Barneschi - An ENGLISHMAN ABROAD: soe agent dick mallabys italian missions, 194345

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who, at least once in their life (just like the author), have shown courage (despite a dying father and a dishonest woman).

Given that its subject matter comprises the adventures of an Englishman, the author wishes to remember, affectionately and nostalgically, another Englishman whose (quite different) deeds are very dear to him: Keith John Moon, an enormously talented young man, who hoped to die before he got old. He succeeded, but his self-destruction took place amidst the indifference of those who should have and could have helped him.

Contents

The publication of a book in English written by an Italian amateur historian is something of an achievement and almost makes for a case study. When I began my research, I had little idea of what I would go on to discover. The various difficulties encountered along the way never failed to deter me, given that those things that are hardest fought turn out to be the most satisfying; the results speak for themselves now, and offer an invitation to continue.

Although our protagonist Dick Mallaby was sadly unavailable to me in my 20 years of research, I have met many of his wonderful relatives.

Dicks son Richard Vaky Mallaby opened up the entire family archive to me. Christine Joyce Northcote-Marks Dallimore-Mallaby, Dicks widow, was kind enough to allow me to interview her and after 70 years she finally felt able to speak freely about her husbands wartime activities. I would also like to thank Dicks daughters, Caroline and Elisabeth, for their kind collaboration; Alessandra Mallaby, Dicks niece, for allowing me to visit Poggio Pinci, where Dick lived and rests; Pia Teresa Mallaby; Nicola and Francesco Barresi; Elettra Mallaby; and Neil Chapman.

My son Pietro accompanied me on a research mission that ended with him dropping into Roma Termini station. He also maintained the most secret status relating to the publication of this book with Mami, sharing my sufferings. I hope he enjoyed it and is proud of his father (who adores him, even if he doesnt make as much a fuss of him as he sometimes should). As regards to my Antonella, I must thank her again for these 32 years of emotions, love and complicity. She is the other half of the last couple left, in this brilliant and strong enduring mnage deux that looks so much like us. But even considering that she was unaware of my project, moving all the papers for this book in a crucial moment was not a useful move. My mother Fatima helped check the text, especially for details about the House of Savoy, continuing her almost 60-year-long role as a loving mother. My sister Cristiana and her husband, Ramn, helped with the translation of some far-from-Shakespearean passages, and gathered documents in the United States. My cousin and brother-in-law Lorenzo Dianzani was a skilled and patient consultant.

I thank the following academics and experts: Elena Aga Rossi; Roderick Bailey (he may regret ever meeting me); Mireno Berrettini; Giuseppe Parlato; Francesco Perfetti (for the flattering Preface and insertions in Nuova Storia Contemporanea ); Michele Sarfatti (for details of his father Giacominos activities); Marco Zaganella; Professor Aldo G. Ricci; then Franco Nudi at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato; Alessandro Gionfrida at the Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dellEsercito; Giancarlo Montinaro and Massimiliano Barlattani at the Ufficio Storico dellAeronautica Militare; and Herb Pankratz of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas.

Well deserved thanks are also due to Fabio Andriola, for promoting my book in the magazine Storia in Rete ; Armando Ferracuti, Alessandro Tuzza, Laura Vivio and Dana Lloyd Thomas, for their archival research; and Mauro Taddei for allowing me to consult Henry Boutignys unpublished diary.

I am grateful to the following eyewitnesses to the events described in this work: Don Giovanni Barbareschi; Tommaso DAntuono; Fabio and Lorenzo Magi; Ina Elisabeth Mann; and Anna Maria Rusconi. Thanks are also due to the following for their contributions: Saverio Addante; Antonio Albanese; Gregory Alegi; Francesco Arcieri; Giovanni Enrico Arcieri; Manuela Baldi; Claudia Banella; Roberto Barzanti; Paolo Bertoia; Loriano Bessi; Stefano Bodini; Aloisio Bonfanti; Francesco Valerio Caltagirone; Laura Cancellieri; Luca Caneschi; Corrado Chiariello; Pasquale Coppola; Maria Costabile; Francesco Crispino; Alda Dalzini; Augusto Dami; Angelo De Nardis; Mario De Vita; Renato Dionisi; Margherita Di Rauso; Silvia Franceschini; Mimmo Franzinelli; Francesca Garello; Emilio Gin; Marco Tullio Giordana; Antonella Grossi; Guariente Guarienti; Marco Imbimbo; Tom Kington; Maria Kisseloff; the youthful but nigh-on-100-year-old Sergio Lepri; Marco Lungo; Roberto Marabini; Guglielmo Marchionno; Stefano Mencaroni; Aldo Minghelli; Alberto Montalbani; Franco Morosini; Massimo Mortari; Giuseppe Ludovico Motti Barsini; Mauricio Negrao; Corrado Ocone; Roberto Olla; Angelo Ottavianelli; Emilio Pappagello; Ivano Patitucci; Cesare Pellegrini; Federico Piana; Maurizio Pini; Gloria Provedi; Giuseppe Quilichini; Susanna Sala; Raimondo Sancassani; Anna Savini; Carla Scarozza; Vito Scelsi; Renato Sorace; Paolo Spiga; Nick Squires; Giacomo Steiner; Alberto Tabb; Paolo Torino; Simona Trevisi; Lelio Triolo; Maria Giuditta and Maria Rosaria Valorani; William Ward; and Roberto Zanella.

For the events of 23 September 2016 in Asciano, I thank Mayor Paolo Bonari, Deputy Mayor Fabrizio Nucci and Counsellor Lucia Angelini, as well as Pierluigi Puglia and Colonel Lindsay MacDuff of the British Embassy in Rome.

Moriano Micheli took care of editing the movie for the books presentation, comme dhabitude at nighttime.

The dependable Maria Maddalena Trina carried out numerous complicated activities with customary calm and resignation.

For this English edition, I would like to thank Nikolai Bogdanovic, Marcus Cowper, Gemma Gardner, Nigel Newton, Adriano Ossola, and Richard Sullivan.

G. B.

A writer of spy novels like Ken Follett would certainly enjoy the story narrated in this book by Gianluca Barneschi, a forensic and committed researcher into the dark and controversial aspects of a dramatic moment in recent Italian history the events immediately preceding, accompanying and following the 8 September 1943 armistice. For years, Barneschi has been trawling through public and private archives and collecting source documents and accounts, largely unpublished, seeking to shed light on the mysteries, misunderstandings, ambiguities, and acts of cunning or indolence that, as a whole, marked this event. The latter has been transformed into a symbolic milestone, widely discussed in historiography, marking the end or rather the rebirth of the nation.

The story of the British special agent Dick Mallaby is the distillation of this long research, one piece of the puzzle that Barneschi is attempting to patiently and scientifically put together. Such details usually escape the attention of macrohistory, but, on closer inspection, this piece turns out to be important in creating a more coherent and broader depiction of events.

In most studies dedicated to the dramatic Italian crisis of September 1943, the figure of Mallaby does not appear. At best, Mallaby appears only in passing, and unnamed: a handsome polyglot Englishman seen disembarking, on the afternoon of 10 September 1943, in the port of Brindisi from the corvette Baionetta , which bearing King Vittorio Emanuele III, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, and several other members of the Italian royal family and retinue, both military and government had arrived under the escort of the cruiser Scipione.