Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Phillip Weirs was born in March 1920. His service is the stuff of legend and worthy of a movie.

He served in the Militia (257518) with 13th and then 2nd Battalions from 1938 until enlisting the AIF on 18 July 1940, serving with 2/3 Anti Tank Regiment.

He was wounded in North Africa and taken prisoner of war at Benghazi in April 1941. He was transported by Junkers plane to a German hospital where he remained for 10 days until Benghazi was bombed and he was transferred to an Italian hospital and ultimately an Italian POW camp.

They were transferred by road to Tripoli where they worked as virtual slaves of the Germans from 5am until late in the evening. From Tripoli he was transported on an Italian ship to Brindisi, Italy. He recalled that they were marched about a mile from the ship during which they were abused, stoned and spat on before being entrained to Naples.

Once there they spent two weeks at a camp at Capua and eventually Udine in Northern Italy where he remained for 18 months , being required to work in the rice fields at Vercelli.

He stated that when Italy capitulated in 1943 he was in a hospital near Vercelli with carbunkles. German soldiers were admitted and placed on either side of him so the staff hid him in the hospital basement to avoid detection during the German inspections.

He was transported to Seno Grande by the nursing staff although the locals there were fearful of German reprisals if they were found to be harbouring a prisoner. He met up with another escapee, a Canadian, and they made an attempt to get to the Allied lines in Southern Italy. He recalled in  a letter to the Minister of Defence in 1989 that he and this other man went into a wine shop and asked for 2 glasses of wine. In doing so the proprietor queried whether they were English soldiers and they confirmed that they were. A local priest took them to Crestintino on the River Poe, where they were each given 1000 Lira and were hidden in the home of a local dignitary before travelling by train to Turino and Bargee in the mountains where “we started our partisan life).

The pair remained with the Italian partisans for 10 months, having numerous conflicts with the Germans.

The pair served under shepherd Francesco Lo Bue with “Justice and Liberty”. They were in action in the road block on the Bridge of Chabrious during Bobbios barracks assault on 1 and 2 December 1943 . Due to the German counter offensive he was assigned to the Garino Group under the command of Giovani Nicola.

In March he took part in the action at the Riv factory at Villar Perosa. In later years he was given the green scarf of Justice and Freedom. A Captain Petroit was parachuted in from England with a radio and coded messages were relayed and supplies dropped to the partisans.  They felt pressured by locals to leave so travelled to France and met a local policeman who took them to his home before they met up with the French Resistance. It was here that they met up with 12 American parachutists. They remained there until the liberation of France by the US 7th Army . He stated that he was taken from Braincon to the French Coast where he was interrogated by the Americans for 6 hours and then met up with British Parachutists embarking for Naples in Southern Italy.

From there he was transported to Bari, Malta and Tobruk and ultimately the New Zealand Army camp at Cairo where he remained for 2 weeks. He travelled from Suez to Bombay and then boarded the liberty ship US General Mitchell for transportation to Melbourne.

When he arrived in Melbourne he was among the first 6 Australian soldier escapees and was given an official reception before returning to Singleton, NSW.

In later years he claimed his Italy Star and also sought a France and Germany Star. His Italy Star was awarded to him in 1990 after representations made to the Minister of Defence, endorsed by statements from the International Red Cross and the Bobbio Pellice Town Council in Italy who interviewed former Partisans. He also returned to Italy and met with those he had served with but was unable to trace the Canadian soldier he had fought with.

He died in July 1999, his unremarkable plaque in the NSW Garden of Remembrance simply stating that he served in the Army Service Corps.