantelaria, 60 kilometres east

of the Tunisian coastline and about 100 kilometres to the southwest of Sicily. Just to the

south of that is Lampardusa, an even smaller island and strangely the only access location that

ever managed to surrender itself to a single REF pilot. I'll explain. Sergeant Siddi Cohen was

returning from a flight over Malta looking for survivors of a German aircraft that had been

shot down in the med. Along with his navigator Peter Tate and his gunner Les Wright, they found

the pilot dropped some emergency ration packs, radioed in their location and were on their way home

when the ferry-swordfish developed instrument problems. Landing on the nearest landmass they could

find, Lampardusa, they were then rather surprised to be confronted with an Italian garrison of

1330 men, all asking the British Airmen to accept their surrender. Remarkable.

Let's stay on the west coast of Italy, but head over to the mainland. From the axis perspective,

things are relatively quiet. We'll rejoin Colonel Dr. Wilhelm Maus, the new chief medical officer

for 14 Panzacore, as he's making arrangements for his troops medical welfare on Sardinia.

He's also taking stock of a new location, a commune at the southern end of the Liri Valley,

in the province of Frossinone. We find Dr. Maus, situated near the small town of Monte Cassino,

and from his diary entries it looks as though he's been snapping a few photos of the scenery

...