Long Journey Home

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Captured at Alamein, used as forced labour on farms in northern Italy, thousands of Australian and NZ diggers escaped their captors when Italy signed an armistice in September 1943, including the author's father. Could they make it over the alps to freedom in Switzerland before winter set in? After her father's death, Katrina Kittel discovers an old Globite suitcase in the attic, with tiny photos, postcards in beautiful handwriting from a mysterious Swiss woman, and memorabilia from his war. Katrina Kittel's father Col Booth was captured during the disastrous July 1942 attempt to take Alamein's Ruin Ridge, and he was despatched to Campo 57 in northern Italy. He was among 80,000 Allied soldiers sent to northern Italy as prisoners of war. They suffered cruel punishments for petty offences, periods of low rations and illness, and they were used as forced labour on farms. When news arrived of the Italian armistice with the Allies on 3 September 1943, an extraordinary