Cyril and George- English WWII Soldiers- Anyone Remember Them?

Cyril and George were two English soldiers, probably two of many who hid in the rugged Apennine Mountains in central Italy during World War II. Uncle Richard (Riziero) told this story, along with several other chilling stories about the war he lived through as a young teenager. My father’s youngest brother passed away last November at 94, and with him went all his stories of love, bravery, fear, hunger, and betrayal told with his trademark sense of humor. But the story of these two soldiers always stuck with me.

Every time he told it I couldn’t help but wonder, Did Cyril and George’s families ever learn what happened to them? I thought about contacting the English government, but since I’m not a relative, I didn’t think they’d give me information. So, this is one way to see if anyone in England has ever heard of them. Feel free to forward this to anyone in England you might know.

On December 8, 1943, Riziero was out walking with friends in Poggio di Roio in the Abruzzo province of Italy. They noticed a small plane circling over L’Aquila, the capital of the province, where the train depot was. They thought it was unusual that such a small plane would be out flying, but thought nothing more about it since they were in the midst of a war.

Later that day, a train carrying German prisoners of war (many of them British) and munitions was coming through. The allies bombed the train hoping to deprive the German army of weapons. A number of the POWs were able to escape the tangled mess and run. One was a British officer named Cyril. Another was a British soldier named George.

Riziero assumed the small plane must have been scouting the area for the bombers. After the blast, he and other local kids were combing the wreckage when Riziero found a helmet he thought would make a good souvenir of the war. When he picked it up, he found a severed hand inside and immediately dropped it.

Riziero was about 14-years old at the time and was the family’s reluctant sheep herder. His job was to rise early and take the sheep into the local mountains to graze, then bring them back in the late afternoon. If he was lucky, he got a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese to eat for the day.

He said, “I was stuck with those damned sheep every day, so I took them up to Spedino, left them where I could keep an eye on them, then went and goofed off.” Spedino was an area with a former sinkhole that was easily visible. Then he’d find ways to keep himself entertained while the sheep grazed.

He was wandering the hillsides when he came upon a couple of escaped British soldiers who ended up in the boulder-strewn mountains of Poggio di Roio near Riziero’s family home. They were hiding in a cold, dark cave. Riziero spoke no English and they spoke no Italian, but they got across that they were hungry and cold. There may have been others who escaped with them as well.

Riziero went home and told his family about them. They got some food, blankets and clothes together. They had to transport everything at night so they weren’t seen by the German soldiers occupying the village. They did what they could to keep them alive and give a little comfort.

The escaped soldiers were there for several months subsisting on whatever the villagers could spare. Sometimes Cyril, who was pretty bright and quickly learning Italian, came into town late at night, knocking on our family’s door asking for food. They gave what they could, maybe a little bread, cheese, and pasta.

I wanted the families of those two soldiers to know that the impoverished villagers of Poggio di Roio fed their loved ones through their months-long stay with whatever bits of food they could spare and tried to keep them alive. If the German forces stationed in their town had learned the identity of anyone who’d helped they would have been killed.

A few months had passed and Riziero was taking his sheep into the hills. He looked up and saw smoke coming out of the cave where Cyril and George had been hiding. Someone in the village must have learned that German forces would pay for information, and told them where the soldiers were hiding. Riziero assumed both George and Cyril were killed.

Did they die? Did anyone retrieve their bodies? Did their families ever know what happened to them? I always wondered about them. With the 80th anniversary of D-Day just past us and most veterans now in their 100s, I wanted to put this out there before any more time went by.

It’s in memory of George, Cyril, Uncle Richard and the hundreds of thousands who suffered and died during those times. I’m so thankful my uncle survived and brought his stories, his optimism, and his sense of humor with him. Maybe someone in England knows the family of a British officer named Cyril, or a soldier named George, who were prisoners of war, and will pass along this message, maybe not, but it’s worth a try.

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