The ANNOTICO Report

51,000 Italian POWs captured in Africa were sent to the US. Nine of every
10 agreed to help the United States and worked as part of the
U.S.-monitored Italian Service Corps, often working in conjunction with US
Engineering Units.

Those in the local Stockton area had been members of Mussolini's elite
Bersagliari forces.

While German POWs were heavily guarded and seen as enemies by the general
public, the Italians were allowed to dance, date and dine with the local
Italian community.

The Italian POWs  "tried their very best to win our hearts over, And they
did a pretty good job."

Camilla Calamandrei, a New York filmmaker chronicled part of this story of
Italian POWs of WWII in the US,  in the 2001 documentary "Prisoners in
Paradise."

Effort under way to preserve stories of Italian prisoners in San Joaquin
Valley.

Stockton Record
Stockton, CA
By Greg Kane
Record Staff Writer
Sunday, April 10, 2005

STOCKTON -- Alma Bacigalupi fell in love with a war prisoner.

She was a 13-year-old playing jacks on the floor the first time her father
brought home Luigi Maccini from a Lathrop prisoner-of-war camp in 1942.
Alma's future husband was one of more than 150 held at the camp after being
captured by British forces in North Africa while fighting with Mussolini's
elite Bersagliari forces.

Prisoners from Germany also were held in the Stockton area during World War
II. But while those soldiers were heavily guarded and seen as enemies by
the general public, the Italians were allowed to dance, date and dine with
the local Italian community.

The soldiers "tried their very best to win our hearts over," Alma Maccini
recalled. "And they did a pretty good job."

Now, Maccini's daughter wants to revive dormant memories of the area's
Italian prisoners. Diana Maccini Lowery, a one-time Stockton planning
commissioner, is searching for former prisoners and others with memories of
the Lathrop camp located at what is now the Sharpe Army Depot.

Lowery hopes to place a memorial plaque on the site and produce a short
documentary on the camp. She has worked on the project since 1998, when she
helped establish her father's hometown of Parma, Italy, as a Stockton
sister city. She worked on that project with Micele Speroni, an Italian
government official whose father, Mario, was Luigi Maccini's closest friend
at the Lathrop camp.

"We cannot let this story not be told," Lowery said.

More than 51,000 Italian war prisoners were shipped to the United States
starting in 1940, said Camilla Calamandrei, a New York filmmaker who
chronicled their story in the 2001 documentary "Prisoners in Paradise."
They were sent to the Midwest until Italy signed an armistice with the
United States in September 1943.

The Italian prisoners faced a choice: sign a deal to aid the Americans or
continue to be held as enemies. Nine of every 10 agreed to help the United
States and were shipped from coast to coast as part of the U.S.-monitored
Italian Service Corps.

Italians at the camp in Lathrop were part of the corps' 100th Italian
Engineer Co. A handful of American soldiers oversaw more than 170 Italians
as they worked loading and unloading crates from trains on the nearby
railroad.

Young women from the Stockton area also worked at the camp, stenciling
labels onto the crates as they came off the trains. The language barriers
between the American-born women and Italian-speaking POWs didn't stop the
seemingly endless flirting, Calamandrei said.

"All these romances sort of blossomed between these young men and women,"
she said.

One courtship began when Tony Bacigalupi brought home Luigi Maccini for
lunch one Sunday afternoon. Alma's father went to the camp to see if there
was any news from his hometown, where his mother still lived. He met
Maccini, who came from nearby Parma, and Bacigalupi introduced the Italian
soldier to his family.

Luigi, who changed his name to Louis when he returned to the United States
with his new bride in the late 1940s, would try to teach Alma to speak
Italian, she recalled. She tried to teach him to dance. And there was no
shortage of opportunities with all the parties held at the camp in Lathrop
and at halls in Stockton.

"I borrowed my aunt's high-heeled shoes to go dancing with these guys,"
Alma remembered. "And you never lacked for a dance partner."

Ivo Pesetti, a retired Stockton police captain, remembers traveling to the
camp with his parents to take out the POWs and talk about the old country.
Though it was guarded by U.S. soldiers, the Italians could easily jump the
fence and cover for each other at bed check. "There was one of them that
was kind of sweet on my sister," Pesetti, 75, remembered. "She didn't go
for it."

POWs at the camp tried their best to replicate their home country, Lowery
said. They produced a newsletter that featured detailed drawings of the
church bells of their various hometowns, poetry, and other writings and
illustrations. They also used plaster, matchsticks and other materials to
re-create Italian landmarks. Pesetti remembers a 5-foot replica of the
Leaning Tower of Pisa that the prisoners built for a festival. There also
was a three-dimensional plaque telling the story of Romulus and Remus,
Rome's mythological founders.

That era of Stockton's history wasn't all upbeat for local Italians,
however. Pesetti's family and other Italians, Germans and Japanese who
lived west of Lincoln Street were forced to leave their homes after being
classified as enemy aliens. Officials didn't want the families living near
the Port of Stockton.

Pesetti remembers police officers and FBI agents coming into his house and
forcing his parents to take apart a shortwave radio.

"It was just like a bunch of Nazi stormtroopers (coming into the house),"
Pesetti said.

Local historian Leslie Crow said Stockton had its share of oppression
against those with whom were considered enemy bloodlines. Police and
soldiers forced families from their homes near the Port of Stockton, held
blackouts and shut down shortwave radio classes.

"People don't know this part of our history very well," Crow said last
week. "I've had people argue with me that there were no blackouts and no
real security efforts taken" during World War II.

That history makes the way Stockton families embraced the Italian prisoners
all the more unusual, Lowery said. She believes there are other people in
the area with memories of the Italian POWs. "Unfortunately, it's like
trying to put together a giant puzzle," Lowery said.

Alma Maccini, now 76, was married to Louis Maccini for 50 years before he
died in 1998. She still has fond memories of the young soldier who swept
her off her feet all those years ago.

To reach reporter Greg Kane, phone (209) 546-8276 or e-mail
gkane@recordnet.com

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